UrbanUpdate

It’s exciting swapping Pimp My Ride and Nick Cave puns with a new hot person in your orbit. We all know the thrill. We also know the disappointment when, after a solid 10 minutes of snappy back-and-forth, you mention your great morning run and… nothing. No typing indicators or even a courtesy emoji for you, just doubt and self-investigation. What did you do wrong? Did you respond too quickly? Did you seem overeager? Is running now uncool? (No.) The jolts of serotonin you get from fun flirting have suddenly been replaced by hurt and annoyance. You've got banter blue balls.

Banter blue balls happen in non-charged text conversations early in the courting process. It shouldn’t be confused with rage silence (a.k.a. the silent treatment), which happens once a relationship is established, usually during an argument or whenever one party thinks it’s deserved. You get banter blue balls when one person—okay, usually a dude—abruptly drops an anchor amidst some verbal volleyball. It's not a good look for either party. In the '90s shutting down a conversation was a power play, but now having the last word makes you feel like a loser: Your last text sits there, unacknowledged, forever.

I have been on the receiving end of countless banter blue balling. I’ve also served up a good number myself—absolutely intentionally. It isn’t exactly negging, it’s closer to ignoring your crush on the playground. I asked my friend Steven why he might drop off during a flirty convo. His answer: “That would probably be either a.) a case where I was on the fence about somebody and didn't want to lead them to believe I was mega into them; b.) a case where I was mega into them but really didn't want to fuck it up by being too fanboy, or c.) aware they're into me and I'm just real busy, which does happen.”

I’m guilty of the same. There may be different motivations for going silent, but calculation is the shared foundation. Banter blue balls hinges on craving control, either to push someone away or suck them in further. Personal experiments have yielded mixed results, but even when my mysterious silence intrigued a dude short-term, it had zero lasting power. Sustaining attraction through banter blue balls only elongates the chase, which gets boring.

“I feel like it's semi-effective,” Steven said, “but there's also the simple fact that people are going to do whatever they really want to, and you can nudge them a little in the direction you want but it may not make a difference.” People who are going to lose interest are going to lose interest no matter what you do (unless you grow a Jason Momoa beard). My cats get distressed and thirsty when I put the laser pointer up, but five minutes later they’ve moved on to staring blankly behind me or snacking on part of the couch.

The blue-baller thinks that going AWOL from a text conversation, he or she will look extra cool. We, the blue-balled, are supposed to sit at home imagining that the offender is too busy to text because he or she is out leading a hot life with people hotter than us. But we all know that's crap. People definitely do get too busy to respond immediately. Or ever. But at a time when smartphones make it possible to respond in less than a second, going silent actually just makes it look like someone is trying really, really hard. We can see the blue-baller liking away on Instagram. We know the blue-baller is just sitting on a hand-me-down papasan from his aunt waiting for UberEats, not banging a hotter alternative.

When you go silent you don’t look cool and aloof, you look manipulative. You’re adding an extra hurdle to the psychoanalytic Olympics of dating, and you’ll be hard-pressed to keep finding folks game to clear that hurdle. They’re more likely to ignore you.

If you’re avoiding the last word because you’re psyched on the recipient and worry about scaring them off, lean into that. Don’t send 14 last messages or anything so manic, but suggest seeing each other again and then go calm down on a cool run or something. If you’re avoiding having the last word because you’re not psyched, cut it loose—kindly but explicitly. If distractions like emails or a really good sandwich can make you forget about a sparkling conversation with a hot person for more than eight hours, you’re not actually into that person. You may not care about them, but your silence suggests you care what they think. No one enjoys rejection, but when you waste someone else’s time, you’re also wasting yours.

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