He Ignores My Messages

Our letter today comes from one of our beautiful readers around the world, who I'll call Louisa.

She's wondering about the behaviour of a guy she's been in contact with for two and a half months, after meeting him doing an archaelogical dig.

Regardless of where in the world you are, I think you'll find the same thing I've discovered in getting to know so many of you; that there are others just like you, with the same beautiful hearts and souls, everywhere on this beautiful planet of ours. I hope hearing from these women each week helps remind you of that, and makes you feel a little less ashamed to be you and a whole lot less alone.

Here's her story:

Hi Jane,

I have met a guy during archaeological excavations. We liked each other and we said that to each other.

We have a lot in common, but we kept some distance, not becoming very close with each other because we knew we would be separated soon in our countries and that would be sad.

From the day that we ended our dig, we have been in contact 2 and a half months. Our conversation has been not like "Good morning, hi, how are you?"

It started with a topic and every day we continued with other topics and interesting things from our day, but we have never said goodnight or goodmorning ... the conversation about that topic continued the next day.

But suddenly he started to ignore my messages. Letting them just be 'seen' and then after 1 hour, he would reply.

Next, it became more hours and after that, there were some days he started to answer once in two days or after one day. And I have noticed carefully that he sees if I am online or not.

After this behavior, I have also ignored too and I have acted the same  - just like him.

But now I am a little worried and I'm trying to be patient, not to text him, because he has gone 3 days that he doesn't respond to my last message after letting it be 'seen'.

This time something interesting happened. We usually talk in Whatsapp. He left the message seen. Okay, I have been used to this. The next day, after seeing me online on Facebook he asked "Are you bored already and now you are spending all the time on messenger?" with a funny face emoji.

Meanwhile he didn't continue the conversation from the other side on Whatsapp where we have left it. And after replying to him on messenger with some funny messages for his question, from that moment we have gone 3 days without continuing our conversation.

Do you think he is playing an ignoring game?

And he is making the game harder...to see maybe if I am going to text him?

What should I do? Why he do this?

Thank you.

-Louisa

My Response:

Oh Louisa, he's not just playing an ignoring game with you. He IS ignoring you.

He's communicating with you on his terms, when he feels like it, when it works for him, and when it's around a topic he's interested in continuing to have a conversation about.

The rest of the time, he's choosing to not respond, to not continue the conversation, to ignore you.

This is all about him.

His terms.

His timing.

Him.

Where you come in, is with your assessment of what this is.

A game. Ignoring you. Playing some game where he withholds more of his communication with you even though you can clearly see he's seen your message, just to see if he can get you to be the one to respond first.

There's somewhere you've gotten the message from that this is acceptable behaviour, that you play along with for some reason that only you know. Somehow, this is keeping you going, staying here, still communicating with him, waiting to see what he does next.

Can you see how you're enabling his behaviour here?

If there isn't something hooking you in here, you'd be out by now. I mean, really, would you ever allow a friend to treat you like this?

I don't think so.

But for this guy, maybe because he said he likes you, but more likely because of a long-playing script that's been playing in your head for a long time, you're following that story that says when someone starts ignoring you - who once said he likes you - you try harder.

You reach out. You keep reaching out.

You reply with a funny message instead of calling him out by asking him to explain what he means because you don't understand what he said.

I have a feeling you're like most of us here.

Kind. Compassionate. Understanding. Generous. Loving. Always giving the benefit of the doubt.

Sound about right?

And of the belief that if someone says they like us - and we like them, too - and then, they start ignoring us or their messages get less and less with more time in between, we think it means we have to try harder to win them over and get them back to the way things were in the beginning.

That's the problem!

Someone is going to treat you the way his own programming leads him to treat you. You can't control what he believes is okay, or what he's been programmed with as acceptable behavior.

But what you do have absolute control over is how you respond.

If someone isn't treating you with respect in how they communicate with you and how they treat you in general, it's up to you how you respond.

If someone could even possibly be ignoring you, that isn't your cue to try harder. It's your reality check to stop trying at all!

What should you do?

There's only one thing to do here, Louisa. You ask yourself if this is how you want to be treated by someone who supposedly likes you.

Is this liking behavior? Is this worth your time and energy? Is this what you meant when you said you liked him, too? This part, the part that leaves you hanging, the part where you have no idea what's going on over where he is, in his country, far away from you?

Because this part - right here, right now, what he's showing you with his actions - this is who he is.

There are so many reasons why someone behaves this way, but the only reason you need to know about is the one that says he behaves this way because he can. He chooses to, and then when you're still there waiting for him to respond again, he does it again.

It's not just you, Louisa. This is what most of us have learned to do.

Be nice. Be polite. Laugh it off. Make a funny joke to cover up for what you're actually feeling. Make light of what is actually downright disrespectful to you. Ignore your own feelings about it that will ALWAYS tell you what you need to do, and go with what a nice, desirable girl that he would want to be with would do instead.

Sounding familiar yet?

You know what to do. You've already recognized what's going on here. The "why" isn't nearly as important as what you choose to do with the "what".

The "what" is his behaviour. Consistent. Over time. Someone always reveals who they actually are. And unless you're here to play games, unless you're okay with not being able to ask a simple question of him like "Why are you acting like this?", then this isn't what you want.

When we're not comfortable asking him, it's because we already have our answer. And if we were comfortable asking, we wouldn't need to.

Clear?

I hope this helps.

Love,

Jane

How about you? I know many of you have been here before. Tell Louisa what you want her to know in the comments below. And if this isn't clear, let me know. You're not alone. It never used to be so clear to me either.