Hey, from an extroverted person, your friends don't think you're a bad friend, they know you find social stuff exhausting, they don't begrudge you, they're just happy to hear from you because they like you.
It's okay, do what you need to do. And, hey, sometimes I forget to reply and get back to it weeks later, too.
Speak for yourself, if someone ghosts me like that twice, I'm quite done with them. I am an introvert and I take the time at least once a day to reply to all messages from people I care about. Which's like 3.
Or social anxiety which is the special kind of purgatory where you constantly rethink about how you're going to reply but don't actually do it and the more time that passes the worse it gets...
My goal is to greet everyone in the morning at my new job.
I'm liked well enough for my knowledge and how hard I work at my current position, but I was still shell shocked from quarantine when I started and avoided eye contact and conversation.
At this point I'm fairly certain everyone thinks I'm differently abled.
this is so energy consuming that it convinced me to make a habit of taking care of social chores as quickly as possible and live the rest of my time in peace.
Eh, I'm an introvert who isn't overly socially anxious, and I'll often ignore texts for a bit if I'm really not feeling up to doing whatever it is at the moment. But I usually get to it the next day or the one after. I don't like talking to people, but I don't feel very apprehensive about it either, I just find it draining and prefer to avoid it.
Usually I'll just say, "today isn't great for me, I'll get back to you." Then actually get back when I'm more interested in social interaction. I don't feel awkward about forgetting for a couple days, certainly not to the point of ghosting someone for weeks.
I'm getting old and sometimes, only sometimes, i think i created other problems this way. I mean, when i get really, really old, it will be pretty lonesome and if i fall in the kitchen and need help, who you gonna call?
Sure, i would call the emergency, AFTER the not existing friend came by and took care of any weed lying around. Just in case.
Same, but only with replying to English speaking peoples. It’s exhausting to find correct words, look if some words weren’t skipped, make sure message doesn’t sound weird. When it comes to native language, I reply quite fast