How to Respond to “Bare Minimum” Texting

have you experienced someone who gives you so little effort in text messages that you wonder why on Earth you are continuing to engage with them and yet you can't help but feel this irresistible urge to keep going with them this is the bare minimum texting and I want to talk about how you can get out of it today what does it look like to show up in a way that is actually going to make someone put in more effort now I went through a little scroll through Tik Tok and I found this video of a

woman breaking down with her friends a text exchange that she had with a guy who's driving her crazy all right we'll watch it together so today was giving bare minimum good morning good morning I didn't reply with an emoji cuz like why would I yeah why how are we feeling I called him he doesn't pick up I say call me he goes hold up baby girl talking to my man he's telling me something I'm like okay very dry 11:58 he responds 138 it was a long combo I didn't want to respond still doesn't call you

back still doesn't call me back okay so then I call me call me and like you never call me back it's so annoying 244 responds at 8:20 I've legit still hasn't called me you nice what are you doing what am I doing right now nothing you're not responding no it's done no let's respond I love the moment at the end where she's just so foror that her friend thinks she shouldn't send a message back at all I really feel like this video just epitomizes this internal Schism we feel where one part of us wants to

rage about someone and complain about them and talk about how awful they are and the other part of us desperately wants to text them and talk about our feelings with them this is a very very common scenario of I I mean firstly have you ever done this have you ever sat around with your friends and decoded text messages I think that's a very common thing as well isn't it you get a text message you wonder what it means what you should say back you have a tribunal with your friends to try and figure it out

this person wouldn't even be having this conversation with her friends if he was putting in an amount of effort that was enjoyable to her it would be a very different conversation at least but he's giving so little you may remember this kind of guy from one of my previous videos this is the man who comes in strong shows lots of interest and then disappears except he doesn't quite disappear he still pops up now and again with an intermittent text at random intervals to make sure that you cannot forget him the MPI guy is the person

who puts in the minimum possible investment to keep your attention while giving as little as they can get away with so let's talk about this I want to break this down step by step because I always find practical examples to be the thing that's most educational I want to take this woman's text exchange and look at where she might have done something different than she did so today was giving very minimum she's really likable this woman isn't she good morning good morning I didn't reply with an emoji cuz like why would I why all right

I want to stop there for a moment the idea of I didn't want to reply with an emoji cuz why would I he has sent I can't tell what emoji he has put in his message but he sent a good morning with an emoji she in a sense is falling into a common trap of even in response to his dry text what she sends is a one-word response so again in that response there's like a degree of prote ISM like I don't want to show too much I don't want to show that I really care

and the challenge of that is when we're protecting ourselves by being aloof we aren't demanding the things we really want from someone we're not communicating our needs we're not communicating a standard in a way we're actually dropping to the level of their standard right we're giving them permission to keep talking to us like this because that's how we're talking to them while never voicing our needs about how we want them to talk to us and we're not modeling the kind of communication or behavior that we would like to see from them and that word is

really important modeling because somewhere along the way we have to model the kind of energy we want to see from somebody else to see if they can rise to meet us there there was a great thing Shakespeare said of false staff he said he wasn't just a wit but a cause of wit in others very very interesting line not just a wit but a cause of wit in others now think about that that's leadership that we can be something but by being it be a cause of it in someone else by being flirtatious we can

elicit a more flirtatious energy from someone else by being human we might be able to cause more Humanity in another person by being authentic we can cause more authenticity in another person but that requires leadership it means not waiting around for someone to be something first but to model it and to see if they can meet us there so I said I liked when she called him right I thought that was proactive it was bold it was confident but when he didn't pick up she then sent a message saying call me and that then to

me almost veers into the kind of communication that she doesn't want from him sort of tur lacking in any warmth so what could she have said instead she could have said hey I just tried you and couldn't get through give me a call when you have a moment this is modeling the kind of mature communication that she wants to receive from him and by the way everything I'm doing right now is just warm up because the main message that is going to make the difference is the one that's going to come at the end let's

keep going with this video for now response 138 was a long combo I I totally get her annoyance cuz he's annoying me as I'm listening to it maybe he's annoying you too I didn't want to respond still doesn't call you back still doesn't call me back okay so then I call me call me and like you never call me back it's so annoying now again when she says call me it's kind of like you know barking something at someone but without actually really expressing your standard or that you're not interested in continuing to text obviously

there's a right way to do that and a wrong way to do that but simply barking at someone call me again isn't necessarily the best way to go about it she then says you never called me back it's so annoying now we know why she's saying that she's being in a way she's being authentic like it's really annoying it is really annoying we're all annoyed for her watching this but when she says that it actually has the opposite effect of what she wants she wants him to call her but by saying you never called me

back it's so annoying she's actually just giving him more attention for the thing that she doesn't want in a way she's rewarding the behavior by saying to a person it's so annoying you're really saying I like you so much I really want you to call me and you're not calling me and that's annoying because I like you and I want you to call me it's just another form of attention for someone who doesn't deserve the attention and the other thing about this sentence is that it has no power to it right it's not a standard

