There’s this trend that I’ve started to notice. I’ve gotten on social media and seen people say things like “If you don’t respond to me now, I won’t respond to you either” or “You took three minutes to text me back, so I’ll take 3 days to even open up your message.”

People get mad at their friends or significant others for being active on social media instead of immediately responding to their message, and praise themselves for being “petty”, when that shouldn’t be something to be proud of to begin with.

This isn’t healthy.

I don’t mean this in a “hurr durr technology bad and taking over the world and ruining socialization between human beings” kind of way, but in a “we need to understand that everyone has a life and some people just don’t have the energy to respond or simply don’t even know that they received a message.” It’s bordering on being manipulative, and sometimes people go beyond that line.

People have days where they just don’t want to talk.

People have mental illnesses that drain their energy faster than others, and can’t muster up enough of that energy to make conversation.

People are busy.

People are more than someone you’re talking to on a screen, especially if you know them in real life.

If you feel so entitled that you think others can’t indulge in small things like writing a tweet or  doing anything that doesn’t involve talking to you, you need to take a minute to sit back and reflect.

There’s no excuse for it.

You can give that person time or text them later. By ignoring them, you could be sending off many red flags: you don’t want to be friends with them, you’re angry at them; you could stress them out or make them think that you’ve cut them off for good, all because you want to be petty.

It’s childish and could hurt not only your friend but you as well, because you have potentially lost a relationship that won’t be mended.