I wish more people didn’t act like having a phone and internet access means you are / should be available 24/7

like when I was dating my ex, I would sometimes look at my phone in the morning to find a barrage of texts he’d sent at 2am while having an anxiety attack, but the last 5 texts would be him upset with me for not responding … like bruh I was asleep, my phone was off, wake up your roommate next time or call a hotline if you need actual assistance instead of texting your girlfriend who is physically not anywhere near you and also not conscious

I’ve had people get on my case for not responding within an hour or two of messaging me. not considering that perhaps I was in class, or at work, or doing homework, or maybe even just taking a little time to myself where I don’t have to interact with people. heck, sometimes I’ll go a whole day without looking at my phone because I have other stuff I need to get done, and this is treated like a crime. as though having a phone means I’m contractually obligated to have it on my person and on alert all the friggin time. I’m not. and I don’t.

being online doesn’t obligate me to interact with anyone either. and online/offline status isn’t a proper indicator of activity to begin with. maybe I have an app running in the background but I muted it to avoid distraction. or maybe I was using my phone for something important so I swiped your message away without reading it, making it look like I suddenly went offline. maybe I have tumblr open in a separate tab and simply forgot about it. maybe I read your message in the one minute it took me to walk from lunch to my block class and I can’t respond for at least the next 3 hours. 

maybe these are all things that people should be allowed to do. maybe, just maybe, people should be allowed to portion their time and resources the way they need instead of catering to the impatience of others.

also read receipts are highly intrusive and they need to die