A straight gut-check

Should I text first?

The "who texts first" game is usually anxiety dressed up as strategy. If you want to talk to them and there's no real reason not to, texting first costs you nothing but pride — and pride is a bad reason to miss someone in silence.

The one time to hold back: if you're ALWAYS the one reaching, and you genuinely need to see whether they ever will. That's not a game — that's information you deserve.

These are the patterns — your situation has its own details. Tell Sided what happened and it gives you a straight, private read: are you overreacting, reading it right, or missing something.

More gut-checks

• Am I overreacting
• tell if someone is mad at you over text
• stop overthinking a text
• it normal to fight this much
• hasn't he (or she) texted back
• he (or she) losing interest