How to deal with a crush that ignores you

A crush going quiet usually has a few possible causes. She might be swamped at work, dealing with something personal, or just not in a texting mood. She might be interested but unsure how she feels, so she's waiting to see if you keep it going. Or she might have lost interest and doesn't want to say so. Your job is to figure out which, and the only real data you have is her earlier messages. Look at how she texted when she was engaged. Did she ask you questions, send longer replies, match your energy? If she used to be warm and now gives one-word answers, that's a signal. If she was never very active, the silence may just be her normal pace, and reading into it will only make you anxious.

Also check how long it's been. A day or two of quiet on a texting thread is normal. A week or more tells you something about where things stand.

Your follow-up should give her one light thing to respond to. A question she can answer in a few words works. So does a comment on something she shared, or a casual nod to something you two talked about. Avoid anything that makes her feel she owes you an explanation. Skip lines about not hearing from her, and skip anything that checks whether she's still into it. Keep the tone the same as your earlier messages, not heavier. If the thread was playful, stay playful. If it was thoughtful, stay there. A sudden shift in tone after silence reads as nervous or passive aggressive. You want her to feel that replying is normal and that nothing about the silence has changed how you talk to her.

Send one follow-up after a reasonable gap, usually a day or two for casual texting and a bit longer if things started slowly. Send it during the day, not late at night, when a message can look like fixation. If she still doesn't reply, wait a good while before doing anything else. A week is a common number. Don't spend that time building a case for why she's ignoring you. If nothing comes after that, the answer is effectively no for now. You can make one more low-key attempt later, say if you run into her in person or a natural reason comes up, but don't keep texting into silence. Each extra message costs you standing. Stopping cleanly is the most dignified move, and it's also the most useful. It leaves the door open if she comes back, and it saves you weeks on a thread that's gone quiet.