Is he ignoring me?

I’m sorry dear but it sounds like he is already in a relationship.

I had this same problem with inconsistent text reply times. I was scratching my head with confusion.

I found out this guy was married.

1 He is not that into you
2 You want to talk *all the time* and he gets tired of answering you
3 He does stuff that is loud and doesn’t hear the notification until much later – plays video games, listens to music, works out etc.
4 He has flatmates and gets into talking and hanging out with them and doesn’t want to bother with you while he is talking to them because they are more interesting
5 He feels he has to be *on* when talking to you to impress you and it is tiring always being witty and it makes him anxious so he avoids you sometimes
6 He is talking to other women and if he can’t multitask so can only text with one at a time otherwise he might make a mistake and call you the wrong name or refer to the wrong in joke
7 His phone is a pos and text messages don’t always come through on time
8 His battery often runs right out cos his phone is a pos
9 Your neediness repulses him but when he has ignored you for several hours he starts to miss you again
10 He is clinically depressed and can’t work up the energy to get the phone out of his pocket and answer you but then he snaps out of it
9

If you knew him well, you’d know what he was doing. If mu BF happens not to respond for a while, I’ve got a pretty good hunch about where he is or what he’s doing (and it’s not scary). So your guy could just be busy playing video games or talking to a friend, or his family – it doesn’t have to be something weird or malicious. He may not be ignoring you at all. Before covid, I’d have suggested he may be seeing a film or out with friends etc. It’s not uncommon for a man or woman to take a few hours to respond – it’d be rude to start an entire conversation when out with a friend, after all.

However, the entire day isn’t normal – not when most people have their phone glued to heir hip. Especially at the beginning, when he should be making a particular effort because he should knw that if he’s hot and cold, youll just date someone else. If a new date doesn’t care enough about your feelings at the start, he’s not gonna care more when he relaxes cos he thinks he has you. Phoebe has a lot of interesting theories, and they are right. It could be any one of many things.

The problem is also that IMs have increased people’s expectation for how fast people reply to things – people do have other stuff to do. In general, I’d say that several hours is fair if people are busy – or even all day if they have long shifts. But if someone’s doing nothing, there’s little reason they’d leave it hours to check their phone – unless they were busy doing something else, or not that interested. It is a bit unusual for someone to be so lax during lockdown, cos as you say.