Oops, Just Saw This! The Art of Pretending You Didn’t Ignore A Text Message

Let’s talk about something we all know but politely pretend isn’t true: no one actually believes the “OMG! I just saw this message!” response to a text that went unanswered.

It’s the modern-day digital equivalent of “the dog ate my homework,” except the dog is your phone and the homework is a text a friend sent several days ago.

Or, maybe you ARE telling the truth, and despite hours of phone scrolling, you really didn’t notice that one message, or you saw it in an “I was pretending I didn’t see it and then forgot about it” kind of way. Har har har.

Or maybe you are a little white Liar! Liar! And your pants are on fire! And your nose should be growing like Pinocchio’s.

Either way, it’s better to skip the fiction and own our mistake. A simple, “Sorry for the delay!” works fine. No drama, no qualifiers, and no need to weave an entire novella. Just own it and move on.

The exception to this rule is if the text message saying, “I just saw your text…” comes from me. In that case, I swear I just saw it. And I am absolutely not outing myself or admitting to a very recent, extremely similar mistake. At all.