How long is too long for a reply from a friend?

[Guest]

We're not exactly friendly kinda of friends, but more of online chatting buddies over text messages. We've only known each other for half a year, but grown to be closer to be able to become chatting and ranting buddies. We would talk about almost anything, whether positive or negative and just share with each other. Sometimes we text daily, but sometimes not, depending on the length of the topic and intervals of reply time. On workdays, we only text each other in the evenings or after due to having our own lives like work and school. But something I realize about this friend of mine, he takes really long to respond to me on weekends, when he is actually free... he would take more than 12 hours ( about 14- 15hrs) to respond to me. I understand if he has some personal things bothering him, but what he described to me what he has been up to during the day was just not the busy kinda day. I don't expect instant replies, or fast replies within a few hours as I know each of us has different texting patterns. But above 12 hours on a weekend when he's actually free? I think I'm not important to him as a friend... I've never had a friend before who takes more than 12 hours to respond back at all. I truly find this very disturbing... 

Edit: In my previous post, this is the same person which I mention I sort of like him, but I've lost interest. I see him as only a friend now. 

Edit2: He is not the kind of person who has activities during the weekends. From what we chatted so far, I know he spends more of his time at home, even during weekends.

Edit3: No I do not want to date him, at first I do. But I've lost interest to see him as a romantic partner. But I really do cherish this friendship. We are from the same area with the same timezone. Never met him in real life before, and I don't mind. I'm just really bothered by his texting pattern. I've never had someone in my life who would take over 12 hours to respond. 

[Wiseman2]

7 minutes ago, Mannitol said:

, he takes really long to respond to me on weekends, when he is actually free... I truly find this very disturbing... 

Have you met in person? Is there a romantic interest?  Perhaps he pursues real life activities on weekends. Try to keep busy so you're not noticing it this much. Is this the same friend?:

 

[Batya33]

So I think it’s presumptuous to assume that just because someone is technically free - meaning not at work and not occupied at an activity that they feel like spending free time to text back and forth.  For sure if a text requires a response and the person is able he should respond even if “sorry busy will respond later “. 
I have a friend who routinely calls me on weekends often at times she knows I’m preparing or having meals with my family. I don’t talk in the phone during those times. But also even if I’m free that afternoon sometimes I’m not in the mood for a phone call and so unless it’s about an urgent matter I likely won’t call till the next day. 
free time doesn’t mean in the mood to chat. 
I’ve had an online pen pal for about two years now. We met through an FB group and she invited me to join another for book lovers which we both are.  We text about once a day. We might meet someday but that’s not a focus of our chats. We’re both women - she’s 5 years older. I’d be very hurt if she ghosted me and we’ve mentioned how we’d never do that. We never argue. We sometimes disagree but mostly we enjoy chatting about various topics serious and light. I consider her a real friend and vice versa. 
To me the only reason it works is because we’re evenly matched. We’re platonic friends. We are low key about expectations of responses to texts.  
 

You having been attracted to him romantically means there’s imbalance even if you aren’t any longer. It means you attribute his failure to respond as lack of interest in you. You then try to monitor whether you believe he has time to respond. It sounds far too intense on your end. Are you sure you’re still not romantically attracted?  And if so maybe he’s not responding as much so as not to lead you on. 

[Kwothe28]

52 minutes ago, Mannitol said:

I've never had someone in my life who would take over 12 hours to respond. 

I had one respond after 25 hours. But she was a special case. Generally, some people are not glued to their phone so they sometimes take time to respond. But yes, 10+ hours shouldnt be a norm unless person is sleeping so responds the next day when it see the message. At least you shoudnt be anticipating a response and be glued to your phone for it. Put it on backburner. There is no need to anticipate a message when he takes so much time to respond. If you send him something, when he responds you also respond when you remember he exists. Simple and yet effective.

Also, what do you hope to achieve here? You dont want to date him, you live in same area but never even met. So, aside of messaging him, what is the deal here?

[Tinydance]

How do you know he is actually free on weekends? Does he usually tell you his weekend plans in advance? I mean, he might be free in the sense that he doesn't have work or study on weekends. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he's actually free and doesn't have any other plans or things to do.

