The World According to... Boring John

Assuming you are not that virtuous, so you do not have an ulimited amount of patience, what do you do (and how do you react) to the following situation:

You've just texted/emailed/phoned your [Mum/brother/friend/lover/someone you fancy - consider each option, separately] and they haven't replied back yet -- and you want them to reply -- even though it's been several days/weeks/months, respectively.

How do you react?

Do you react differently if your Mum snubs you compared with your lover?

Can your best friend ignore you and it doesn't matter at all but if your brother forgets to phone back well, that's a completely different matter.

And if you contact that special person you've just started fancying, are you mortified that he/she seems to be ignoring you.

I know what my answers are.

I am an impatient bugger, alas!

So I know that I react differently depending on how well I know the person and how typical 'being ignored' is, or what 'other stuff' that person has to deal with at the time.

If you're reading this and thinking 'hey, just get a life man!' then I hear you, don't worry. However, this affects you too -- unless you are special and have an unlimited amount of patience and wisdom -- and you'd be lying if you don't think it does.

I've found the biggest factor in how patient (or otherwise) I've been in the above situations is how comfortable I am in that particular relationship, and so how rational my fear is.

Having said that, I dialled a wrong number once when trying to contact my girlfriend and was convinced that she'd been kidnapped or some other grisly thing had happened to her. Only took 5 minutes of thinking, too.

--

By the way, you really should react the same way to everybody.

But then you knew that, didn't you (*).

* Note to myself: who do you think you are kidding BJ? There's no bug*er reading this but you!