It is late, and you are looking at a thread. You are scrolling up, not really reading, just checking. Who sent the last message. Who sent the one before that. How long the gap was. You are doing arithmetic you would be embarrassed to admit to.
Then the question arrives, the one you have never said out loud to another living person. If I stopped texting first, would they ever text me? After all these years you genuinely do not know, and that is the part that sits in your chest. If you are stuck in a one sided friendship, here is a way through that does not cost you the person.
In This Article
The Arithmetic You Do Before You Send Anything
Let me say back what you have noticed, so you know you are not inventing it. You check who messaged last before you send anything, so you do not look desperate. You know their surgery date. You know how the interview went. You remember their mother’s name and you ask about her. And if you think honestly about the last three years, you cannot find one time they asked a real question about your life and then waited for the answer.
Every dinner and every coffee happened because you organized it. A we should get together soon has been sitting in that thread since last February, and you both meant it, and neither of you has mentioned it since. The confusing part is that when you do see her, it is good. She seems happy you came, and then five more months go by.
Why the Hurt Has Nowhere to Stand
You have written the honest message twice and deleted it both times, and here is why. Nothing has happened. There is no fight and no betrayal, nothing you could explain to a third person without sounding small. She is always lovely to me. She has never done a single thing wrong. She just never texts first. It sounds like nothing. It sounds like you counting.
So the hurt never gets to stand anywhere, and it piles up anyway. A hurt does not need your permission to accumulate. You explain it away, and you have gotten very good at it. She is busy. Everybody is busy. She has the kids and the job and something she is going through. Some of that is probably true. But underneath the explaining is a quieter conclusion you have been drawing about yourself, that you care more than she does, and that if you loosened your grip even slightly the whole thing would quietly stop existing.
What the Silent Test Really Costs
Which brings us to the thing you have already thought about doing. Stopping. Not a fight, nothing dramatic, just not sending the next one to see how long the silence goes. Some of you have done it, and you found out. Eight months. Eleven months. A birthday that passed with nothing.
Now you have your answer, and you also do not have a friend. That is what the test costs. It buys information you could have gotten in a five minute conversation, and it charges you the friendship to get it. And it still does not tell you the one thing you actually wanted to know, which is why. Before you do that, look at a moment in Luke.
Where Are the Other Nine?
Ten men with a disease that had put them outside their own town shouted to Jesus for mercy from a distance. He told them to go and show themselves to the priests, which was the procedure.
“When Jesus saw them, He said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were on their way, they were cleansed.”Luke 17:14
All ten were healed while they walked. One turned around.
“When one of them saw that he was healed, he came back, praising God in a loud voice.”Luke 17:15
Then Jesus asked a question out loud in front of everyone.
““Were not all ten cleansed?” Jesus asked. “Where then are the other nine?”Luke 17:17
Hold two things about that at the same time. The nine were not villains. Jesus had told them to go to the priests, and they went. They were doing exactly what they were told and getting on with their lives, and most people who do not reciprocate are not scheming against you. They are just going about their day. The second thing is that Jesus named it anyway. He did not smile and say it was fine. He said the number out loud, and He did not take the healing back from a single one of them. He named the imbalance and stayed generous, both at once. That is harder than either extreme, and it is what I want for you.
Which Kind of Quiet Is This?
So the first question is not should I quit. It is which kind of quiet this is. Some quiet is seasonal: a new baby, a diagnosis, a parent they are caring for, a marriage coming apart, a stretch of depression where answering a message feels like lifting a car. In that season the imbalance is not a verdict, and you go first for a while. That is what friendship is for.
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”Proverbs 17:17
Some quiet is not seasonal. It has been the shape of the friendship for eight years, through their good seasons and hard ones and yours. And there is a third possibility that is far more common than people think. Some people are simply bad at initiating. They are not cold or indifferent, it just genuinely does not occur to them. They are delighted every time you call, and they tell other people you are among their favorite people in the world, and they still never pick up the phone. Being bad at reaching out is not the same as not caring, though from the outside the two look identical. There is only one way to find out which you have, and it is not silence. If you are still building friendships from scratch, how to make real friends as an adult may help too.
The Eleven Second Message
The only way to find out is to say it, which almost nobody does because it feels enormous. So let me make it smaller. Do not bring the list. The moment it becomes a case, they start defending themselves instead of hearing you, and you spend the whole conversation arguing about a dinner in March. No ultimatum, and no score. Something much closer to this: I have noticed I am usually the one who gets in touch. I am not keeping count, and I am not upset with you. I just miss you, and I would love it to go both ways.
Short, warm and true. It will feel like an enormous thing to say, and it takes about eleven seconds. I cannot promise how it goes. Some people are startled, because everything was fine from where they stood, and they pick up an oar. Some say sorry and nothing changes, which is its own answer. Some get defensive, which usually tells you the most of all.
You may discover that a friendship you thought was close is actually fond. Fond is not nothing. Some people will be fond of you always and will never be the ones who show up, and Scripture leaves room for loving them at the distance they actually keep.
“If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.”Romans 12:18
If the silence has hurt because you have been grieving alone, our article on grieving singleness as a Christian speaks to that loss nobody lets you name.
Somewhere You Are Somebody’s Nine
There is one more thing I have to say, because it would be dishonest to leave it out. Somewhere out there you are somebody’s nine. There is a person who has reached out to you for years, and you have been glad every time, and you have never once gone first. Not because you do not love them, but because you have been tired or busy or underwater, and it did not occur to you. That should make you gentler with the friend you have been counting, and it should make you pick up your phone about someone else entirely.
Name It Without Letting It Rot
Near the end of his life Paul stood on trial and wrote about it plainly.
“At my first defense, no one stood with me, but everyone deserted me. May it not be charged against them.”2 Timothy 4:16
Here is a man who spent his life pouring himself out for others, standing in a room with nobody in it. He does not pretend it did not happen. He says it in writing, and it is still sitting there two thousand years later. Then he refuses to carry it as a grudge. Both. Name it, and do not let it rot in you. If a grudge is already forming, how to forgive someone who never apologized is worth reading, and feeling misunderstood and unseen reminds you that God understands when no one does.
So, would they text you? I do not know. But I would rather you found out with a sentence than with an experiment. This week, send the eleven second message, not the list. Then look around, because while you have been rowing, someone has probably been reaching out to you, and you have been too tired to notice.
Let me pray with you. God, some of us are tired of being the one who tries. We have been counting quietly for years and have never said a word to anyone. Give us the nerve to say one honest sentence to someone we love, without a list and without a fight. Help us be patient with the ones in a hard season, and honest about the ones who never were. And thank you that you have never once needed us to go first with you. Amen.
