Let me just start this off by saying a big ole I'm sorry on behalf of myself and everyone else who you know that sucks at texting back quickly. It's annoying and it sucks but hear me out.

To be completely honest, I was not always like this. When I was a freshman and sophomore in high school I was texting all day every day and I would not miss a text message. However, I feel like towards the lasts years of my high school experience I just gave up.

I was spending way too much time on my phone texting others, wherever it is that I was.

I would zone out so easily from real life conversations because I was answering a message and it was just not good. Not only that but I would be talking to the same person, having different conversations, through text and Snapchat (Just me? ok). So, I decided to cut back on my texting. I saw my friends from high school on a daily basis so there was no real need to be talking to them 24/7. And with the friends that didn't go to my high school, the texting continued but with slightly delayed answers on my part.

Now that I'm writing this I think one of the things that also played into this was social media. I felt like instead of asking people what they were up to - their Instagram or Snapchat story answered it for me and it was all just consuming my attention a little too much. By my senior year, I gave up on Snapchat as well. It had just become a place where you had streaks, but never had conversations. And the pressure to keep that streak going was legit.

So, I logged off.

Flash forward to my freshmen year of college. You tell your friends, yes I'll keep in touch, we'll FaceTime and text and etc. But they all knew me too well already. Most of my friends were already aware that I was a little bad at texting back so they were on my case about keeping in touch. But as time passed by, I was busy in college and going through a rough season of change in which I had zero motivation to text back the people who were just trying to stay in touch. My answers were so delayed that to be completely honest I feel like a lot of them just gave up. So, to all of you who I have completely lost connection during my freshmen year, I'm sorry.

OK, so what about now?

Why am I still not prompt at texting back, even though everything is thankfully, going well in my life? This isn't the response a lot of you would like to hear or maybe will even understand but I sometimes really do forget. And I know it sounds crazy but it's true! I will see the text message pop up, read it, and mentally know what I'm going to answer but I get myself distracted or say I'll do it later and by the time I remember it's been way too long. To just further defend myself, I would like to say that I am also genuinely really busy sometimes. I know it's a lame excuse but yes, life gets hectic and I just forget to text back.

I don't know if the friends in your life have the same reason as I do, but honestly, I'd encourage you to ask, because you honestly never know what they're going to respond.

And to all of the friends who have stuck by me through hours or days of delayed responses or even months of silence on my end, ya'll are the real ones. I know it's the worst and I hope you know, I'm genuinely not ignoring you. But thank you for sticking with me for all these years, and here's to many more!

PS: I'm not saying this is a good trait to have but I'm working on it.