Category: Toxic Ideas Out There

Left on Read

~ Advice ~ Leave a comment

Do you know those people who constantly demand a reply right away? Those suffocating folks who throw a fit if you take more than 5 minutes to respond? Or somebody who might not get outwardly angry at you for a few minutes of delay, but they send subtle (or not so subtle) hints about you being slow, creating constant pressure. We all know somebody like that, and most of us fear becoming one of them, for obvious reasons. Nobody wants to be seen as extremely clingy or needy. We try to be understanding and reasonable with our expectations of others.

However, like everything taken to extremes, being too accepting of others’ attitudes can become detrimental to ourselves. What do I mean by that? Being too forgiving about when people reply to you could be keeping people in who should be out. That our “playing it cool” or pretending to be “blasé” could just be acceptance of disrespect.

People always have excuses.

“Oh, you know I get distracted.”
“I read it, but I forgot to reply.”
“Ah, I got busy yesterday, sorry.”
Or even:
“I was too tired to answer.” (This one usually happens when the reply needed is a matter of 5 words or less.)

Apparently, answering “Nope, sorry” costs a lot of energy for some people. Yet, you see them online. You see them posting on Instagram. You see them using their phones all day, every day. Obviously, I am not talking about people who usually respond in a timely manner and let something slip once a year. I’m talking about people who constantly do that. And for some reason, we are starting to think this is okay—that not getting a response from people who should be your friends is not a big deal, that it means nothing. Or that taking a whole day to answer one sentence is reasonable. All of this is tragically ironic, considering that “I am worthy” is almost like a mantra these days.

Maybe we should create some red flags for friendships, mantra style? I don’t know. But the reality is, if someone constantly “forgets” to answer you, they just don’t think you are that important to begin with. Also, they don’t care about how you are going to feel being left on read. No, this is not their ADD/ADHD/Depression. No, this person doesn’t forget to reply to everybody in their lives all the time. If they have a crush on somebody, I can promise you that they will not “just forget” to reply. Even better: try offering them a large sum of money, as a test. See how fast they answer. Suddenly, they are very willing to quickly respond. Life is about priorities. You give attention to what is important to you. It just happens that you are not a priority to them.

This article that you are reading right now is a little bit more than a “He’s just not that into you, friendship/everybody version.” It doesn’t end here. We have to understand that, if we don’t respect our time and effort, we let people into our lives who won’t respect them either. Time is the most valuable resource that we have in life. It’s the only one that you can’t make back; you only lose. When you set the bar too low, you waste it on people who don’t even bother thinking that they are being disrespectful towards you. When somebody is constantly not answering you in a reasonable time (or not responding at all), they either don’t want to respond because it’s a burden to them to talk to you, or they have completely forgotten about your existence after seeing your message. Neither of those possibilities is worth your time. People who only remember you or respond when it’s convenient for them cannot be called friends.

We all have our own different sets of reasons to cling to friendships that are bad for us. No matter what they are, the results are always the same. It’s just not worth it. Even if you are extremely lonely, it’s not worth it. It’s not just about receiving a message every now and then instead of receiving none—it’s about respect, and showing that you deserve to be treated well. Let the words of the mantra of the 2020s become reality. You are worth receiving a reply. You are worth being remembered. You are worth being seen as a priority, and definitely way more than a disposable person. You are worth having real friends.

No, there’s not always a chance

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Let’s talk about a concept that some relationship coaches constantly talk about – that if you’ve had a relationship with a person previously and they broke up with you, there’s always a chance of them coming back to you in the future.

First of all, that is a lie. It’s not just a lie. It’s a disservice.

Imagine that somebody broke up with you just yesterday. The “love of your life” decided that you guys are not meant to be. So, after possibly the heaviest and longest walk or drive home, you lie on your bed (because your body feels like it weighs five tons) and pull up YouTube. You start looking for answers. “Is it really over?” “Will he/she come back?” “How long does it take for an ex to come back?” (I personally love this last one, it’s like everybody behaves the same way, right?)

I get you. Looking for answers that don’t exist is normal. We crave certainties, especially when it comes to love. After all, we can always get another job, even if the previous one was supposedly your dream job. Deep down you know that there might be another one that is just like it, or even better. This could even indicate the perfect moment for a career change. But when we lose the person we claim to be the love of our life, that’s it – it’s that person or nothing. There’s no substitute. So we start freaking out, looking for answers to soothe our souls. We look for people who will tell us that this might be (or rather, is!) temporary and that everything will be okay in the end. We just have to keep the faith and maybe follow this or that step given to us through our screen.

But here’s the problem: no, there’s not always a chance of them coming back. No, if you guys shared this type of connection previously, you will not be connected forever. It takes two to tango. The other person might have unplugged your connection to them already, maybe that was even done a while ago and you just did not notice. They might have even gotten a pair of gigantic symbolic shears to cut the connection cord.

When a relationship coach tells you that the connection will be there forever, it keeps you stuck waiting for that person to come back. It’s what you want to hear, but not what you need to hear. You just won’t move on with your life. Why would you, anyway? If you believe that you have this almost magical connection between you guys, why would you even waste your time moving on? Just sit there, and wait for the love of your life to come back. Why try something with someone else, and be at risk of your ex seeing you with this new person and not approaching you because you are “taken”? No, let’s make ourselves completely available for the next week, month, year… maybe decade. Maybe more than a decade? I mean, when the time is right your ex will come back… right? And so, this Disney-type of delusion keeps on feeding itself. Let alone the new delusion that might fall right onto your lap, like a gift from hell: “They will see how long I’ve been waiting for them and how much I suffer, so they will come back.”

All of this, albeit tremendously damaging to one’s life, is not even the worst-case scenario.

Let’s now consider an abusive person seeing these same videos when the ex-partner finally breaks free.

Abusive partners get into whirlpools of romantic delusions too. This type of message being sent by our dear coach makes the situation for the person who has finally broken the chains a lot more complicated. It definitely feeds stalking behavior and unwanted messages. It also feeds the idea that the ex is theirs, no matter what. This type of thought is already common among abusers, but hearing that from someone else definitely gives it a boost; it basically confirms what they think.

With all that being said, this idea that “the love we shared will bond us forever”, “there’s always a chance with an ex”, “they will always think about you, you belong to their life story” or even things like “they blocked you because they can’t handle their feelings for you” only makes heartbroken people stuck in life. Unable to go on despite the suffering, and make disturbed people even more insane and perhaps (more) dangerous.

Lastly, to those who are looking for these borderline esoteric messages and trying to decrypt “codes” from an ex in the hopes that they are crying at night thinking of you, please, try to move on. I’m not saying that ex-partners never come back, but you cannot depend on this. Don’t be delusional. Your life is not a Hallmark movie. You have to move on thinking that they won’t come back, even if every single cell of your body wishes the contrary. If they eventually come back, and the time is right for YOU, fantastic. If the time is bad, it’s their loss. And, hell, after a while, you might even realize that that person was not “the one” after all.