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“There’s no such thing as a bad texter. They just don’t want to respond,” said influencer Delaney Rowe last year on the online talkshow Subway Takes. “People go around thinking being a bad texter is like a pathology, but it’s not. It’s a cop-out.”

“I don’t believe in bad texters,” announced radio host Dan Zolot last year. “If you want to answer you will answer.”

I scroll guiltily past these arguments knowing that I have 39 unread text messages on my phone.

Truthfully, I received every one of those texts with a thrill of happiness. I love to hear from my friends, my sister, my former colleague, and my family group chat. I initiated many of these conversations myself.

But when I try to respond, typing seems as onerous as writing a handwritten letter, and I feel overwhelmed by dread.

“I’ll write back when I have a moment,” I think.

Hours – or days – later, I feel anxious. As time passes, that anxiety compounds with shame. The obligation to respond makes me feel ill; knowing that my lack of response could be hurting my relationships feels even worse. I have seen some friendships disintegrate because of my behavior, and have made desperate attempts to reassert my care by writing blocks of text, months too late.

My own mom regularly texts me versions of: “When I’m dead, you’ll wish you could text me back.”

I have been locked in this cycle since I first got a flip phone. From the earliest days of T9 texting, I couldn’t figure out how other people were keeping up. It seemed like a special skill, like skiing or playing an instrument.

To assess the scope of my problem, I asked one of the best texters in my life how my texting cadence has affected our relationship. He responded in under five seconds.

“I’m generally less likely to text you for non-logistical reasons (I had an idea I wanted to share with you, I saw something funny you’d appreciate, I want to catch up) because I’m unlikely to hear back in a relevant time frame,” he said. His response confirms what I know to be true: I have trained people not to rely on me.

***

It can be hard for good texters to grasp that some people – like me – have an inexplicable, irrational barrier to texting back. I know it is hurtful to the person who feels ignored. But it is also painful, oddly, for the person who isn’t texting back.

Texting is a low-effort way to feel less alone. A 2023 study published in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication found that people tended to text when they felt a lack of belonging, and that, “compared to being alone, texting was found to decrease loneliness and increase connection.”

Yet you might know that and still struggle to respond.

“I have an evil in my heart that makes it hard to text back,” joked C Armstrong on TikTok. “A hex was placed upon me that makes me throw up in my mouth every time I receive a text.”

Their post was comedic, but Armstrong told me that sluggish texting had upset their friends and family members; emailing is also tough. It has caused them to fear for their professional future and made using dating apps almost impossible. “I should probably take myself off the market,” they said of the latter, “because this is designed for people who text back.”

There are any number of reasons a person might be a bad texter. “For some people it’s because they’re feeling kind of burnt out, kind of overloaded,” Dr Annie Hsueh, a clinical psychologist in California, told me. “For some people, there may be an element of anxiety,” she said. “Sometimes there may even be an element of wanting some control.”

Freezing up when you get texts could be the result of a number of combined factors, said Hsueh, including perfectionism, disorders like ADHD, and plain old personal preference.

Texting “stresses me out significantly more than speaking,” said Armstrong, who has ADHD and dyslexia. “I’m so much more conscious of the words that I’m using.”

“I have to pre-emptively tell people – friends and potential romantic partners: ‘I’m bad at texting and it’s not you,’” Armstrong said. “Some people hear that, and some people don’t.”

Everyone’s response time falls somewhere along a spectrum that runs from near-instantaneous to “delivered as if by stagecoach”. But there is a gulf of understanding between the two extremes. Good texters live in a world of “if they wanted to they would,” as if overthinking and distraction are imaginary problems. Bad texters are bewildered by expectations for prompt written communication, feeling punished by a system they never opted in to.

“It’s not a matter of will, per se,” Hsueh said, of bad texters. “There’s something that is blocking them; there is something that’s making it hard. Simply saying: ‘You should be better [at texting]’ is not really going to work.”

***

Try explaining this, though, to a good texter. I spoke to Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, who studies close relationships. His research has considered the concept of responsiveness, which is “the processes through which relationship partners attend to and respond supportively to each other’s needs, wishes, concerns and goals, thereby promoting each other’s welfare”. Finding another person responsive, Reis has said, can contribute to feelings of liking and attraction.

Can a bad texter repair her relationship with people who perceive her as unresponsive, I asked Reis, by explaining that her ADHD makes communication difficult? Are my friends and family likely to find my texting style less frustrating if I remind them that I have an anxiety disorder, and sometimes my iMessage app makes me feel like I am plummeting straight into hell?

“Well if your relationship is with Mother Teresa, that would probably work,” said Reis. “In my experience, unless the other person is an incredibly kind soul or a psychotherapist, most people aren’t very good at making those kinds of allowances.”

“This is one of those situations where honesty is the best policy,” said Reis. He recommends the following script, which you could use in the early stages of a relationship: “I don’t answer my text messages immediately. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It means I don’t prioritize text messages over what I’m doing at the moment. I do care about you and I do care about our relationship.”

“And then,” he said, “live the consequences.”

Many bad texters want to adjust our behavior – we are tired of making the people in our lives feel insecure, and we are tired of resenting ourselves for it. It’s possible for a bad texter to become responsive and reliable, Hsueh said.

“I would help them identify why that value is important to them,” she said.

For someone who gets anxious about texting, “we might be able to look at what are some of the thought processes that contribute to avoiding, not responding,” said Hsueh.

She would also recommend that people stop attempting to answer texts as they come in, and instead “carve out two specific times per day to respond to text messages”. With close friends and family, she advises vulnerability. Try saying something like: “I’m actively working on this – can you help me work on it?”

Armstrong tells family and friends: “I’m a phone call person. If you really need information from me, just call me. If I don’t pick up, I will call you as soon as I can.”

If you really want to work on your relationships, said Reis, it’s worth connecting in person. “Texting can help maintain relationships in the long run,” said Reis. Too much reliance on texting, though, can cut a relationship off from the “back and forth that feels immediate, that feels alive, that feels present”.

I reached out to another friend who is a decent texter, for feedback on how my texting style has shaped our relationship.

“I think that your ‘poor texting’ has mostly had a positive effect: it means that our friendship exists in real time, rather than in a digital space – which arguably, if anything, makes our friendship feel more immediate and continuous,” she wrote.

I was cheered. And 19 hours later, I even texted her back.

• Jenny Singer is a freelance writer who writes a free, weekly Substack about anxiety disorders called Uneasy Going