He might be talking to other people, catching up with friends or family, doing hobbies, or just relaxing. He might actually be taking long to reply on weekends because he's trying to send you a message that he actually is busy doing other things and doesn't have time to be chatting to you. Sometimes people try to give you a hint hoping you'll get the point and maybe not message as much on weekends because they have other things going on. 

I think your expectations of this guy are a bit high. If he's just a platonic friend and only an online friend you've never met, then you can't really expect to be the number one priority in his life. I know 15 hours is very long not to reply but maybe he actually prefers to spend time with people he knows in real life on weekends. 

Another thing is that if your conversations tend to be long, maybe he doesn't really want to have long conversations on weekends. I think it's OK to have an online friend if you enjoy talking to him. But unless he has no other friends at all and never leaves the house, he has a life outside of you as well.

[Tinydance]

1 hour ago, Batya33 said:

So I think it’s presumptuous to assume that just because someone is technically free - meaning not at work and not occupied at an activity that they feel like spending free time to text back and forth.  For sure if a text requires a response and the person is able he should respond even if “sorry busy will respond later “. 
I have a friend who routinely calls me on weekends often at times she knows I’m preparing or having meals with my family. I don’t talk in the phone during those times. But also even if I’m free that afternoon sometimes I’m not in the mood for a phone call and so unless it’s about an urgent matter I likely won’t call till the next day. 
free time doesn’t mean in the mood to chat. 
I’ve had an online pen pal for about two years now. We met through an FB group and she invited me to join another for book lovers which we both are.  We text about once a day. We might meet someday but that’s not a focus of our chats. We’re both women - she’s 5 years older. I’d be very hurt if she ghosted me and we’ve mentioned how we’d never do that. We never argue. We sometimes disagree but mostly we enjoy chatting about various topics serious and light. I consider her a real friend and vice versa. 
To me the only reason it works is because we’re evenly matched. We’re platonic friends. We are low key about expectations of responses to texts.  
 

You having been attracted to him romantically means there’s imbalance even if you aren’t any longer. It means you attribute his failure to respond as lack of interest in you. You then try to monitor whether you believe he has time to respond. It sounds far too intense on your end. Are you sure you’re still not romantically attracted?  And if so maybe he’s not responding as much so as not to lead you on. 

I actually totally agree with what you said. My sister-in-law has a really pushy personality and she has no friends and wanted to text me constantly and hang out with me constantly. She would message me basically every day and be like: "Hey what are you up to?" If I said: "Not much", she'd be like: "OK I'll come over then?" Just because I'm technically not doing work or some kind of designated activity doesn't mean I actually want to catch up or keep texting. It used to drive me mad that she just always assumed if you're technically free that you're supposed to spend your free time on her.

I agree that just because someone is "free" doesn't mean they're obliged to spend that time on you. They can even be doing nothing in the sense that they're reading a book or watching a movie. They're allowed to do whatever they like with their free time.

[Cherylyn]

Since you've never met him and merely an online chatting buddy,  he doesn't need to reply to you on any timeline.  You're not in a relationship with him so there is no set tardiness for replying to you.  People who work all week are very busy on weekends with grocery shopping,  chores,  cooking,  laundry, housecleaning,  various errands and the like.  Perhaps his time is limited during his non-work hours.  Or, he needs to relax when he's not working and doesn't want to bother texting frequently. 

[Coily]

If you're actually friends, not just reply buddies, putting any time frame on a response is rather silly. I have freinds i don't see or talk to for months, but when we pick back up it's a grand time like always.

[Jibralta]

2 hours ago, Coily said:

If you're actually friends, not just reply buddies, putting any time frame on a response is rather silly. I have freinds i don't see or talk to for months, but when we pick back up it's a grand time like always.

Same here.

If the response is time-critical, it's a different story. But if it's just back-and-forth banter, I don't see a reason to impose a time-window for responding.

I don't know what 'reply buddies' are, but I wouldn't impose a time-window on that, either.

[Coily]

1 hour ago, Jibralta said:

I don't know what 'reply buddies' are, but I wouldn't impose a time-window on that, either.

Just made it up! haha Was thinking along the lines of pen pal texters.