Both women and men that complain that their boyfriend or girlfriend or best friend only texts them, are often at least partly to blame themselves. The reason is that they allowed this sort of behavior to take place. By setting strong personal boundaries and having a solid idea of what types of communication patterns you expect of people, you encourage respectful behavior. Conversely, if you pursue a relationship with someone that only wants to hear from you on text message, you are putting yourself in danger of being disrespected. Only engage with people that want to engage with you. You can’t text your way into a relationship.
If you are foolish enough to think that you can text your way into a relationship you are mistaken. Texting relationships are usually casual and uncommitted relationships. In fact, casual relationships and texting relationships often go hand in hand. If you are engaged in a text relationship odds are pretty high that it’s a nonexclusive relationship too. Usually if you are on a pure text relationship (no phone calls, and limited face to face dates) then you have not required all of the attendant stuff that comes along with having a real relationship with someone. Such as, talking on the phone, doing things together, knowing where each other lives and getting to meet the friends.
Just texting? Done. Way too late for that relationship
If you dated briefly and lapsed into a text relationship and allowed all the fundamentals and relationship formalities to be skipped on over, what makes you think that all of a sudden you can have a normal relationship with this person? The chances are that if you suddenly attempted to take a text relationship above board its like chasing after the horse after it already bolted home. Text relationships either happen from the outset when both people agree somehow to a casual relationship, or they happen when you’ve been relegated to text because that’s the break up way station where your texting partner can get occasional attention from you while keeping you on text ice. So long as you don’t bug them to much to get totally dropped altogether, a text relationship can cripple along indefinitely. The problem is that once its established that your relationship is on text, you get what you get and you usually won’t get more.
Just like you can’t convince somebody into liking you (even if you have good chemistry) you can’t text somebody into liking you. It’s one thing if you are totally over and done with the person and you ping them up occasionally because you have some sort of history or friendship. In that case a text relationship to keep in touch is fine. It’s totally another thing if you are completely in love and obsessed with a person who won’t even pick up the phone to call you or answer if you called, and the only way to get through is to type out a text message. Trust me that after you have allowed yourself to be treated dismissively and relegated to text message communications, there is pretty much zero incentive for your partner to decide to have a relationship with you now.
Don’t be a doormat
Maybe when you originally met this person they did not want to have a relationship or couldn’t have a relationship or even was involved in a relationship with someone else. But you still like them. So you placated yourself with keeping the door opened and you texted them just a little bit. That way you delude yourself that you have some kind of option there and should the person become relationship ready, you will be sitting there waiting patiently in the wings. Not. When the person finally gets relationship ready its going to be because they had a strong enough emotional attraction to someone new. Someone fresh and new that they have not already completely put on standby. Allowing yourself to wait in the wings as a mere option to someone is not a way to attract them to you.
Leave them alone and give them total text silence
If you want a relationship with this person or want to pave the way to set yourself up for a relationship with someone new, its best to quit texting this person. Quit waiting around in the wings hoping. Quit following their facebook, dating and other social profiles. Just quit, quit, and quit. Quit contacting them. If you find yourself compulsively texting them because in your mind you have placed them as the end all be all perfect person if they would just give you a chance or become available someday, read all the tips to quit your obsession. Start tracking your texts and figure out just how much time you are totally wasting on this person who doesn’t deign to talk to you on the phone even. The odds of you going from standby girl to girlfriend are slim to none. Therefore, don’t be the standby girl.
Don’t harass them on text thinking it will get you somewhere
I once had a friend who said some horrible things about me to my face. It was somewhat of a character assassination born out of jealousy of me mixed with her own personal issues. Over time I realized there was a pattern and her attacks were such that I thought who needs enemies with friends like this. So I decided to end the friendship because I felt I had not other choice. She was a good friend in fact a best friend at one point in time. It was not a love relationship but a best friend. There were many warning signs, fights and make ups, but finally I decided that it was best for me to totally sever the friendship. I told my friend as much but she didn’t want to accept it since we had been friends for a long time. I watched uncomfortably and fearful as this friend tossed and toiled and texted, emailed me, and facebook harassed me. I felt bad but I was sticking to my guns.
She went from threatening me, to attacking me, to ignoring me, to apologizing, to saying weird things, to making accusations, to being sweet, to sending me apology notes trying to convince me to talk. I actually got scared and started to save the emails and did not respond after telling her that I wanted to cease contact 2 or 3 times. Every time I got an incoming from her I felt upset but the more she contacted me the more resolved I was. I didn’t want to resume the friendship. No amount of her texting me was going to make me want to resume it either.
The reason I describe this situation is that I know from experience that trying to convince someone into a relationship, or to get back together with you, or to embark on a relationship with you, is a very bad idea and from a psychology standpoint it really does not work. Better to leave it alone and let it go. You can’t force anyone to get involved with you. This is why you should not bother to try and continue to text someone that clearly is not interested in you. Better to leave them well enough alone and give them the gift of missing you than to stay there acting like the standby option.
If you text someone too much they will get totally turned off and after a while if there are threats or attacking words, they’ll get scared. You’ll be causing them to run in the other direction and slot you into problem person category. As if being on text message isn’t bad enough, do you really want to be someone’s stalking problem that they need to document and manage? No, you do not. Hopefully this story helps you to see that you really can’t text your way into or back into a relationship. Harassment often comes out of tight relationships where one person makes a non negotiable decision to opt out and the other continues to pursue relentlessly by texting apologies, stories, rants and so on.
Do something else (like change your behavior) because you can’t text your way into a relationship
As soon as you want more from somebody than just a text relationship (and the often string along casual friendships that are the hallmark of texting relationships) then you should opt out of that text relationship and fast. Stop texting and do other things, meet other people. You actually have a better chance of having this person come around if you leave them alone for months if not years! Then when you see them again you can be a normal person that demands more than a text message to be someone’s friend, girlfriend or boyfriend.
Your chances of turning a substandard relationship that has fallen into only text messages, into a relationship are zero. The person will most likely fade into oblivion and you’ll regret that you wasted so much mental energy when meanwhile someone else sashes along and gets their attention, phone calls and dates with them. If they do ever come back into your life which they most likely won’t, demand a friendship for a good long time before ever getting involved. That means, phone calls and doing plans together.
It likely won’t happen, but there is always that one surprise rare person that figures out, once you opt out, that they genuinely cared about you after the fact and comes back around willing to try something different. You are the one that is going to have to set strong personal boundaries and never relegate or lapse back to text. Since people tend to slip back into their worst behavior patterns you may not even want to give them another chance, it may be easier to just cut losses and give up then move on however long it takes you to.
Usually noncommittal people treat people poorly, learn from it, and then they move on to people that demand to be treated better. But it won’t be you. Leaving the person alone, never texting them again, meeting other people and moving on with your life for a long time, will actually put you into a better position. Then, you’ll be a changed person and have more of a chance of getting somewhere with them and being able to compete with new women who stick to their core expectation of expecting a phone call not a text. You need to become one of those people, even if it means being alone for a while. Because in the long run, being alone is better than being with somebody who can’t pick up the phone.
Prevent it from ever happening again
Once you’ve lapsed inadvertently or knowingly into a text relationship and endured some emotional suffering if you developed feelings for the person and either got downgraded to text, or were always on text in the first place, you probably won’t want to let it happen again. Text infrequently and sporadically with anyone new and never let planning and communication for dates happen on text message. If you sense a text only pattern emerging, opt out before you get involved. Text relegation is one of the biggest signs there is not only that they are not into you, but that they may be using you for an occasional friend and nothing more. A real friend, and someone who genuinely wants to pursue a relationship with you, calls you.
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