Welcome to B is Hilarious, a new column in which Brittani Nichols is hilarious.
I’ve always felt good at texting. I’m a much more successful flirt via the written word than I am in face-to-face interactions, but every now and then I end up involved with someone that doesn’t like texting that much for whatever reason. We won’t get into those right now *cough* a threat to their independence *cough* but you know the type. This is all to say, I have a thing about people texting me back. It makes me feel special and prioritized and when someone doesn’t, I feel the exact opposite to a terrifying extent. They should make up a sixth love language that’s just Texting Back in a Polite Amount of Time.
Now if being one of those people that gets annoyed if someone doesn’t text back isn’t bad enough, I also used to catastrophize. That means if I hadn’t heard from someone in whatever amount of time I’d deemed an absurd period to not have responded, I assumed something terrible had happened. Usually that they were dead. The times terrible things actually were the culprit for someone not responding to my texts, I handled it pretty well because I’d already been thinking that possibly the person was dead! It’s like, look at me being emotionally prepared! Rarely am I emotionally prepared! Things I haven’t been emotionally prepared for recently: McDonald’s only serving fried apple pies. Having my tire pressure light come one. Seeing cute girls in trees. THE LIST GOES ON.
Now I’ve gotten better at chilling out about people not getting back to me in whatever random time window I’ve decided on. I’ve gone from always assuming that it’s a physical disaster to rarely thinking it’s an emotional one. Especially if the person I’m texting is a woman I like.
Can’t imagine how much I’d google “what does it mean if they don’t text back” if I was a teen ‘cuz right now I’m 26 and I’ve done it 4 times
— Brittani Nichols (@BisHilarious) May 15, 2015
Truth be told, I hadn’t googled “what does it mean if they don’t text me back?” I’ve gotten better at holding off on an emotional panic as well by coming up with different fun scenarios a crush could be enjoying instead of texting me back. Here’s an example of what this timeline is usually like.
1-3 hours of no response
Eh. This isn’t a big deal. They might be taking a very long shower that’s furthering California’s drought emergency but that’s ok, she deserves it. Don’t judge her, she just wants to be clean for when she eventually texts you back. Or maybe she’s taking a nap? Well, not taking a nap… fell asleep. Because she’s considerate and if she was planning on taking a nap in the middle of this very important conversation about who has the better taco truck by their apartment, she’d have let you know!
3-5 hours of no response
Oh, this is fine. She probably went to see the new Kristen Stewart movie or something. Maybe after there was a surprise cast Q&A with K-Stew! I can’t wait to ask her about it. Oh man, what if they like bumped into each other after it was done and K-Stew likes her! She does sort of look like her type. Oh my God, am I about to get swooped by Kristen Stewart! Is there a way to frame that as a win for me?! No, no. This is silly. She’s probably working or something. I get caught up in work all the time. I mean, sometimes I know I’m going to be W.O.R.K.I.N.G. and I turn off my phone. But if I’m in the middle of talking to someone I tell them that because I’m not an asshole, you know?
Ooh, girl. I love it when you talk dirty. Tell me more about your schedule and whether or not you think you’ll be able to get to your phone. — Brittani Nichols (@BisHilarious) May 18, 2015
5-7 hours of no response
Ok, here’s the thing. I exist in this modern world and I can tell you this much. There’s no way I’m not texting SOMEONE or checking SOMETHING for this long. So that means if for some reason she only has like a couple of minutes to talk because she’s sooooo busy with her “job” and/or her “life,” she’s decided to talk to someone other than me. Guess we know where I stand! That’s fine. You know what I’m gonna do? Message your friend that I have no interest in but that clearly has a crush on me! Bet she doesn’t take six hours to respond to a Very Funny text message.
7-8 hours of no response
I so genuinely don’t care what she’s doing I don’t even like her I mean whatever I have options but if the goddesses have forsaken me and by chance I see that she’s faved a tweet or liked a picture on Instagram, I’m gonna lose my shit.
8+ hours of no response
I mean, what are you even doing? Did you run off to get married to Adam Levine OR WORSE, an ex-boyfriend. Have you deleted me from your phone? Did you run into one of my exes and they didn’t say anything bad about me, they just talked about how I’m a motherfucking delight and now you can’t move forward with me because if me and that ex didn’t work out, you no longer believe in love? WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE ARE YOU? I THOUGHT THAT TEXT WAS FUNNY. SHOULD I HAVE PUT A QUESTION MARK? DID YOU NOT REALIZE IT WARRANTED A RESPONSE?!?
Now you may be asking, “Well how does it end? Do people always respond? Do they have excuses? What were they doing?” And I have to tell you this, my friend: I DON’T KNOW. They probably are just unaware that any one person would ever care that much about if they weighed in on a joke about mulitas that, upon further inspection, isn’t THAT good. Usually what happens is people will just start a different conversation as if nothing happened or I’ll break and send some nonsense emoji like a fucking tomato or those two random ass fish on a flag and then everything is fine and they don’t realize that any of this happened because it was all in my head. At this very moment a girl I like hasn’t texted me back in two hours. What’s she doing? I don’t know. Living her life probably. I’m definitely fine though and not worried about it all.
P.S. I have heard straight people talk about how after a date they will not text someone for multiple days even though they like them. Heterosexuals are straight up psychos.
