Dear Joely: Exit Group?
A reader finds herself trapped in a school WhatsApp group full of chatter, politics, and “helpful” women with too much data and too little restraint. Joely answers on digital overexposure, low-grade social captivity, and the beauty of mute.
Dear Joely,
I’ve been added to a school WhatsApp group and I already hate it.
I know it’s meant to be useful, and sometimes it is, but most of the time it’s just endless messages about things that don’t seem to require that many messages. Every day there’s somebody asking something that has already been answered, or reminding everyone about something, or sending a stream of updates about snacks, costumes, pick-up times, forms, or who’s bringing what.
What gets me is that I can’t tell whether I’m being unreasonable or whether everyone else is just pretending this is normal. Some of the women in it seem to live there. They’re constantly replying, offering to do things, thanking each other, sending little kisses at the end of every message, and somehow making quite ordinary school admin feel like a full-time emotional ecosystem. I find it exhausting.
There’s also a certain tone in there that gets under my skin. It’s all very friendly on the surface, but I can never quite shake the feeling that there’s competition and judgement bubbling away underneath. I don’t want to be rude, and I don’t want to look unfriendly, but I also don’t want to spend my life reading forty-three messages about a missing drink bottle.
Is it acceptable to mute it, ignore most of it, or even leave altogether, or is that social suicide?
Signed,
One Ping from Murder
Dear One Ping,
The first thing I want you to know is that you are not oversensitive. You are having an entirely normal reaction to being trapped in a digital village square with no closing time.
WhatsApp groups of this sort are a very modern species of suffering. They begin in usefulness and end in low-grade occupation. A quick note about sports day becomes a hundred and forty-seven messages, three theories, one volunteer spreadsheet, and an undercurrent of feminine territorial warfare thinly disguised as helpfulness.
You are not obliged to enjoy this simply because it involves children and snack-sized administrative duties. Nor are you required to mistake access for intimacy. These groups create the illusion that because people can reach you instantly, they are therefore entitled to do so constantly. They are not.
Now, as to what to do. I would not dramatically leave unless you are genuinely prepared to be talked about by women in activewear for a fortnight. The elegant answer is almost always the less theatrical one. Mute the group. Archive it if necessary. Turn off previews. Remove it from the front of your mind and let the urgent things surface by other means, as truly urgent things usually do.
And if someone asks why you are a little quiet, you may say, perfectly pleasantly, that you are trying to spend less time on your phone. This has the additional advantage of sounding virtuous while being entirely self-protective.
What you must not do is get drawn into the false morality of constant responsiveness. There is a particular kind of social nonsense that thrives on women feeling they must always appear agreeable, available, and faintly delighted to help. It is a racket. Step outside it where you can.
You do not need to surrender your peace over a visor, a raffle roster, or twelve messages about whether Friday is mufti. Keep your manners, keep your distance, and keep the group on mute.
Yours, on mute,
Joely
More dilemmas? Read more letters and replies in the Dear Joely advice column.
Dear Joely: Mixed Signals
He says he cares, but his disappearing act is beginning to say rather more. Joely weighs mixed signals, half-presence, and the cost of waiting too long for clarity.
Dear Joely,
I’ve been seeing a man for six months. He can be thoughtful, funny, and incredibly attentive when we’re together, but in between he goes oddly vague. Sometimes he texts constantly for days, then disappears into silence and resurfaces as though nothing has happened. When I ask where I stand, he says he’s “confused” and doesn’t want to rush things. I am old enough to know better, but apparently not old enough to stop checking my phone like a woman awaiting news from the front. He says he cares about me. I think he probably does. I’m just no longer sure that caring is the same thing as showing up. Am I being impatient, or am I volunteering for my own heartbreak?
Signed,
Still Waiting in Wangaratta
Dear Still Waiting,
There are many humiliations in life. One of the more avoidable is mistaking inconsistency for depth.
A man who wants you is not usually this confusing for this long. He may indeed be confused, but confusion can be surprisingly comfortable when someone else is doing all the waiting. It allows him warmth without responsibility, intimacy without decision, and your hope without the inconvenience of your standards.
You are not asking for too much. You are asking for coherence. There is a difference.
The trouble is not that he disappears now and then. The trouble is that each disappearance is followed by just enough tenderness to keep you interpreting the gaps as mystery rather than information. But gaps are information. Vagueness is information. “I don’t want to rush things” after six months is information wearing a soft hat.
If you want to give this one last, dignified chance, do it plainly. Tell him you’re no longer available for half-presence and see whether he steps forward or blurs again. Then believe what happens next.
Love may be complicated. Interest is usually not.
Yours, but not surprised,
Joely