What is an acceptable time-lag to not hear from someone you were supposedly dating?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In mid-February, I got an e-mail from a woman I had last contacted in mid-Decembe of last year. I had not called her again because in my conversations with her, she had been acting rather strangely. She would just siton the phone, and not say anything. I interpreted this as her trying to tell me to back off a little. So I did.

Then, six weeks later, (i.e., in mid-Feb.)she just starts e-mailing me again. By then, I had assumed I would never hear from her agzain, and her message was not exactly welcome.

The question is: was I wrong to assume something was amiss, and not contact her? One might say I didn’t have enough justification in December, but doesn’t a six-week absence (The only explanation I’ve heard is that she was “busy”) prove in retrospect that I was right? And isn’t she a little “off” if she thinks just disappearing for a month and a half is no big deal?

2

“Busy” could likely mean she was getting more involved with someone else. And now that relationship has probably ended, so she’s looking into the other prospects she had back in December. That’s my take on it.

3

Perhaps asking her directly would be the best tactic. Then you wouldn’t have to guess, you’d know what was going on.

4

My policy: One year
My motto: “Hope springs Eternal”

5

As anyone who knows me can attest, I am no expert on this type of thing, but my vote would be NOT to ask her about what was going on.

I’m not totally sure what was going on back in December (and from your post I guess it wasn’t totally clear to you either). If this woman was your girlfriend–i.e., the two of you were dating exclusively, she had clothing at your house, the default was that you went out together at least one night each weekend, etc.–then it seems to me that a 6 week absence is a long time, and both of you need to talk about what happened.

OTOH, if this was somebody who you had maybe been out with once or twice, then I would not go in for a big discussion about anything.

To use an analogy that I may get flamed for, it’s kind of like you are trying to sell a car. Let’s say 6 weeks ago someone came to look at the car, and seemed interested, but then you didn’t hear any more from them. Let’s say it’s now 6 weeks later, and you still have the car for sale, and the person calls you up and says, hey, do you still have that car for sale? I would not advise saying to them “yeah, I do, but first, where were you for the past 6 weeks? I thought you were interested and then I never heard from you, what’s that about?” Instead I would say, “you know, as a matter of fact the car is still for sale. I’ve been really busy lately so I haven’t had time to sell it. If you’re still interested, do you want to come by this weekend and take a look at it?”

In other words, I think the first question is for you to decide if you are still interested. If you are, then just take it casually and pretend like nothing (or not much happened). You can just say, hey, great to hear from you, it’s been a while. Do you want to get together for dinner? (or some such).

One danger to watch out for: people like to have other people in orbit, and email is often their medium of choice for keeping others in orbit. They can send somebody an occasional email (often just forwarding them some joke or link or something) with little effort, but when it comes time to actually spending time with the person, they aren’t that into it.

What do they get out of this? Well, like I said, they can feel like somebody out there is into them, and they get the ego boost, and they also feel like they are keeping their options open.

I guess what I am saying is, if you are still interested in this girl, move the situation as quickly as you can to the point where you are actually spending time together, not just emailing headlines from the Onion back and forth for the next 6 months.

Constantine

6

As anyone who knows me can attest, I am no expert on this type of thing, but my vote would be NOT to ask her about what was going on.

I’m not totally sure what was going on back in December (and from your post I guess it wasn’t totally clear to you either). If this woman was your girlfriend–i.e., the two of you were dating exclusively, she had clothing at your house, the default was that you went out together at least one night each weekend, etc.–then it seems to me that a 6 week absence is a long time, and both of you need to talk about what happened.

OTOH, if this was somebody who you had maybe been out with once or twice, then I would not go in for a big discussion about anything.

To use an analogy that I may get flamed for, it’s kind of like you are trying to sell a car. Let’s say 6 weeks ago someone came to look at the car, and seemed interested, but then you didn’t hear any more from them. Let’s say it’s now 6 weeks later, and you still have the car for sale, and the person calls you up and says, hey, do you still have that car for sale? I would not advise saying to them “yeah, I do, but first, where were you for the past 6 weeks? I thought you were interested and then I never heard from you, what’s that about?” Instead I would say, “you know, as a matter of fact the car is still for sale. I’ve been really busy lately so I haven’t had time to sell it. If you’re still interested, do you want to come by this weekend and take a look at it?”

In other words, I think the first question is for you to decide if you are still interested. If you are, then just take it casually and pretend like nothing (or not much happened). You can just say, hey, great to hear from you, it’s been a while. Do you want to get together for dinner? (or some such).

One danger to watch out for: people like to have other people in orbit, and email is often their medium of choice for keeping others in orbit. They can send somebody an occasional email (often just forwarding them some joke or link or something) with little effort, but when it comes time to actually spending time with the person, they aren’t that into it.

What do they get out of this? Well, like I said, they can feel like somebody out there is into them, and they get the ego boost, and they also feel like they are keeping their options open.

