When silence is the loudest form of communication

I decided to scroll through most of my (few) texting channels and I did just realise that I forgot to reply to quite a few conversations (oops). Sorry to these unlucky people placed on the ghosting list, but perhaps just proclaiming that I was preoccupied with other priorities isn’t as good of a reason after the third or fourth time. I was pretty torn between replying, three or four days after the initial message, or not at all, and of course I conveniently chose the latter for all but one party (lucky you!).

In my defense, replying to texts can be energy-draining, and usually made more difficult by complicated demands:

“Hey could you do me a favour by doing X while keeping Y and then inform Z once done?”

This seems to be the de-facto formula for most of my peers, and I noticed even some older folks I communicate with have started using this model for making a demand, as if influenced by my peers. Personally I feel much more hesitant on reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of messages, and these messages, and especially demands, usually span at least one paragraph. Just too much for a text. Perhaps you could engineer me by sending one sentence per message, although that also irks me once you hit the fourth line.

When I do skim through messages on a morning where the wind blows south-south-west and the sun is 37.8 degrees above the horizon, I tend to make a mental note of which tasks are urgent and which are not, and the conversations with lengthier messages are usually shafted for a later time. I noticed that the messages I immediately reply to tend to be the shortest and most direct since I instantly know what to do with them: either to reply, to act on them or to ghost further. For those that I don’t immediately know what is asked of me, I shaft them at the back of my head for a later time. And then I forget about them…

Perhaps its true I have a shorter-than-average attention span, but such is the practice in messaging nowadays: no one likes a lengthy text unless both parties are agreeable to a rant session or when both parties are saints with patience to spare. I usually don’t. To salvage part of my self-image, I shall attribute it instead to my idea of communication. For someone unusually direct, I tend to prefer messages to have lesser fluff: no need for the usual lengthy greetings or well-wishes (unless you’re a long-time friend!) or unnecessarily formal tone. These paddings don’t really sit well with me in that sense, and mostly lie on the side of “mild inconvenience” on my “irritation spectrum”. I’ve been told that I’m considered a relatively bland and boring texter because of all these - but that’s what texts were originally meant for; anything longer and it would be a letter!

Spongebob's We're not talking about this meme
Surely a good text can’t be thaaat hard…

On the other end of the “irritation-spectrum” lies dry-texters - the proud owners of pesky little one-liners or even “one-worders”. I’ll just leave them on “read” or refuse to open them, then delete the conversation thread at the end of the week. These are worth an “eyeroll” along my irritation spectrum, and I’ll make a mental mark the next time either of us start any kind of chats. I’m always curious: why bother to reply at all if you intend to

  1. Not properly set up a conversation,
  2. Not keep the conversation going,
  3. Show a lack of effort and interest, or
  4. Not allow me to keep the conversation going?

The final worst of which is those that randomly look for me out of nowhere and send a single “What’s up?” (or texts to that effect). I might just be reading too much into this, but this screams to me as a “I only just thought of you because I’m bored and need some entertainment until I get busy again”. I occasionally reply to these only because I’m just as bored, or otherwise I’ll just ghost you (unless again you’re a long-time friend, then you deserve some courtesy nonetheless, but only after a double eyeroll) and continue to do so in the future.

I “ghost” mostly out of selfishness since it’s much more convenient and less intrusive for me to “ignore” a message than to explain personally why a message did not warrant any visible form of attention. I was pretty curious, though, what it feels like to be on the receiving end of ghosting, the so-called “paranormal” activity associated with online communication. And to no surprise, it seems to be almost universal: people ghost and be get ghosted, just like the circle of life.

Anyways, for those that I either routinely ghost, it’s personal! And for those that I accidentally ignore, it’s not too personal, I promise! Now that I reread what I wrote above, I figure there’s probably no way to tailor a text to me, have it reach me reliably and then have a timely reply.


And on a personal note, I am working hard to clear off my personal to-do lists for August and September. I hope I’ll be less busy thereafter and I’ll have more time to connect and meet people in the flesh. That way, you’ll reliably get a reply from me, and I can abstain myself from the dreads of dry conversations and annoyances of texting.