It's Why He Isn't Calling You

To The Girl Who Emailed Me About Whether Or Not She Should Call Because He's Not,

I understand your anxiety. I have been there counting down the days till he calls, waiting for my phone to ring and signify his want to hear my voice. I've experienced the twenty-six days gone by and still nothing freak out. Those times where your fingers keep drifting towards the phone, they want to dial his number, but you've warned them that such behavior could get you hooked again.

But based on what you've told me it sounds like you gave away too much information too soon . This is why he hasn't returned your calls, and barely acknowledges your emails. If he does call you back, I'll bet you'll let slip that you’re upset by his behavior. Then, puzzled by the changing moods of his conversation you'll began to talk too much – rattling on about inane subjects just to fill the silence and the awkward moments in an last ditch effort to sustain this flailing conversation. I promise you that nothing good will come of that besides you instantly beginning to feel ill.

But if you do as most will anyway, remember the moment you started feeling ill because it's stemming from the dank, dark place in the pit of your stomach where all your insecurities dwell, just waiting to be regurgitated because you've come to the realization that you lost your cool points.

Don't feel bad, we women understand that the sheer emotion of liking a guy can somehow coax you into divulging more information in one sitting than he would have in an entire lifetime. It leaves you scrambling to try and remember all you said, what effect that had on him, what he might have been thinking about you as he listened to you ramble on, worse yet, how he views you now that he knows the whole shebang. And while you have eagerly divulged personal information, you'll find that afterwards, to recall anything he's said you’d have to scrape together his wanton words in order to make a complete sentence.


I think we get caught up on the sentiments, it's as if they were candy conversation heart messages. Packaged and disguised in array of pretty colors, they might as well be ‘artillery in a box’. The person you’re speaking with pulls back the tab on their box and drops one out; each piece a well sculpted curvature sent in to use as a smoke screen, fogging the brain. You’re dazed and can’t see through the well-scripted little phrases: “you’re cute,” “I love you,” “call me.” The more they use the more body blows they deliver. Eat enough of those and you’ll soon see they turn into chalk in your mouth; you’ll wind up scraping your tongue for the next half and hour.

Try to remember that too much information can be overwhelming and suffocating. Information about oneself should be dispensed over a goodly amount of time, to retain that fresh, oh so interesting viewpoint in their eyes.

So no, you're not going to fall to pieces if you don't hear from him…it's merely our vanity of wanting to be acknowledged that arouses those feelings. Just do yourself a favor and wait to hear from him first. Put yourself on a telephone strike – which is to say strike yourself with the telephone whenever the slightest urge to call him crosses your mind.

And the next time you talk, only reveal as little as humanly possible - keep some mystery alive there. Promise yourself that you’ll speak in as many words and syllables as released from the other person’s mouth, in order to gain even footing. Don’t allow the sound of their voice to make you become oh-so loosey-goosey. That fate will have them knowing the ABC’s of your entire world and you’ll somehow have only a fortune cookie idea of them…you’ll know everything and nothing at all. Give him sometime to digest what you've put out there.

*photo from Post Secret