18 people are online on Facebook, and not one of them is someone I want to talk to. Well, I could talk to a couple, but they aren’t the people I really want to talk to. Don’t ask, because I’m not going to explain.
But do you know what I love? When people ignore you. No, really. I just love that feeling of absolute worthlessness. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, eh? If that were true, I could be a gold medal weight lifter.
There is more than one way to ignore someone. One of which is just that, avoiding or excluding someone. Another, though, is refusing to write someone back, return a comment, reply to a message or email. The first one, admittedly less subtle, actually is better than the second. Know why? Because the second one is harder to detect. Let me take you through an example.
Lets say you email or call someone, someone you’d kind of like to reply. Maybe they’re a crush. Anyways. After a day, or maybe even less time, you get a bit restless. No one else is talking to you, so there’s nothing to distract you. You just kind of sit there, in front of the phone, or the computer. Well, ok. Maybe they’re hanging with the family, or friends. Maybe they just didn’t see it yet. So you get over it, go eat or whatever.
After two days, you know that they have HAD to either have gotten on the internet or checked their messages. After staring at the communication device of choice for a while, you rationalize. Maybe they checked it as they were leaving, and didn’t get a chance to reply. Yeah, that must be it. You give yourself a couple more minutes to stare; maybe they’ll get online or call you back. No such luck, so repeating the rationalization like a mantra, you go back to your life.
After three days, you start freaking out. They’re had AMPLE time to check and reply to whatever you sent them. Why haven’t they replied?? What if you said something that made them mad? If it was an email, you read the sent message closely to identify any potentially offensive lines. You find none. If it was a phone call or text, you run over what you said in your mind. No, nothing too bad. Well, maybe they’ve just been really, really busy. It’s a stretch, but who knows. You spend way too much time by your phone or computer, but the time all blurs together until you have to go do something else. If not for the toilet, you may have never moved. There’s always an explanation, you tell yourself.
Five days later, there are three options:
1. They got it a while ago and forgot to reply
2. They have no intention of replying, whether they read or listened to it or not.
3. They’ve died in a tragic accident.
You rule out the last one, since you just asked someone and they assure you that whoever you’re trying to talk to is still, in fact, breathing. By now, this is getting ridiculous. So you write, call, or text them again, asking what the heck their problem is. Now, another one of three things will happen:
1. They write or call back and apologize. They’ve been busy.
2. They come to your house to apologize in person, with a dozen roses.
3. They ignore that as well.
If it’s option 3, the process I’ve just described repeats itself, only worse. I mean, if you don’t want to talk to me, just freaking tell me. It’s easier for everyone. All this alluding my calls and email crap is cowardly. ESPECIALLY when I know, for a fact, that you’ve had time and the ability to get back to me.
For the record, I’m not really talking about anyone specifically, I’m just giving my opinion on the subject.
My head hurts.