Why are they not responding?!

Have you ever sat staring at a message or email, replaying the last conversation and excavating it for what you did wrong?

Re-reading it.

Replaying it.

Agonising over whether you said too much.

Or not enough?

No, me neither…

Well, except the time I convinced myself I had ruined a good working relationship because my boss hadn’t replied to a message.

I replayed the meeting, re-read an email, started preparing myself mentally for the conversation I thought was coming.

Turns out his phone had run out of charge.

Or the time I assumed someone was annoyed with me because they’d gone quiet after a conversation I thought had gone well. I spent days wondering what I’d missed, how had I offended them. They eventually replied. They’d had a family emergency.

Or when I thought an ex-colleague had fallen out with me. I wondered whether I’d just been another number on the payroll. Maybe they didn’t like me after all. Turns out they were messaging a work number I no longer had.

So often the silence has nothing to do with us. But the story we tell ourselves absolutely does.

Our brains hate gaps. So when information is missing, we fill it. Usually starring ourselves in the lead role, with supporting villains and a dramatic Hans Zimmer style soundtrack.

Apparently the world doesn’t actually revolve around us… inconvenient as that discovery can be.

The problem is those imagined stories start to change how we show up. Particularly if there’s a hint of discomfort or loneliness added in.

We withdraw. We lean out. We make villains of other people or situations. Or we second guess ourselves.

We treat the relationship as if something has already gone wrong.

All based on something we made up.

As with most things, it’s easier to notice when other people do it than when we do. So here are a couple of nudges from the trenches, not some ‘all-seeing’ advice.

Sometimes life gives you a completely different perspective on the same situation, if you’re patient enough to wait around and see it.

Take a beat before you write the story. How true is what you’re narrating in your head?

And when it really matters, be curious. Stop ruminating. Ask the question. Directly. To the person, not everyone else around you.

What’s the worst that happens? The horror story you’ve already invented turns out to be real? The best outcome? Often nothing changes.

Because quite often, the thing you thought was about you…

simply wasn’t.

And to anyone who happens to be in a group chat with me… I’m aware of the irony. I am the person who will send a message, forget to reply, and then continue the conversation 5 days later.

We’re complex us humans.

I had no appropriate photo for this post. So here’s an impatient dog wanting me to stop typing and leave the cofeee shop.