The Waiting Must End

The Waiting Must End
By: Naomi Castronova

Whenever a message is sent out, someone is out there waiting for a response. There is always a recipient, who most likely has thumbs to respond.

It seems as if there should be a response to a question or comment received.

But sometimes it never comes.

And we response-waiters are left forever wondering.

You can actually pinpoint the day the first text was ignored, which happens to be the same date texting was invented:
April 30, 1992.

On that fateful day Dylan sent a text asking Rachel, “What did you have for lunch?” To this day he does not know the answer.
He will continue to wonder.

Was this too personal a question to ask after meeting Rachel yesterday? Did she just forget?
Was she trying to deny his existence?

Lest you non-responders disregard the torture you put response-waiters through, pay attention to the anxiety you cause.
Next time your out look for the poor souls staring at their phones.

Note our glum expressions.

We look devastated.

Sometimes, we even look as if we are giving serious thought to swallowing our phones whole.

You see us staring into space, remembering what life was like when our favorite non- responder used to respond.

Then we come back to reality and check our messages, which we refreshed four minutes ago.

As we text our true friends, who will respond about our distress, we exchange sad, crying emojis.

It’s the same emoji we use when we find out someone has to put his or her cat down.

We response-waiters are forced to go through all this suffering while you may be at work, walking your dog, or actually denying our existence.

But why?

Why do you put us through all the anticipation and questioning?

There must be some explanation as to why you would inflict such painful suffering. You might say, “Some people don’t freak out when I don’t respond to them.”

Granted.

But “Some people don’t freak out when they are attacked by killer bees.” Chances are you are not ignoring one of those people.
Then there are those of you with your “read” notifiers on.

Are you trying to torture us by making sure we know you read our message? Taking away our only solace of theorizing that your phone may have been run over by a Segway?

We know you have read it! It says, “read” at 7:08pm.

Why would you read it and then purposely choose to ignore us? Do you hate us? Did you get distracted when you saw a box of cookies? Do you have a case of thumbitis? Do you really hate us?

Can’t you see how your non-responsiveness is driving us crazy?

Then, after we cannot wait any longer, we ask ourselves the fateful question: To double double-text or not to double double-text?

Maybe your non-responsive friends just need another push. Maybe they forgot you texted them. Maybe they need a more exciting text to spark their interest.

But what if they don’t respond again? That would be the ultimate blow.

Consider the following texting scenario
         March 21, 2013 11:17pm
         -I’ve been okay! So busy… I’m so excited to go home! How are you?
         March 24, 2013 1:14pm
         -What are you doing tonight?!
         March 26, 2013 10:30 pm
         -Hi! I have fun ideas if you want to hang out tomorrow :)

This causes even more questioning.

Was the smiley face too much? Is “fun ideas” a term that could potentially be interpreted as sexual? Is that what I want it to mean? Does the non-responder hate me? Was his phone really run over by a Segway?

He must be dead.


Well we are trying not to think that.

Do you see all the self-doubt and anxiety you create by not taking two minutes to respond?

It does not have to be this way; you can make our lives easier. Consider this a plea on behalf of all response-waiters. Next time you get a text, respond.

Just a short message will do.

Go ahead and get a little lengthy if you really want to protect our fragile feelings.

Please.

Do not deny our existence.