The 10 Emotional Stages of No Reply Email

photo:thefashioncuisine

 

You’ve spent a great hour carefully typing out an email, adding and subtracting words as you write, proofread and proceed to hit “Send”. Then nothing happens. It’s been several days and there’s still no reply.

It happens to the best of us, and sometimes there’s a good reason for the no-reply email (full inbox, too many similar emails!), alas here are the ten emotional stages we go through anyway…

#1 Excitement
The possibility of getting what you want (whether a reply from a job vacancy or even an email from a friend) is just one “Send” button away, which is getting you more excited at the prospect of getting a reply. After all, you nailed that email, right?

#2 Anticipation
Any second now, you know a reply is bound to happen. They’re probably taking their time to reply, or maybe it’s in their “Drafts” but they haven’t gotten around to sending it. Perhaps they’re just busy or at lunch, although you sent it at 11am.

#3 Anxiety
You start wondering what’s taking them so long. You refresh the page multiple times, hoping to see a reply. You even consider restarting your laptop, just in case there was something wrong with your software or the internet.

#4 Curiosity
You start imagining situations in your head. “Maybe he/she hasn’t checked her inbox” or
“Maybe he/she’s on a holiday” or it could have ended up in their “Spam” folder, or maybe it’s in your spam folder.

#5 Regret
Now you start regretting your decision as to why you sent that email in the first place. Maybe if you sent it at 9am, they would have seen it. Maybe you should have sounded more professional or less witty. Whatever it is, you start feeling like a joke.

#6 Sadness
It’s disheartening to get no response after a few days and you can’t help but feel sad. You’ve spent so long making a good impression on email. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have been enough, right?

#7 Denial
You start picturing scenarios where they are replying your letters. Or worse, maybe they
accidentally deleted it and perhaps you should send it again. You don’t even want to
acknowledge that you sent that email in the first place.

#8 Anger
By this time, you’re probably annoyed at yourself and your email inbox. Typical, another unanswered email. After all, you spent time to nail that email. Is it really that difficult to reply?

#9 Acceptance
It’s been 24 hours (or several days) and you probably know the answer: It’s a no. You
proceed to get a tub of ice-cream and feel sorry for yourself.

#10 Moving On/Repeat
At this point, there are two decisions to make: move on from the situation and hope for the best or repeat the entire process from step 2.

Written by Carissa Morais

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