Imagine sending a friend a text at night but they don’t respond.

Would you be worried about them, or would you assume they were busy doing something else and would get back to you later?

In this story, one woman is really annoyed that her friends seem to get upset when she doesn’t respond to texts immediately.

She has grown to resent her phone.

Keep reading to find out why.

AITA for not replying to messages as fast as I should

I am not a “phone person”.

I don’t like typing on touch screens, I don’t want to be constantly notified about things that snap me out of the moment, and I find constantly being contactable by anybody very stressful.

I understand there’s a social expectation that people should reply to messages right away or soon after getting them, but I cannot live this way.

Replying to messages results in more messages which also have the same expectation and the same pressure, which means I’m constantly having a conversation that never ends, and constantly worrying that I’m letting people down by not being attentive enough.

She ignores their phone most of the day.

But the truth is I didn’t agree to these expectations and don’t place them on other other people.

I just want to do my thing without feeling like I have to communicate constantly, and I don’t want to keep stopping whatever I’m doing to interact with a phone I don’t even want.

I don’t think this is unreasonable.

So my phone is always on DND, and people who might need to reach me in an emergency know that they can call me twice in succession and it will bypass DND.

I look at my phone throughout the day when it’s a good time and if I see a notification for something that looks like it warrants a faster response then I’ll prioritise it.

She likes streaming and considers viewers friends.

Last night I streamed for 6 hours.

It’s difficult to text during streaming as I’m juggling playing the game, interacting with viewers and making sure the tech works.

And my streaming community are my friends, I wanted to just hang out with them.

Now their boyfriend is apparently worried about them.

During the evening I got a text message from a friend. It wasn’t urgent but they were asking me a question.

I didn’t see the notification last night but I woke at 8am and replied to them immediately.

They then said I needed to get in touch with my bf to let him know I’m ok as I hadn’t said goodnight (he’d already texted goodnight so I knew he was asleep) and they were worried as I wasn’t replying.

I can’t live like this.

Was it really necessary to text back when they knew she was streaming at home safe and sound?

I was out of text communication for one evening and then went to sleep.

Both my bf and my friend knew I was at home and streaming so I’m not sure what they were worried about.

I’m in my 40s and live on my own, I’m an independant adult and don’t need to feel pressure to reassure people I’m safe and alive throughout a single day. I feel this is reasonable and I cant spend my whole conscious existence communicating or thinking about communicating or checking if I need to be communicating.

She is annoyed that nobody seems to care about their view.

Nobody ever asked me if I was ok with this kind of pressure but I feel shamed if I don’t “keep up”.

I get comments like “you never look at your phone” with an eye roll, which feels disrespectful.

I’ve tried to explain my point of view on all this but I still get comments about this, which makes me feel I’m doing something wrong here.

Since she shares that they’re in their 40s, that means they didn’t grow up in a world with cell phones.

The world has changed a lot in the last 40 years, and having a phone that can keep you connected all the time can be both a blessing and a curse depending how you look at it.

Can Reddit relate to how she feels about their phone?

Let’s read the comments.

This person can relate to how OP feels.

What really matters is that OP’s friend and boyfriend understand her POV.

It is ironic.

This person shares what it’s like to have a friend who hates phones.

Constant texts can be really distracting.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.