Dude Constantly Texts Me, What Do?

[WombatShadow]

I decided to join a dating site because I know Memorial Day weekend is popular, and I figured I'd meet somebody like the days of old (both time I've met people who gave more of a fleeting glance on dating sites have been on MD weekend) who wants to chat for a long while before meeting in person. That's what I'm the most comfortable with, especially in LD/semi-LD situations. Well, I actually hit it off with one guy really well, and we moved over to texting because neither of us wanted to be constrained to the dating site's message system. We also set up a date for Tuesday, which is really far out of my norm but why not give it a shot? I do have to drive over an hour to get there, but I figured it might be worth it in the long term if the chemistry hits right. One other thing we discussed was that he is looking for a long-term life partner whereas I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for (I didn't tell him it's because there are some things unresolved with my ex, but then I barely know this guy).

 

He told me yesterday that he'd be pretty unavailable in the afternoon because he had family coming over. Fine by me, because I had a lot of stuff to do anyhow. Well, apparently his version of "unavailable" was texting me every 5 minutes at the longest, sometimes even if I didn't respond immediately. When I did respond after long periods, he got back to me so quickly that I could tell he'd been waiting on my response. I finally told him that I, too, was busy, so I might not be very quick on the draw, and he said that he could find something else to distract himself instead of talking to me. By this point, I had kind of drawn back because I was feeling a little overwhelmed (I met this dude Friday night and he was already texting me more than any of my friends ever had!) and was answering his questions without asking my own. When he stopped responding, I figured he'd sufficiently distracted himself.

 

LOLNOPE. At 10:30 last night, he texted me to say he'd accidentally fallen asleep and then tried to continue the conversation. Even when I told him I was heading to bed, he kept.texting.me. And then this morning, I woke up to find that he had texted me a "Good Morning!" and some other random nonsense.

 

Is this normal and all of my other social interactions abnormal? How do I deal with this? I am genuinely quite busy both today and tomorrow, and I don't want to feel like I have to text this guy all day instead of having a presence at my niece's first birthday or actually paying attention to my dad's Memorial Day speaking gig or participating in dinner with my ex and our friend. Also, I'm finding the novelty of this guy to be wearing thin really fast. He's funny and seems to be nice, but this feels like too much, too soon.

 

Halp.

[mustlovedogs]

He's being clingy already.

 

I would cut him loose.

[reinventmyself]

To each there own. Some people like this, some don't.

I do not care for it. You are mentioning that you do have life and though you would like to communicate with him you can't possibly

match his pace. From what you describe, he doesn't have anything else going on in his life so he can afford to do this.

Is this someone you would want to date? I wouldn't.

[j.man]

Yup. Sounds like a clingster to me.

 

That said, we teach people how we like to communicate by how we communicate. If you genuinely don't like texting, or at least don't like it beyond a certain point or certain purposes, then simply don't. It's not rude to not respond to something that isn't urgent or particularly pertinent. No one's entitled your attention just because they sent you a text.

 

Personally, unless it's someone I know might need to get a hold of me, I've never sent a heads up, "might not reply promptly" text. I think that should be a given we afford everyone.

 

So, again, I'd guess the guy's a clinger either way, but a good way to discern between someone who simply likes to text and someone who needs to text is to just back off and text at your own leisure and pace (which, for me, is pretty much never). If you find yourself getting multiple, completely unsolicited messages or anything like "ummm u busy or something???" or "why didnt u reply sooner?" then that's pretty telling sign. But I know if I were to text my partner, she'd reply within seconds. She also needs to be connected and responsive by nature of her work, so it's more or less reflexive on her part.

[melancholy123]

I would hate what he's doing. He's too clingy and sounds needy. Are you sure you really want to meet him?

[WombatShadow]

First, this is like karma coming back to bite me because I had become like this by the end of my relationship (I swear I didn't start out that way, and I'm not like that now that I'm off birth control/not depressed anymore!); I can really, really empathize with my ex now.

 

I feel bad just not responding, but I think I might go that route. I mentioned that I had a full, busy schedule today and he immediately said "Oh, hanging out with your ...? I'll be here when you get bored " and then continued to prattle on. I'm just going to not respond and see what happens.

 

Glad to know that I'm not necessarily the weird one here! I'd still like to meet him at least once, just to see if there's anything there, but if there are some sparks there'll have to be a serious conversation about the text overload. If there isn't anything worth pursuing in person, I'll just thank him and tell him to go after someone who's more available on his terms.