Don’t Sabotage a Potential Relationship By Over Texting

Texting too much can kill a budding relationship.

It happens all the time. Here’s an email I recently received from a loyal reader:

“I accidentally waaaaaay over text messaged a guy I had been out with three times. Now I haven’t heard from him in a week, is there any way to do damage control? It was kinda like this VIDEO (below) but with text messages.”

Sound like a familiar situation? I’m sure lot’s of you have made the same mistake. And no, the woman asking the question is not some loser begging for handouts. She happens to be really cool, fun, and attractive…and yet, she made the rookie mistake of being an over eager beaver.

What is the guy thinking when he gets assaulted with texts? Here are some terms that come to mind: insecure, overbearing, smothering, psycho…you get the point.

Is there damage control? Probably not. The damage has been done. Any further attempts at making contact, at least in the near future, will just make you look like a bigger Fatal Attraction candidate.

So here’s the rule for dating communication. You choose your medium of communication, and use it ONCE. That means one phone call, email, or text message.

That’s OR not AND.

You reach out ONCE and then WAIT.

Don’t assume that they didn’t get your message or that they lost your message. Even if by some fluke they did drop their iphone in the toilet (be careful using your iphone over the toilet), it doesn’t matter one bit because if they were interested in you, they would contact you on their own.

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So, if someone doesn’t immediately respond to your message, there could be three reasons:

1) He doesn’t want to respond.

In that case, they’re Not Interested. It doesn’t really matter WHY they aren’t interested, so don’t waste your time (and the time of your wing gals) trying to figure it out. It would make a difference, so you’re better off licking your wounds and moving on.

2) He never got your message.

Not likely. If you sent it, it got to its destination, unless you picked the exact day that China and North Korea decided to team up and mount a massive cyber attack against the guy you’re obsessing about.  But assuming that there was no attack and that your message was delivered, you have to assume that he got it.

Think about it. If you were interested in someone you’d be checking your texts or messages like a maniac, right? Well, if a guy is interested, he’ll do the same. There’s no way he “Never got your message”.

Move on.

3) He just hasn’t had a chance to respond.

Ok, let’s focus on this last possibility. Some people are super busy (whatever it is that they’re busy with is irrelevant) and they don’t always have time to respond to messages soon after they receive them. Maybe they want to put some thought and effort into their response, so they leave it for a day, which stretches into two. It doesn’t really mater, because your job remains the same in any case: you WAIT. If you hear back from him, great. If you don’t, you assume he’s “just not that into you” and call your therapist for an emergency session.

In a couple of weeks, if you’re feeling really lucky, you can reach out to him again, but just be prepared for the same answer you got the first time around.

Bottom line: Please don’t be Mikey from the Swingers. Call, text, or email ONCE. That’s it. Just once.

**************************** If you need personal dating and relationship advice, you have come to the right place. To get answers to your specific questions or scenarios, click here.