Hypothesis: If I stop responding to someone I’m not interested in, then they will get the hint and stop messaging me.

Control: Stop all communication after determining that there is no interest.

Independent: Repeated messages from someone who wasn’t particularly profound to begin with

Results:  I ended all communication after I realized that I was no longer interested in this person. I said as much and then went on to never think about him again. Unfortunately, to my great dismay, I received continuous messages for weeks on end. Most of these messages consisted of an update on their day and an inquiry as to my day. I chose to not respond. He then upped the game by adding a guilt factor, which was just sad. I don’t respond to pity parties and as I didn’t like this person before the guilt trip started this was certainly not effective. The frequency of messages went down, but the magnitude of these messages when they did come through was so great that it made up for the lost time. After six months he then moved to on to the next level; direct personal attacks. These savored heavily of bitterness and, to him, must have had the same level of satisfaction that one gets from a freshly sharpened pencil; clean and crisp, but laden with the knowledge that any action you take will destroy what you loved most about it. To this day I will get a message every few months with a subtle “hey…” or “sup.”

Conclusion: The idea that a complete lack of communication would prompt one to stop and think about how to better spend their time seems invalid after this experience. No matter what action (or lack thereof) I take, I will never be able to determine one’s reactions to me