How to Text a Guy You Like: Natural Ways to Keep It Going

You met him Saturday at a friend's backyard bonfire. The two of you spent most of an hour arguing about whether it's okay to recline your seat on a plane (he says always, which is wrong), and before you left he put his number in your phone. It's Monday night now, and the thread with his name on it is still empty.

Here's how to text a guy you like: send something first, make it specific and easy to answer, then pay attention to what he does with it. You don't need the perfect message. What you need is to notice, over the next week or so, whether he keeps the thread going, asks you things back and nudges the conversation toward actually seeing each other. Then you invest at about his level. Not more, and not strategically less.

(We're saying "he" because most people who ask us this are women texting men. The advice works for anyone.)

Should I text him first?

Yes. The rule that whoever texts first "loses" treats dating like a negotiation where showing interest costs you leverage. You're not negotiating, though. You're trying to find out if this is mutual, and you can't find that out while you're both waiting.

A lot of who-goes-first is plain habit. In one well-known speed-dating study, researchers flipped the usual setup so the women were the ones who got up and moved from table to table. The familiar gap where women come out "pickier" shrank noticeably. Whoever did the approaching, men or women, tended to feel more drawn to the people they met.

Texting first also gets you information. Once it's sent, how he responds tells you something. Waiting only tells you that you're waiting.

And if a guy thinks less of you for sending the first text? Good to find that out early. If you want to practice making a move without making it heavy, our lesson on making the first move walks through it.

Texting a guy for the first time: what to send

The best first text comes from something that already exists between you: a conversation you had, something he said, a detail from his Instagram or his Hinge profile. Aim for three things. Specific, connected to him, easy to answer.

A few examples:

• You met at a party: "Update: I polled four more people and reclining is only okay on flights over three hours. You're outnumbered."
• You matched on Hinge: "Okay, is that your fish in the third photo or did you borrow someone else's fish for the picture?"
• You know him from the climbing gym: "Finally sent that route you showed me. Took eleven tries. I think I've earned a nap."

Each one carries something real and an obvious way to reply. He doesn't have to invent a topic.

Common mistake: "hey" or "what's up" and nothing else. It's not wrong, it just hands him the hardest part. The opposite mistake is a long paragraph covering your job, your weekend and your sign. He won't know which part to answer.

What to say to a guy you like once you're talking

Once it gets going, conversations tend to stall one of two ways. You become an interviewer ("What do you do? Where'd you grow up? Siblings?") or you become an audience ("omg," "that's crazy," "lol so true"), and after a week he still knows nothing about you.

The easier rhythm: pick up what he just said, ask one layer deeper, then add a bit of yourself.

Him: work has been insane, didn't leave the office till 9 You: Ugh, what are you guys racing to finish? I had a stretch like that in the spring and lived on frozen dumplings

The question shows you were listening. The share gives him something to ask about. Now there are two people carrying the conversation instead of one.

Common mistake: ending every text with a question so you seem interested. Too many questions and it starts to feel like a form. If you keep running dry, here are 10 ways to keep a text conversation going.

How to read his texts: the three things that matter

This is where most of the wasted energy goes. Why a thumbs-up and not a heart. Whether "haha" means less than "hahaha." Screenshots to the group chat, three friends, three theories. One message tells you very little. What adds up over a week or two tells you a lot.

Watch three things:

Two out of three is a good sign. Zero out of three, even with fast replies and cute GIFs, means he isn't putting much in. Our free lesson investment beats words lets you practice this on realistic chats, and signs he likes you goes further into what real interest looks like.

Common mistake: treating reply speed as the main signal. Some people can't look at their phone until lunch. Some reply instantly because they happened to be scrolling. Speed mostly tells you about his day. The three things above tell you about his interest.

Match his effort, without playing games

This is the step people skip. Matching means that if he writes three lines, three lines back is natural. If he's been sending one or two words for days, you don't need to keep writing paragraphs and inventing topics to keep it alive.

It doesn't mean counting characters, or waiting an hour because he waited an hour. Playing it cool on purpose is just a different performance. He reads it as hot and cold, and it wears you out too. Matching is simpler: don't run way out ahead. Save your enthusiasm for someone who's meeting it.

What if he's just bad at texting? Some guys really are. Run the same three checks. If his texts are short but he asks you things, makes plans and shows up, he's not a texter, and meeting sooner will tell you more than another week of messages. If his texts are short and he doesn't ask and doesn't plan, that isn't a texting style. It's low effort. For the one-word-reply problem specifically, see our guide to dry texting.

Common mistake: when he cools off, you heat up, as if more texts could warm him back up. Volume can't create interest that isn't there.

How to move it off your phone

After a week or two of real back-and-forth, suggest meeting. Plenty of people stall here with hints like "I've been dying to try that new hand-pulled noodle place," then wait for him to pick it up. He might. He might also think you were just making conversation.

Asking directly is less work than hinting. A good invite has four parts: what, when, roughly how long, and an easy out.

"I'm going to the flea market Sunday morning. Want to come? An hour or two, and no worries if you're busy."

If he says yes, or "Sunday's bad, how about Saturday?", great. If it's "things are crazy right now, maybe sometime" and no alternative, you can take that as the answer and put your energy back into your own week. No need to ask a second and third time.

If you're not sure what this even is yet, you can just ask: "I like talking to you. Curious where your head's at." Our free lesson not sure? ask helps you say that lightly, and how to ask someone if they like you has more ways to phrase it.

Here's roughly what doing it right feels like. You're not staring at the thread all evening. The conversation moves because both of you are pushing it. Within a few weeks you have a decent idea of whether he wants to go further. If you're still guessing after all that, the problem isn't your texting. You already have your answer. Everything else about texting and asking someone out is collected on our texting topic page.

FAQ

What should I text a guy I like to start a conversation?

Something real and specific: a callback to something you talked about, a question about a detail in his profile, or a quick story from your day with a question attached. "Hey" works in a pinch, but it leaves him to do the work of finding a topic.

Should I text him first or wait for him to text me?

Text first if you want to. Waiting doesn't make his interest more real, and texting first doesn't make you look desperate. What matters is what happens next: whether he picks it up and starts conversations of his own.

He texts a lot but never asks me out. Does he like me?

Maybe, maybe not. Texting can be done from bed, half-distracted, with several people at once. Meeting up takes planning. If it's been a few weeks, suggest a specific plan yourself. His answer will tell you more than the texting has.

He takes hours to reply. Should I make him wait too?

No. Reply when it suits you. Timing your replies to match his turns texting into a game nobody agreed to play. A slow reply on its own doesn't mean much anyway, and our piece on being slow to text back explains why. If he's gone quiet entirely, read left on read.