I can’t easily tell whether people want me to contact them, and often they don’t. I’ve been told by multiple people that they’d rather I didn’t and to leave it up to them, although I suppose I self selected into talking to those kinds of people by being very non-proactive. If there’s any ambiguity it’s basically impossible for me, but it becomes possible though still difficult if I’m actually asked to do so (indirect but still clear asks work too).

It seems like it could be kind of awkward, but it should still be more normalized to outright let friends know that you would appreciate and be ok with them taking more initiative with you, because otherwise they might not know.

yeah. I did this and the only person that kept talking to me turned out to be a chaser who did this when I blocked him 🫩

(my Instagram isn’t connected to my online socials btw)

Let me just say, I am not a big texter. I mainly text people to set up a time to hang out in person or tell them one specific thing. For socializing remotely, I prefer discord or phone calls.

Please don’t take it personally if people aren’t big/fast texters

I feel this 😭❤️

When you’re feeling down, remember that just because you usually text first doesn’t mean you don’t matter to other people. Lots of people have mild social anxiety, lose track of time, or have other reasons they may forget to text - if they carry on a conversation and respond pretty quickly once you start texting, they’re probably grateful that you reached out.

For example, if one of your friends who usually starts conversations goes a few days without texting, are you going to assume they’re having a rough time and that you should reach out? Or do you just assume they’ve been busy for a few days? Your friends don’t have any reason to suspect you’re struggling unless you tell them something’s going on.

I always tell myself “If you wish that your friends took initiative right now to hang out with you, then do it yourself.” If you wait for them to take initiative, it will likely feel like they took too much time, no matter how much time they actually end up taking. Rather than being sad that your buddies aren’t spending time with you, you can just ask them for it. The worst that can happen is receiving a “no, I’m too busy”, but even then you’ll better grasp your friends’ current situation and potentially get a time frame for the next time you can hang out. That’s what I’ve gathered from my own experience.

The TL;DR is DIY

i think i was a more proactive kinda person in the past, but i don’t have the energy anymore to text people, so i rarely take the initiative anymore, and i feel kinda bad about it tbh

After decades of the telephone being my main work tool and the channel where costumers on the regular behaved like they owned the place, i have developed a intense aversion of even looking at my phone, and anxiety regarding contacting people. That means i suck very much at initiating contact and keeping conversations going.

That doesn’t mean i don’t think about people i consider important to me - quite contrary, the harder it is for me to reach out, the more i think about the respective person.

So even if you are normally the one initiating contact, don’t think you are unimportant to others when they fail at reaching out.

Oh oh, Spongibob is gonna have a tremendous realization

Me waiting for my former friend to stop ghosting me after 9 months

Seek that which is seeking you. If what you desire to be sought by is not seeking you then change yourself to what attracts what you desire or alter your desire to what you can manage.