I guess what I am saying is, if you are still interested in this girl, move the situation as quickly as you can to the point where you are actually spending time together, not just emailing headlines from the Onion back and forth for the next 6 months.

Constantine

7

She’s apparently not the cloying type. She’s not in a hurry to get into a relationship. She doesn’t like talking on the phone either.

What do you suspect? She had some torrid affair for a month and a half during the holidays instead of going home to see her folks? Get real. How long did you go out with her? What kind of job does she have?

You might ought to take her at her word (she really has been busy) and decide for yourself if you’re prepared to get involved with a woman who keeps herself busy and otherwise involved with stuff leaving less time to hold your hand.

On the other hand maybe she’s been sitting around watching I Love Lucy reruns and finally got bored making you the scapegoat.

How the hell should we know. We’ve not even talked at her on the phone. You have. Don’t you know?
It depends and that’s my final answer.

8

I would ask her, there’s no sense letting the unknown remain that way. Ask her, and then take her response as truth. If she gets strange again, then take it from there.

9

No, I still haven’t talked to her on the phone since late December!

I think some people are misunderstanding what I’m asking in this thread. I’m not asking “what could she have been doing?” I don’t care what she was doing! I think I’m perfectly justified in thinking her disappearance was a big deal. Like I said in my last e-mail to her: “Once you get above a month, you are well past the point of usiang the “I was busy” excuse. Nobody is too busy to e-mail or call someone they truly care about for a month and a half.”
I just wanted to know if others agree.

FTR, we had dated for maybe three months before, going on a total of maybe 7 dates. I had stayed over at her place maybe 5 times.

I e-mailed her something brief a few days ago, to the effect of “Why e-mail me NOW?” and got a (predictably) terse response. Apparently, she figured I was busy myself all through January, and that’s why she didn’t hear from me!

Maybe she just has a terminal lack of initiative. Her e-mail in mid-February was the first time she had tried to contact me in God knows how long. But I don’t find that very attractive, either.

10

Ask her. There could be lots of reasons. Maybe she has a hard time with relationships and is trying to get back into the swing of things (Maybe she had a past relationship that traumatized her and just finished counseling over it–who knows?) Since you hadn’t started dating before she disappeared, I’d say give her a chance.

Just pay attention; it’s also completely possible that she’s just a fruitcake.

11

Sounds like you don’t want to get back together with her – so don’t.

12

You are correct. I’m just trying to decide now if I want to part as friends or not.

13

Lizard, have you considered just not e-mailing her again? I mean, if you don’t want to know what she was doing, and you don’t want to get back together, why not use her tactic and just let it slide? She could hardly get mad at you for doing that, and if she did, you could just say you were “busy.”

14

Lizard, you ane making the classic relationship mistake: you are trying to determine what is “right” within a relationship by some sort of global, empirical yardsticks. Relationships don’t work like that: the terms vary and all that matters is that the parties involved agree. She feels this is resonable: you feel it isn’t. There’s no point is worrying about who is RIGHT: you both are, or neither of you are. Do whatever the hell you want: if you want to part as friends, part as friends. If you don’t want to make the effort, don’t. It’s not oyur job to be her friend if she deserves it OR to punish her if she has done wrong.

15

Dammit, I just typed a long description of own, very similar situation, and the Preview Reply screen timed out! :mad:

Suffice it to say, don’t ask her unless you’ve already established a friendly, mature, non-judgmental rapport. I’ve got that with this woman who pulled the same thing a while back (brief dating rapport followed by no contact, followed by out-of-the-blue New Year’s “What’s up, long-time-no-chat”), and I finally asked her:

“When we were going out last fall, I got the feeling that you were uncomfortable with something, and I’m curious what that was.”

She laughed about how that’s a conversation for another night, but that she had been meaning to talk to me and time simply slipped by. (Which was fine, as I met the love of my life two weeks after she stopped returning my phone calls. But given that the love of my life unceremoniously broke up with me last month right after my LSATs, however, I wouldn’t mind finding out if this particular girl might have a little less on her plate these days. :slight_smile: )

16

Hmm. How interesting. I say that because it precisely describes how I felt about my relationship with this woman, except reversed. That is, I was the one who was uncomfortable.
I know exactly what caused the discomfort, although it’s not something I will discuss here. But I know that internally, I have felt this relationship degrading for a while. I simply didn’t trust this woman or want to get close to her anymore.
I suppose it was just a matter of time. The incident we’re discussing, while valid in and of itself, merely supplied a convenient pretext to end it.

Manda JO, I think you’re right. Of course, now the deed is done.

Rubystreak, I’ve never really been a fan of that kind of thing. One of my character flaws is vindictiveness; I want someone to KNOW why I don’t like them. I’ll stick around just long enough to tell someone to eat shit (figuratively speaking). I’m not as bad as I used to be, though.

17

I’ve known people who flat-out just don’t say anything on the phone, it’s very irritating. Yet when you get in the same room as them they’re chatterboxes. Very odd. Maybe she fits in this category?