What message are you trying to send when you leave a message unanswered?

This is a question on my mind lately as I navigate the waters 1 year after trying to reconnect with friends. Everyone had changed externally except for me; along with the way we were was the way we communicate. None of the friendships easily picked up where they left off. Just about all were easily abortable.

But I hung on by a few loose threads...of electronic communication.

With a a new venture ahead of me, I am trying to filter through the madness.

I mostly email or use G-chat messages to communicate with people outside of the office (for reasons related to my sanity).  Personal emails or messages go unanswered for days, weeks, in the case of one - months.

I don't mind following up because I think it's funny to disrupt whatever message people think they are trying to convey and see what they do. But if I am to pursue any sort of lasting relationship with these people, I need to know what the silence means?

I get it - you're all moms, you're busy. 

“You create for people an environment where they feel as though they could be responded to instantaneously, and then people don’t do that. And that just has anxiety all over it,” says Sherry Turkle, the director of the Initiative on Technology andSelf at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I've been approaching the follow-ups differently. Instantly offended. Then moving on and following-up anyway because sometimes I have nothing else to do. Quickly forgiven because I know they're busy and that would be their excuse anyway. Simultaneously remembering this is why we stopped being friends anyway -  our friendship (and thus I) stopped being a priority.  It stings.  They're just not that into me. Surreptitiously reminding myself that person can never return to an inner circle of friendship. Instantly reminded that the circle no longer exists. Bouncing back to why I contacted them anyway - I just craved some interaction with human life. Is this still a safe thing for me to do emotionally, if I keep coming back to this negative emotional space? 

Then I read this from The Atlantic.

“I think people react strongly to [the protagonist] because he radically rejected everything that is supposed to make us happy—meaningful relationships, a fulfilling career, material comfort—yet he was content in the woods.”

Then I reflect. Why am I pursuing this thing again when I already know the outcome - me, the single girl, last one on the totem pole, ignored, unheard, unseen. How am I getting sucked back into this cycle? And I am empowered again to continue this life alone...until the next bout of free time with nothing to do with my hands.