We’ve all been there. And if you haven’t, you might be the problem.
It’s the incredibly unsophisticated and downright rude behavior—intentionally or not—you exhibit when you take a long time to respond to someone’s text message. And it’s called cricketing, the sound you hear when someone takes forever to respond to your text message. We’re guessing “tumbleweeding” was too clunky a name.
The term was born recently when dating site Plenty of Fish listed it as a major complaint amongst daters:
Cricketing (/krik-it-ing/): Leaving someone on “read” for too long and taking much too long to continue the conversation.
The majority of singles (67%) revealed to POF that they’ve waited patiently for a reply from their date, only to receive it much later than expected. Just like using the eggplant emoji, this behavior is not going to get you laid.
Therapist Kurt Smith tells Huffington Post:
Weekly I hear partners complain about communication problems in their relationships connected to texting. It’s usually either that their partner is ‘blowing up my phone’ or ‘I don’t get a response. I see both sexes equally guilty of misusing texting and just as likely to use passive-aggressive behavior like cricketing.
But cricketing goes beyond romantic partners. The cold shoulder applies to anyone in your life, from friends to parents to in-laws.
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Not surprisingly, older texters have a harder time understanding texting etiquette. Remember when you were mid-conversation with an aging relative who seemingly threw their smart phone in the trash after their last text to you? That was fun, huh?
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Diane Gottsman, author of Modern Etiquette for a Better Life: Master All Social and Business Exchanges, tells Huffington Post:
I recently had a client who told me that her parents were the worst cricketers. She said she could be having a smooth exchange with them but as soon as she asked if they were still OK with babysitting the kids for the weekend or with giving her a ride to pick up her car from being serviced, she’d get nothing but crickets.
Couples therapist Carin Goldstein tells HuffPo, “Take 10 seconds and write the person something like, ‘I will definitely get back to you in the next day or so ― just so swamped today. The key is to say something that shows that the other person deserves to be acknowledged just as much as you.”
