Texting somebody new is almost like playing tennis… on a miles-long court. You shoot your shot and wait for the ball to travel all across the field and hit their radar.
If your shot was good enough, they might be impressed and shoot back. After a couple of shots from each of you, the court gets smaller and smaller.
With a bit of luck, you find yourself at a nice restaurant somewhere downtown and the court has been shrunk to the size of the eating table.
If you play your game right, you might get rid of rockets and nets and let the court disappear along with your clothes.
Isn’t that nice, huh?
Well, none of that can happen, if your original shot gets the ball stuck in a desert somewhere. Meaning, if your first text is dry, their next reply is bye.
You might be asking your friends for a piece of advice while you’re out drinking beer at a party, or you could just disappear from a conversation that seems to be going nowhere.
Either way, if you feel like most of the conversations are tasteless and your shots, (or their replies) are just too… dry, here is how to recognize the problem, when to just give up, and how to fix dry texting when things seem at your favor.
What Is Dry Texting?
Dry texting is someone replying with ‘hm’ to your ‘my hobbies are writing, reading, surfing, speeding, mountain climbing, eating, and basically anything that makes me feel alive… hbu?’.
Do you get the picture?
The conversation is stuck.
It’s like driving a car where one of you pushes the gas while the other one keeps their foot firm on the brakes. It doesn’t move and it causes a whole lot of smoke (confusion) around.
I get it. It’s hard to know if the person you’re texting actually likes you or not.
Dry texting happens when one of the parties is either uninterested or lacks the desire to engage for some reason.
What experts won’t tell you about dry texting is that it is totally normal. It happens even in married couples from time to time.
People are often too stressed, tired, unmotivated, or bored to reply with more than one letter… ‘K’.
These kinds of conversations can eat you away and drain all your energy, while you feel pressured to make the other person interested in what you’re saying.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you should be doing the psychologist and try to find ways to make others happy. Nor does it mean that every ‘Hey’ or ‘cool’ text you get, is dry texting.
How to Recognize Dry Texting?
Let’s get one thing clear… you cannot spot dry texting from one single message. It is a pattern that requires several, short messages and attempts to spark up a conversation that tells us whether that convo is getting dry or not.
While your crush saying just ‘haha’, to your super funny joke attempt might feel bad, here are some actual signs of how to spot dry texting:
- Sending one-word messages all the time.
- Short conversations that don’t contain questions or make you want to engage.
- Ignoring memes, videos, photos, or links that you send.
- Never being the starter of the conversation or texting you first.
- Leaving you on ‘seen’ for hours and even days on end.
That my friend, right there, is dry texting. Now, this might happen because the other person is just not into you, or because maybe you’re trying too hard.
Whatever the cause, if you find yourself in this kind of situation all the time, then you might want to reconsider a couple of things.
When To Give Up A Dry Conversation?
Okay, so you have started talking to someone and everything seems to be going fine in the beginning.
You guys talk a lot for the first couple of days, but then, as soon as you get to know each other a little bit better, the conversation starts going south until your messages are forgotten under the big archived pile.
What did go wrong? Is it something you said that made them uninterested? Are you just not the same type?
Well, first things first, you must always know that you are enough as you are and you shouldn’t change and morph yourself to make someone else like you.
Quit Talking To Someone Who Expects You To Be Different
If for some reason, the person you’re talking to doesn’t like the fact that you talk about your passions all the time.
Or maybe they like you as a person, yet they think you are a bit too loose.
Or perhaps you don’t ‘fit to their standards’.
Quit talking to them. I italicized the fitting part purposely. We aren’t supposed to fit in someone else’s mental box of us.
If someone wants to talk to you like your regular self, they will. If they become super distant, at the first sign of you opening up about your past, or going into dark humor because you love that, then walk away and don’t turn your head.
They might try to give you excuses like it’s your fault that the convo went dry because they didn’t like this or that about you but just cut them off.
Out of every possible reason why a conversation goes dry, one thing is for sure, it’s no one’s fault.
So lift that weight off your shoulders and move on to the next.
You Are Simply Not The Same Type
People say: ‘I don’t have a type. If we vibe, we vibe’.
Well, I say: ‘You do have a type. If you don’t vibe, you don’t vibe’.
You cannot take a heavy metal die-hard fan and hook them up with a cheerful pop listener and make them like each other’s music.
Sometimes people simply don’t click.
We all have different priorities in life, and some of us happen to have similar ones, making us more attracted to one another.
If you are planning to finish college and work in a regular 9–5 for the rest of your life, (because that is what you love to do) and the person you’re texting with aspires to become a well-known business owner and travel the world, then don’t be surprised if the conversation goes dry.
Different goals in life holmes.
You might be okay when you talk about the stars and the conversation feels wonderful.
But life is much more than just the Milky Way. Life is universal.
Love is universal.
People want to know if you can have something more together. If they see that your priorities are pointed in opposite directions, they will want to shoot their shot with someone.
And so should you. A dry conversation due to unmatching types happens all the time.
It should be our responsibility to recognize when this happens and let it go gracefully.
However, how about when the types match, the conversation is going great, and then suddenly there comes a period where none of you know how to reply anymore?
How to Fix Dry Texting? And Make the Convo Work Every Time…
The first step to fixing a dry conversation is to recognize the other person’s perspective.
Maybe they are too busy, too stressed, or maybe they are not great at texting and prefer saving everything for when you guys meet up.
To know this, you must ask honest and open questions.
Here are some questions examples you can ask them:
- Are you too busy/stressed during this period of time or is it something else, since we haven’t been talking too much?
- Maybe texting is not your thing. How about we only text each other the time and location of the day we can meet and do all the talking at the table?
- I understand if you’re too stressed and uninterested. How about we set a proper hour to talk about it on the phone?
You can literally just copy and paste these questions and see the results for yourself.
Here’s the thing. Since the person you’re texting with is not there, you cannot tell by their body language what’s going on inside their head.
Your best guess is… guessing. However, to not do that and maybe offend the other person, you simply ask them.
Open, honest questions that they cannot avoid. For example, if their answer for the first question is just a simple ‘no’ then it is something else that’s bugging them.
If you ask them and they reply with ‘nothing’, then it is up to them to deal with themselves and up to you to carry on.
You tried to care about them, they were uninterested, that’s it.
The last two questions are a no-brainer. The second one is the easiest question you can pop to set the peace between the dry convo. If they don’t agree or reply with ‘idk’, move on. If they agree, great, set a time and a place and say, ‘“I’ll see you there”.
The last question is a tricky one. They might agree and still not pick up…
Not to worry, as long as you shoot your shot, you are okay. If they do pick up and you guys talk about it, great. Problem fixed.
You see, the best way to fix dry texting is by asking honest questions that have only two direct answers.
Either ‘no’ or ‘yes’. Anything beyond that is just plain confusing and I wouldn’t advise you to carry on with that.
Final Thoughts
Dry texting is exhausting and it is one of the main reasons why a lot of people, end up with the wrong people.
Don’t let yourself get trapped. If you are giving away too much and receiving nothing, then respect yourself enough to walk away.
Don’t fool yourself though. If you are always the talker and you don’t leave room for the other person to express then you might want to check yourself.
Ask them honest questions solely about them and wait for that short and concise reply that they have to give.
And for couples who are stuck in a dry texting period, I would advise the second question. This way you can agree on a specific date and talk all about it.
I hope to have been of help to some of you. Keep your head up and keep trying. Someone is always out there for you and most importantly, yourself is always awaiting your love. Give it to it.
All the best, and keep shooting.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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