not returning electronic communication

Post Reply New Topic

There is something I have noticed with my so called friends and acquaintances that really upsets me. When ever I send them a message (both via e-mail and Facebook), write on someone's Facebook wall, try to add them as a Facebook friend or try to correspond with people electronically, people never seem to return or even acknowledge my correspondence. I find this to be very rude. I also notice that it seems to happen more with people from my past than people I am associated with today.

Does anyone else have this problem and how do you deal with it? Do you let it go? Do you bug people to get them to correspond? Or do you do something else to get a responce?

I thought I better respond to this topic quick in case you thought noone would respond haha
Yep Im exactly the same to the point of I get paranoid if someone doesnt respond and I immediately think I did or said something wrong or they hate me or whatever.
Even on message boards I will sit and hit the refresh button until I get a response.
I just think we have to let go and realise that it probably happens to everyone...we just maybe take it too personally.
Especially on message boards if I am the last person to post and the thread just dies I always think "oh no! I killed the thread"! !

People usually don't ignore my personal messages but they do tend to ignore my wall posts. That was kind of hurtful...I would look at my wall and have a list of posts I made (and not excessive either) with no replies, whereas everyone else had at least one reply to most of their posts, or at least a "likes this".

So I just stopped posting.

Granted, I do have a significant fewer number of friends than most of them, and a lot of my "friends" aren't really close friends....

I do tend to notice on online forums my posts generally get a low number of replies compared to the posts of others and I don't know why this is. It's possible that I just post more because though I'm quite verbal, I have a communication barrier with verbal speech from a processing issue and can't really convey myself very well through means of communication other than text. So I have a lot to say and not much of a way to say it except for through text.

But a lot of times I just feel that perhaps I'm on a different page than a lot of people because my mind isn't playing by the same rules.

At times I'm not sure if others really care for my participation or value what I have to say because of it but I was never "in" anyway, so to speak. I've been quite socially isolated most of my life, by NT standards.

Part of what you're talking about is why I don't like sites like Facebook and Twitter. I don't think a LOT of stuff gets responded to. I suspect some who are more NT than me just talk for the sake of talking, and what I think is quite frankly exhibitionism. I have no interest in doing that. I would feel SO naked, and it's not a comfortable thought.

For me, a blog, a forum, or e-mail is just right because to me, if I can't make a complete point, and if there ISN'T a point in saying something, then unless it's deliberate, outright silliness (like in the Off the Wall section of this forum), I'm not interested.

With e-mail, I personally hold to the rule that unless a person has stated up front on their site or in person that their response time will run longer than 24 hours, OR an expectation of a slower response has been set for other reasons (as is true for one friend of mine with anxiety issues), OR a person has not sent a quick "I'm busy, and I'm afraid I can't get to this quickly" e-mail within 24 hours...I consider that rude. Maybe I'm too strict, though. Personally, if I don't answer or at least acknowledge I have your message within 24 hours, I consider myself as having some apologies to make, and as soon as I get in contact with that person I will definitely apologize for the slow response.

Except within Aspie circles which is where I'm in an established community, or in commercial and official correspondence, this is exactly what happens to me in almost every online communication be it chat, IM or e-mail. If anyone whom I contact recreationally on the Internet, i.e. outside my community and not being contacted for commercial or official purposes DOES respond, it's going to be the morbidly obese people based in extremely geographically isolated places. Even if you're hale and hearty, not returning your communications is downright rude.

I have to admit, this is not a problem with everybody. Most people are good about returning correspondence.

This behavior centers more around people who were friends and acquaintances in the past. I usually send them a message via e-mail or Facebook or a wall post via Facebook and they don't respond. Even when people have acknowledged what I am doing, the conversation usually loses Even though I am not wordy about this, I bring up my special interest (my community's flood recovery) since it has defined me over the last couple of years. Maybe people are not interested and/or do not know how to respond or even believe me.

Lastly, a couple of these people I have had some problems with the friendship/acquaintanceship in the past. I am lucky that one of them even accepted my friend request on Facebook.

I do agree, not responding or acknowledging one's correspondence is rude.

I'm the exact opposite of this. I don't consider there to be any time limit at all. That's one of the things I like about message boards and email -- unlike the phone or face-to-face communications, there is no pressure to respond immediately.

Also, there's no real way of knowing why a response takes longer than expected, unless you know them in real life or have some other communication method. They might be on vacation for a few weeks, come back and forget their email password or something. Or they might have decided that they don't like facebook anymore, so they haven't logged in to check their messages. Also, not every message needs to have a response (some do more than others).

That said, if someone is not responding when you send something directly to them, but they do bother to respond to other people, that is definitely rude.

A forum is different, to me.

But more personal forms of communication...I just think it's rude not to reply if anything of substance is required as a response.

This is very inpolite indeed. I usually ignore them and never speak with them again. What I also find very rude on MSN is people not replying for hours, in the middle of a conversation with quick replies and eventually saying something like ''ye'' even when it makes no sense at all as a reply. I never speak to some again because of this.

I wouldn't take it too personally. It's rudeness by laziness. They don't INTEND to hurt you, or be inpolite. They simply don't bother to do the least.