How are you for getting back to people when they message you?

I am pretty good about getting back to them in a timely manner.:)

Within a couple of days.

I don’t have a lot of high expectations for people responding to me. I understand that life can get busy.

I usually get back right away! :)

I’m terrible at it. I go three or four days without checking my email and my mom doesn’t even have my cell phone number.

And if you just say something in a email I will not respond. I don’t care that my aunt is running a bake sale for her church. If she asks if I can help with the bake sale I will respond.

I did enough of the “I love you” “I love you more” crap in high school.

I respond almost immediately. It’s very irritating when you don’t hear back from people, because it usually involves some situation in which I need to re-arrange my schedule. It aso puts you in the awkward position of not knowing whether they actually got your message (for whatever reason) and then deciding whether you should contact them again, but then you have to feel kind of like an idiot if it turns out that you are bothering them.

I’ve always been prompt with both work and personal messages. I was raised that to do otherwise was considered rude. Even if you have to drop a super-short message that says that you are busy, right at the moment, but you will get back to them in detail on such and such a day or time.

Bad. Very bad. Sometimes I never even get back to people. Some days I’m just not up for it. Other days I’m not on the computer, or my phone, much. As such, if someone doesn’t get back to me, I have no right to complain. I only get annoyed if the issue is time sensitive.

I think pretty quick.

I guess that I find it the same as showing up late. It is rude. Like when you’re late, their time doesn’t matter. You know?

That’s just me.

Says the queen of late.

@Jude I find those to be very seperate things in my life.

When I have a scheduled event, I’m on time. If someone calls me with an impromptu gathering, I try to make it as close to the time set as possible.

When someone emails me…unless they say it’s urgent and it truly is I may take days or even a week to get back to them. If they get their undies in a bundle over it…that is their issue, not mine. I have to prioritize & triage my daily life.

I connect with a small number of family and friends so it is easy. Often, when my sister and I don’t feel like long chats, we email each other (sometimes several times a day.)

I do a lot of screening so that helps. I would never let more than two days go by without some sort of contact.

@tinyfaery I’m working on it. :)

I usually contact them as soon as I am able. If it I see it will take too long for me to get some time for this I just take 5 and get back at them.
When I try to get in touch with someone and he doesn’t call back or announce in a way I do not mind it. I wait as long as it takes.

I’m pretty good about it. Unless I don’t want to talk to you, then I’m really bad about it. Hey, it’s the truth.

@ANef_is_Enuf Yep. That’s true for me, too.

@Jude Some people are fine with a text, or a quick email reply…some are not. Some are fine with a 2 to 5min phone call…some refuse to let you go. I get right back to the quick reply peeps. Those that need more from me tend to get less.

Make sense?

If it’s my closest friend, I get back as soon as I possibly can. If it’s my wife, I get back as soon as I can, but I might take an extra bit of time to get something done first. If it’s my kids—as soon as possible. If it’s the inner circle of friends I will get back within at day or two usually, but sometimes I’ll wait until I see them next, unless my wife nags me to call them back.

If someone emails me, I am most likely to get back immediately, if it is an important email. If it is an announcement or something, or something impersonal, I’ll likely not pay it any attention. If it’s my parents I try to get back within a day.

I’m more likely to email or text back. I don’t like the phone except for about three people in the world. Anyone else, I’d do anything to avoid having to call them. I didn’t used to be like this, but I am now.

It generally has to do with how much I care about the person and how important they are (two different things) and what mode of communication they are using.

I try to keep up but there are times I want to write something a bit longer and after serious organizing of thoughts and that time passes, leaving me to feel like a bad friend.

Message me and find out!

Does this include PM’s, Jude?

:)

It depends on my mood.

… .... hmm. .....

wow guys, I think I am the worst one here then. I have messages on my Orkut from family since April that I never bothered to respond. On average it takes up to two months before I start feeling bad that I never responded. Most of the time however I never respond. Its not because I don’t have time, its because I simply hate having to take the time to respond to all those greetings and stuff. I suck at it, but it bites me in the ass at the end; I don’t receive much happy birthday messages because of this :/

Less than 24 hours.

I try to be good about that stuff but sometimes with all of the best intentions I just forget. I blame it on chemo-brain as I used to be anal about getting back to people as soon as possible. From the sublime to the ridiculous, I guess. Or, rather, from the ridiculous to the ridiculous.

BTW, @Jude, I PMed you yesterday! ;-P

I remember thinking for the first year I was on Fluther that a certain member didn’t like me because they hadn’t responded to multiple PM’s. After a few tries you just assume they don’t want to talk to you, am I right? For some members this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but for others that I really like, this bums me out.

I decided to send one more PM straight up asking “Did I ever say anything that you took offense to? Just wondering, because I’ve sent you multiple PM’s over the last year…but you’ve never replied :)”.

Lo and behold I got a nice PM back that said “You’ve never offended me. I’m just terrible at answering. I like you :)” I’m paraphrasing, of course. I doubt it sounded this high school-ish.

This person has gone on to become one of my favorite people on this site, someone I would consider a good friend.

The point of it all? Don’t give up on other people, and try not to flake so much on getting back to others :)

This thread gave me a tickle to answer a PM that I had forgotten about. But I was only three days delinquent.

Occasionally it is overwhelming. I have been asked to write poetry, a term paper, criticize poetry and translate a French ode written for the 1912 winter Olympics. (Nine verses. I thought that was a little nervy.)

Unless I’m avoiding you or I don’t get the message right away, I’ll usually respond immediately back to a person. I (almost) always have my phone on me.
I don’t mind when people don’t get back to me right away, however if I’m in a rush and need something urgently I get frustrated/anxious/impatient pretty easily.

Usually same day.

Usually within 24 hours or less. If I get a message now, for example, I respond immediately.

If you don’t respond to Shinyshoes in a timely manner he hunts you down…lol

@FutureMemory black leather shiny shoed feet shuffling….walking right behind ya….watch out! Lol.

I hardly ever call people back. I don’t know why, and I know it’s awful. When people call me I’ll usually text them back later. I’ve always hated talking on the phone.
I get back to texts the same day almost always, though sometimes it won’t be for a few hours at least because I tend to just leave my cell phone on the charger and pay no mind to it. I don’t sign into facebook very regularly. I check my tumblr messages pretty much every day, but I only know maybe two people on there offline.

As far as people not responding to me – I don’t let it get to me; would be pretty hypocritical! The only time it annoys me is if the person and I had plans to speak at a certain time, or if something is going on that needs to be discussed (like we need to talk about plans that are happening that day, etc). Even I will answer my phone if I know it’s something time sensitive.

Family and friends? Pretty good (assuming we’re on good terms). 24 hours, less if it’s easy and fun or about something urgent. But if it’s something that requires more energy, or puts me in a bit of a mood, less so. Various methods of communication are better for getting a quick response. And how urgent your message is really does matter: a question about meeting for dinner tonight will be answered muuuuch faster than a question about if I could please pick up some of those pickling cucumbers at the next farmer’s market.

Fluther? Not so great. I forget a LOT, and I wish it would let me change messages to read and unread manually.

Fluther? Not so great. I forget a LOT, and I wish it would let me change messages to read and unread manually.

YES.