A casual reminder that just because someone doesn't talk to you regularly, especially if you want them to be talking to you regularly, doesn't mean they hate you
Human's are complicated, we all have a lot going on and most don't share everything happening in their own lives. Just because someone's company is exciting, comforting or helpful to you, doesn't mean that you are entitled to it or that they should feel the need to spend what energy they have to give to you. This doesn't mean that they wouldn't want to give you their time in ideal circumstances, but circumstances are almost never ideal these days.
I live a pretty busy life, and my focus for social things online isn't what it used to be. But on top of that, sometimes I get extra busy due to work, social plans, or a litany of other things. I find that I frequently get too busy to even do the polite-but-rushed "hey, thanks for the message, how are you doing? that's great, I've been so busy, sorry I won't really be available to talk for the next 2 weeks but I love you kthxbye" conversation, so some Telegram messages stay unread for a few weeks while I get through my especially busy periods. But I can't imagine that feels great for anybody.
When I'm able to focus on those friends again, I often have to explain, "hey, sorry, I have a generally busy life and my already limited social attention had to be temporarily set aside for a different thing. I have time now, or will have time soon, and still care about you regardless of my absences. This will happen again but you should always remember that my feelings about you won't change."
Back when we were all still using AOL Instant Messenger, I could set away messages that I could leave set for weeks, saying that exams were coming up and that you shouldn't expect any normal messages from me until they were concluded, or I was in the middle of moving and you should give me some space and time until I was all done with that, or even just a note to explain that I was out for the evening! Whenever friends would message me and see those away messages, they would very clearly set expectations but would require no additional work on my part.
With those away messages (and expectations) set, I could then still have conversations with a more limited selection of friends I had the energy for while the bulk of my time was being taken up by something else, everyone would have an expectation that I probably wouldn't be available as much (or at all) during that time period, and I didn't have to explain myself any further if I was too busy to do so. Away messages felt like a tool to set clear social expectations online, and we no longer have any of that in almost any1 messaging or communication application, and I'm really frustrated by that.
The main way I communicate with friends and loved ones now is through Telegram, and as many of you probably know, Telegram desperately lacks any sort of away message or auto-response feature. The application is so much better than AIM in so many ways, but this huge step backwards still frustrates me and I think about it quite often. I'm just asking to be able to set short, sweet, and to-the-point away and status messages that set clear expectations for my friends.
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The one extremely popular exception I can think of is Microsoft Outlook's "Automatic Replies" feature, but most folks only use that for their jobs if they do at all. And it's almost entirely for out-of-office notifications, and not quite tooled for the even more useful "hey I'm really busy on this project and won't be responding to e-mail in any sort of normal way for a few weeks" messages.