because in a way this sentence is saying it's annoying that you haven't called me back but I'm not going to do anything about it right it's a disempowered statement now let's imagine that none of what I've suggested happened and that the communication had kept going exactly the way it did let's find another moment where could have intercepted this pattern and by the way that's the beauty of communication there's so many different moments that even if we've been stuck in a certain way of being with someone for a long time we can take the off-ramp and

do something different by the way before we continue if you enjoy this style of advice from me if you're thinking God I would love to be in the hot seat getting very specific advice for my scenario getting a play byplay for what I'm going through right now go and try Matthew AI we just released this last week people's minds have already been blown by it people have given it thousands and thousands of specific scenarios and got their question answered so go over to ask mh.com you can literally call it and speak your question you don't

even have to type it and you will hear my voice giving you an answer you can give as much detail as you want you can be as specific as you want it will take all of your situation into account before giving you an answer and it's been trained on 17 years of my content so that what you hear is not some generic internet answer it's my answer exclusively from me and my content so go check it out ask mh.com is the link ask your question for free right now I can't wait to hear your feedback

cuz like I said this has been blowing people's minds and uh I can't wait to hear the same from you all right back to this text exchange nice what are you doing what am I doing right now nothing you're not responding no it's done you even see there the encouragement from her friends to say do nothing you know you just don't respond which is another version of having one's guard up and wanting to look aloof instead of actually commun communicating so again all this does is enable his behavior because when he comes back 3 days

from now or the next day and texts her and she texts back what she's really communicated is I'm just going to disappear on you at random moments not say why not say that your behavior isn't enough for me but instead just look like I'm indifferent and I don't care that much even though right now I have your text messages projected onto a screen in front of all my friends now let's say that she does send that last message that she's around if he wants to give her a call and it would be great to catch

up properly and let's say that he says in reply I'm out with my boys tonight how's your evening so he still dismisses the phone call albe it cuz he's busy we don't know it doesn't really matter what does matter is that when she replies to that she shows that she's not interested in carrying on this text Exchange so she would then say no worries have a great evening catch up tomorrow when you can talk so she's not entertaining his question not out of rudeness but out of the fact that she's given him different opportunities to

get on the phone and have a conversation with her today he's made it impossible at every turn and so now she's not being cold she's saying have a great night but let's catch up tomorrow when you can call which is also a standard right I'm basically saying don't contact me tomorrow unless it's a phone call now let's put a cap on this cuz I know what you're thinking what if he sends her a text tomorrow instead of calling what if he reaches out to her and says how's your day going right which starts to feel

like a form of gaslighting that I keep saying the same thing and you keep acting like I haven't said it like you have amnesia for me asking for a phone here's what she could say and so far what we've been communicating with these amended texts is an indirect standard here's where you can get more direct and I love this message that I'm about to give you I want you to be brave enough to send it if you ever find yourself in a situation like this here's what you write I don't know if I'm going crazy

but it feels like way too much effort to get you on the phone for a real conversation I don't mind texting in general but these short exchanges just aren't all that rewarding LOL are you only interested in texting I like the I don't know if I'm going crazy cuz it allows you to kind of almost point out that you know maybe you've judged him too soon maybe there is a legitimate reason why yesterday last night and the first half of today he couldn't do the simple thing that you had mentioned and kept pretending like you

weren't mentioning it so I like that start I love the idea of it feels like way too much effort to get you on the phone for a real conversation because what you're really saying there is this isn't sustainable I'm not going to keep putting in this amount of effort I'm not going to ignore the elephant in the room that I'm trying harder than you are to have a real conversation I'm pointing out that I am trying to get a phone call with you and that it's too much work so I'm not going to keep putting

in that much effort and then you're saying that you don't mind texting in general it's not that you have a problem with texting it's simply that this style of communication especially his style which is really dry and short is not rewarding it might be different if he was sending amazing text messages which he's not but what she's getting isn't rewarding and she's pointing that out hey I have a higher standard for being entertained in conversation than this this isn't enough for me this isn't worth my time are you own interested in texting so this is

a very empowered response it gives someone nowhere to go they can't exactly keep texting you and pretend that it's all okay after you've said that can they now I want to point out that I don't know this person's situation I don't know the conversations that have preceded this text exchange so while I'm having some fun talking about what she could have said for all I know this lovely human being had a massive fight with this person right before this text exchange and that's why she's being so short in her replies but the principles of this

video still stand and you know it's always fun when I get more context I'm often like ah well if that's the case then I would send this instead which you know if you've ever been coached by me or worked with me in my love life Club you know that more context helps it's why by the way Matthew AI is such a cool thing for you to be able to use because you can give it all the context in the world you can tell Matthew AI everything that you're going through how the last exchange was that

you want it to be a bit more like this or to take account of that and it will help you figure out what something means what you can do about it and what you can say next so before you leave this video do me a favor go over to ask mh.com and ask your question of Matthew AI you can even if you want to do a version of what we just did in this video upload your text exchange or your conversation and it will help you understand it and know what to say and do next

so go check it out ask mh.com is that link again and uh I can't wait to know what you think I'll see you next week be well love life and thanks for watching [Music]