If you were offline, there was no away message, and no way to send you a message at all. Away messages were really useful, because without them someone would have to literally sit at their chat window when you were online and wait for you to respond. Remember that back in the day your computer was not online 24/7/365. Messaging stays asynchronous and that's how it's designed. That allows me to enjoy and focus on them better. I do not answer non urgent stuff when I'm actually with other people in real life. If anything urgent happens they will call. If you are spending time with someone or watching a movie, just don't check out your phone. If I propose something to a friend who usually answers the last minute and something else come up, I consider I can cancel with this last minute friend so I don't let their rules eat me neither.ĭon't let the phone or the computer control you. If they miss something, their loss at the end, but usually I think they see the message quite fast so that does not happen. Some friends take days to answer, I adapt. I'm quite responsive myself usually but I fully expect most of my friends to answer in a few hours or even the next day, and if they answer fast, that's neat but not expected. I know few people who actually expect others to be able to answer fast any time. If you feel pressure from message (notifications) to answer, that's probably something you can learn to manage and let go. It's probably fine to take hours or even wait the next day to answer a text. Just answer however you feel like doing this and people will have no choice to catch up anyway.

Never told them but I have not had issues so far. I definitely know for most of my friends how they are responsive in what situation and I'm fine with their different rules. It seems like you should be able to make the call on what people should expect wrt your responsiveness.

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