Reddit Talks About Why It's Okay to Reply Late

Don’t beat yourself up if you often reply to messages late. We’ve all been there! It’s not that you’ve decided to be rude to the sender, it’s just that sometimes there are perfectly acceptable reasons to leave people on read. Reddit rounded up some of the reasons why late responses don’t make you a bad person. Console yourself with these:

You don’t know what to respond

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by u/allexthakatt from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

“Responding [to a ‘Hi!’] just feels like it could be a Pandora’s Box that I don’t know if I want to open,” commented another Redditor. What if it’s someone who’s notorious for asking for audacious favors or someone who wants to persuade you to apply for insurance?

You want to be left alone

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by u/EveInGardenia from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

“I’m tired of living in a world where I am expected to be reachable at any time, and if I’m not people can get upset or feel offended,” said another Redditor. Meanwhile, another responded that instant messages are still “relatively new” even though it feels like it’s been around for so long.

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by u/Spizmack from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

You just don’t want to

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by u/uglyellie from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

“I am not on demand,” agreed wrote another Redditor. Just because we’ve got our phones around us 24/7 doesn’t mean people have access to us ’round the clock too.

Sometimes you just forget

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by u/koopapeaches19 from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

Do you know that feeling when you reply to the text in your head but forget to in real life? That’s a perfectly good excuse to reply late. But make sure you don’t use this excuse often enough or people will simply assume you’re rude.

You don’t vibe with the sender at all

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by u/lovethepuppers from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

It’s perfectly acceptable to forget to reply if the sender is someone who stresses you out too much. You don’t need that kind of energy in your inbox an in your life.

It could be too overwhelming

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by u/OceanDevotion from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

Some are confused why it’s overwhelming to reply to a message but for others, the mental overload is real. You don’t know if you’ve got the bandwidth to accommodate what the other person is about to say.

You already know what they want from you

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by u/imperium_lodinium from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

And you don’t want to commit to their plans and that’s fine. You don’t owe anyone an excuse either but make sure you do let people know the truth.

You don’t have the energy for it

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by u/little_miss_noshine from discussion People who don’t reply until days later, why?
in AskReddit

Finally, a perfectly acceptable reason to reply late is that you don’t owe anyone an instant answer (except maybe for work-related concerns). So don’t stress about not replying to that one non-sensitive message. By now, folks should know that not everyone is easily accessible.

What are other perfectly acceptable excuses to delay replying to messages? Share it with us in the comments!

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