What to Do When a Woman From a Dating App Does Not Reply to Your Text?

Wait a day or two, send one light follow-up that says something new, and then give your attention to your other matches. Do not send a stack of messages asking if she saw the first one. On dating apps, silence is common and usually has a dull reason, such as a busy week or a phone she put down. The way you handle it decides whether you look relaxed or needy.

There are three, and the right move differs for each.

The first is silence after your opening message, before she has said anything. The second is silence in the middle of a chat that was going well. The third is silence after you suggested meeting or after you swapped numbers and made a plan.

The earlier the silence, the less it means about you. A woman who never answered your first message may have been swamped, may have seen it at a bad time, or may simply not be interested. A woman who was chatting happily and then stopped has more of a reason to be forgiven for a lull.

Her phone is not your phone. She may open the app twice a week, she may have a lot of unread messages, and she may take a long time to get to yours.

a dating coach's rule is to avoid piling on. If you realize you worded a text badly and send a correction five minutes later, you point out your own mistake, and it comes across as needy. His advice is to leave every real chance for her to answer before you send anything else. Even a text that was not great often gets a reply anyway, and the moment passes if you let it.

So start by doing nothing for a day or two, and spend the time on other conversations.

After a decent wait, one follow-up is fair. Make it different from the first. Do not ask whether she got your text, and do not ask why she has not answered.

Pick something new that is easy to answer, and keep it short. If she mentioned a trip, ask how it went. If her page shows a dog, say something about the dog. If you think of a thing that made you laugh and that she would like, send that. The point is to give her a fresh reason to reply, not to remind her that she has not.

coach makes a related point about rejection in general. If a certain kind of opener keeps getting no answer, repeating it will not change anything, so try a different approach next time. The same goes for a follow-up. A second message that copies the first adds nothing.

Silence is more awkward once you have agreed to meet.

coach says that if you have plans and she goes quiet as the day nears, you should send one more message to confirm before the time of the date. She may have missed the text, forgotten to answer it, or just need a reminder, and a short check-in raises the chance of the date happening. Keep it light and a little funny, and do not mention that she went quiet.

If she still does not reply and the time passes, do not call her out. My point is that you might be right about her manners, but complaining only makes her glad she stayed home. In his example he sent a calm, friendly note without blame, and she wrote back to apologize and explained what had happened.

Do not send messages that ask whether you did something wrong, or that call her rude, or that tell her what she missed. Each one makes it less likely that a chat which might have come back will come back.

Do not send three messages in a row on the same day. A wall of one-sided messages looks needy and a little scary to the woman reading it.

Do not switch to another app or look her up elsewhere to get around her silence. That is the quickest way to turn mild interest into discomfort.

After the follow-up, let it go. Keep her in the back of your mind in case she replies a week later, and answer warmly if she does.

Meanwhile, keep several conversations going, so that no single silence matters much. Suppose the same gap shows up again and again, with chats that die after a few messages. Look at your messages and ask whether they give a woman something easy and fun to answer. Short, specific, a little playful and aimed at a detail on her page usually do better than "hey, how's your week going?"