What Time Is Best to Text a Woman?

The best time to text a girl is when she can pick up her phone and answer you right then. For most women with a regular job that is early evening, after work and before she settles in for the night. Mornings are fine if she is awake, and the middle of the night is the one window to avoid. If you know her schedule, use it. If you do not, her own replies will show you.

My rule is simple: text when she can actually respond. If she gets your text in a meeting, she puts the phone down and forgets. Now you are waiting, and the waiting pushes you toward a second text, which is the needy move you were trying to avoid.

He tells a story about this. He once sent the same text that always worked to a long list of women while he was travelling in an odd time zone. Almost nobody replied. When he thought it through, he realised it had arrived while they were all asleep, and his response rate was a small fraction of normal. The text was fine. The timing was the whole problem.

A short text before the working day starts is safe if she is likely awake. The trap is sending something that needs a thoughtful answer when she is rushing out of the door.

If you text early, make it something that needs no reply: a joke, a photo, "Good luck with the exam today." If she wakes up late on weekends, a text at 7am on a Saturday lands on a sleeping phone, and by the time she sees it, it has been buried by everything else.

Do not text much while she is working, unless she has told you she has a flexible job or she is texting you first. My advice is that a woman with a busy workday is not on her phone, so you wait until she is off.

Lunchtime is a gentle exception. A single light line around midday can get a quick answer and cost her nothing.

Between roughly the end of her workday and an hour or two before bed, most women are home, relaxed and on their phone. This is the time slot where a playful text gets a playful answer.

It is also the right time to ask about plans, because she has time to think about her week and check her calendar. If you want her to reply quickly to a date invitation, send it at a moment when she is not about to board a train.

Texting very late at night has two problems. She may be asleep, and her phone may stay silent until morning. Then your text sits in a pile of other notifications, and My point applies: you are a lot less likely to get an answer.

The second problem is what it signals. A text after midnight can read as "I have nothing better to do" or as a hint at something you may not intend. If you truly are talking with her late because she is awake and chatting, that is fine. If you are starting the conversation, wait for morning or evening.

As for what time is too early, the answer is before she normally wakes up. If you do not know when that is, anything before eight in the morning on a day off is a gamble.

You do not need to guess. Pay attention to when she replies fastest. If she answers within minutes at 6:30 in the evening and takes hours in the afternoon, you have your answer.

You can also just ask: "When are you most awake and least busy? I'll try not to text in the middle of your day." This is easy, a little funny, and tells her you are considerate.

A great text at a bad hour beats a poor text at a good one. The structure matters more than the clock:

1. Keep it to one idea, two at most.
2. Make it something she can answer in a line.
3. Leave some space between your texts and hers, and do not reply within seconds on every occasion.

Once you are seeing each other, the rules relax. A woman who likes you will answer when she can, and you will learn her rhythm by dating her.

Start with early evening, avoid sleep hours, and let her replies correct you.