How Many Texts Can You Send Before Looking Clingy? Study Finds the Exact Number
A partner, FWB, or even date who doesn’t respond right away can be hell for someone who is lonely or has a big imagination. You might be the kind of person to say, “To hell with protocol!” and proceed to double-text your partner. Maybe you’ll triple-text, if you’re feeling frisky. But how many texts can you send before looking clingy?
A 2019 survey from Typing.com found that, on average, people feel that sending six text messages in a row comes off as “clingy” or “needy.”
Typing.com asked 1,000 people about their digital communication habits in their romantic relationships. The survey dove deep, asking participants about everything from the pros and cons of digital communication —such as convenience in making plans or having the receipts on what their partner said in disagreements — to the place of phone calls, text messages, social media, and emails in arguments.
When it came to how many consecutive texts were considered “needy,” both people in long-distance relationships and not in long-distance relationships said that about six texts hit the mark. That number was about the same for the women and men surveyed. It also was pretty much the same for couples that lived together and those that didn’t.
Some more juicy tidbits from the survey include texting preferences by gender. When it comes to “good morning” and “good night’ texts, 42.5 % of men and 51.2 % of women say they’re important. Typing.com found that more women prefer that their partner sends paragraph-length text messages. On the other hand, men prefer fragment statements across multiple texts.
There were also interesting stats on how long couples go without talking over phone, text, or other methods. The women who responded to the survey could go 13.1 hours on average and the men could go a 14.6 hours. LDR couples were fine not communicating for 12 hours, whereas non-LDR couples were fine not talking for up to 14 hours. And lastly, married couples talked about every 12 hours and non-married ones talked about every 16 on average.
