I am seeing someone, in the very early stages of just getting to know each other. I quite like him. He has not texted back since yesterday. This is not a totally unusual length of time for us to leave between texts (we send long messages that take a solid 20 min to write).

Earlier this week/last week I would not have thought anything of it but yesterday we sent each other messages every 2-3 hours and I am sort of surprised at the change. I had turned my phone off all day to work and then – fuelled by guilt – opened it this evening (it is 8pm here) to see if he’d texted. I totally was sure he’d have been waiting for hours for a response and that I should get back to him, but he’d not replied to yesterday’s message at all. I felt some relief that I had not been blanking his texts inadvertently and then was annoyed at myself for turning my phone back on out of a feeling that I had to, and also worried he’d lost interest.

I am not really sure what I want to feel here. Maybe concern and affection for him even if he is not replying every 2-3 hours. The wild thing of course is I was literally stressed out at the idea he would have texted hours ago, and I had turned my phone off. I literally don’t even want to be texting him every 3 hours.
But I guess the text message is a symbol of affection/concern/something? And I want to think that he likes me.
Update: as I wrote this he replied lol. But I think that doesn’t change any of the Ts/Fs I want to work on. I had this type of anxious T about texting in my last relationship and want to have less pain from whatever thought it is I am having.

unintentional:
C – boy exists
T – he should text me
F – irritation
A – turn notifications off so I don’t see if he texts, angrily think about the ways I’ve shown I care and regret them, think about what is wrong with me, plot how long I will wait to reply
R – I feel entitled to something from him and make my feelings dependent on his actions (? )

intentional
C- same
T- I get to choose how I feel no matter what he does
F- spacious
A- get on with life, don’t dramatise about what my actions and his mean and do what suits me.
R- I have more control over my feelings