She texted me first: “wyd.” I replied, “About to shower, wyd?” And that was the conversation. A brief exchange, featuring one question, one return question, and an unexpectedly prominent role for personal hygiene.
At the time, my answer seemed pretty ordinary. She asked what I was doing; I said what I was about to do. I also asked about her, which felt like a reasonable contribution to the continued existence of the conversation.
Then she never answered. There wasn’t any strange read-receipt situation to puzzle over, either. Just silence. Naturally, I began wondering whether I’d somehow mishandled a text that required fewer words than a grocery list.
Does “about to shower” sound like I’m brushing someone off? I meant it as a basic update, but perhaps it reads as “I am unavailable for conversation and will now be entering a separate jurisdiction.” That was certainly more formality than I intended.
The part that keeps tripping me up is that she started the conversation. I hadn’t interrupted her day with an unsolicited report from the bathroom. She wanted to know what I was doing, and then my answer apparently brought proceedings to a close.
Of course, she might have gotten busy. Or distracted. Or put her phone down after sending a casual message, a perfectly normal activity that becomes deeply mysterious when you’re the person waiting for the next one.
I’m curious how women would read it, because I can’t tell whether there’s a tone here that I’m missing. Would that answer make someone think I wasn’t interested in talking? Does the “wyd?” at the end help, or has the shower already taken control of the message?
I don’t even know that anything went wrong. That’s the annoying part. All I actually have is a conversation that stopped, and a completely ordinary shower that has somehow become a suspect.
