Feeling uneasy when friends do not reply SMS

By Lee Keng Fatt

IT is normal to get upset when friends do not respond to our text message. Often, we tend to wonder why they completely ignored us.

It is not healthy as it leads us to think if they are worth keeping as a friend because if they were busy and had wanted to find time to reply they could have done so.

After all, how long does it take to reply to one message?

If the person always responds to your text messages, his silence may be telling you something, unless there is a service error, and in which case, he never even gets the text message.

Or maybe he is sick or hospitalised.

Ask young courting couples madly in love or even those in their early 50s who are having their second spring and they will readily attest how painful it is not to hear from their loved ones, even if it is only for an hour or two.

They will be so distracted that they are unable to focus on their task at work. Some even lose their appetite.

Those having extramarital affairs probably can't sleep the whole night, fearing if the long silence meant their exciting secret flings and text messages are being uncovered by the spouse, rendering the lovers temporarily incommunicado.

But there are also many people who just do not like to send text messages at all.

There are reasons why our messages are not replied, of course.

It has nothing to do with the feelings for the person whom we sent the text nor the text's content though.

For the prepaid users, they may have run out of credit, and thus could not reply immediately. Being busy could be another valid reason why people could not reply to text messages immediately. Being on the road, driving along the highway, is also a valid reason.

Perhaps, their phone may not even be with them when the text messages reach them or they may be in a day-long meeting and did not have a chance to reply at all. Also, people usually do not reply to group messages.

But assuming their phone is in good working condition, they would have seen the text message.

If they didn't reply, chances are that they have chosen to ignore the message.

Many politicians also do not reply to their text messages, especially when journalists send them hard-hitting questions or request for a confirmation on an issue, particularly a sensitive one or that which is of scandalous nature.

As it is, there may be others who feel that it is not worth their time to reply to your text message.

This may be because they believe that you have a personality problem, or a troublemaker, or "you only text when you want something".

Sometimes we are prompted to ask: "Why can't they just call and talk to us instead of texting?"

So, do we reply our text messages or not? In all fairness to the sender, I think we should reply. After all, it is really not that difficult to reply.

Feeling uneasy when friends do not reply SMS

IT is normal to get upset when friends do not respond to our text message. Often, we tend to wonder why they completely ignored us.

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