How To Respond To One Word Texts From Guys (Explained)

You put a ton of thought and effort into your text, only to get a one-word response back.

Receiving a one-word text is a frustrating scenario, as it makes it look like the guy doesn’t even care about what you have to say.

The good thing is that there are plenty of ways to respond to this type of immature behavior. Let’s take a look at your options, and more importantly, why he does it.

How Do You Respond To A Random Short Text From A Guy?

It’s not always easy to respond to a short and random text from a guy, but the good news is that the ball is in your court and you can take the conversation wherever you want.

Many guys are known for dry texting, which is another name for receiving shorter texts that lack any type of engagement. After all, think about how many times you’ve gotten responses like this:

lol.

Sure.
Yeah.
Nope.

Maybe.
Okay/k.

These types of responses can be super frustrating, especially when you’re looking to get more out of the guy from his texts. Either way, this is something that you need to know how to handle.

Here are a variety of strategies (and text responses) that you can use to spark some life back into your texting.

1) Dig Deeper With Open-Ended Texts

If a guy is giving you one-word responses through text, then you’re going to want to peel the onion a little. You’re going to want to dig a little deeper and ask better questions.

One of the biggest reasons as to why guys answer with only one word is the fact that you might have given him a question with only 3 responses, which include:

No.
Yes.
Either one of those answers with brief reasoning.

Many guys aren’t always going to dive into all of the details when it comes to answering questions, so many times you’ll receive a simple yes or no, and that’s perfectly fine.

So if you asked if likes playing sports, you have to dig a little bit deeper in order to get more details out of him. As a follow-up, you could respond with something like:

What motivates you to play so many sports?

How would you describe yourself as an athlete?
Ohhh… tell me more about your favorite sports!
What sports accomplishments are you very proud of?

You might have noticed something about all of these responses, and it’s the fact they are all open-ended.

This means that he can’t get by on a simple one-word response, and the ball is now in his court when it comes to talking about something that he really likes.

Obviously, your response is always going to be different based on what you’re texting about. If you feel like he’s not going to explain anymore, then it’s time to move on to the next strategy.

2) Pivot The Conversation In A New Direction

If he’s responding with a one-word text, then you might want to consider pivoting the conversation in a completely different direction.

Think about this scenario for a second. If a guy that you really liked started asking you questions about a topic that you enjoy the most, would you respond with only one-word texts?

You most likely wouldn’t, unless you were really busy and could only sneak in a one-word response every now and then.

Either way, when you pivot the conversation in a new direction, you want to make sure that you lead with an open-ended question.

Once again, this will help remove any option for him to respond with just one word. Here are a few examples:

What does a typical weekend look like for you?

What’s the craziest thing that you’ve done lately?
So what do you have planned for the rest of the day/week/weekend?

Keep in mind that you don’t want to just go write into adding those responses too, as you need to slide into them so that it doesn’t look forced and out of the left field.

Let’s say that he responded to something that you had to say with “Maybe”. Here is how you’ll want to transition into something new:

Mysterious? I like that! Speaking of mystery, what do you usually like to do on the weekends?

If he still ends up responding with a one-word response, then you’ve most likely gotten to the super-frustrating part of texting him.

It’s time to get to the bottom of this one-word texting behavior. After all, it’s not right that you put a lot of thought and information into your texts and he responds like he doesn’t even care.

3) Ask If He Always Texts With One Word Responses

If he keeps responding with one-word texts, perhaps it is time that you ask him if he always texts like that.

This is genuine curiosity at its finest, and a subtle way of letting him know that you don’t care for this type of behavior.

There’s nothing wrong with expecting a little bit more effort when it comes to texting, and he is going to need to understand that.

You also don’t need to be rude with your response, here are some examples for you:

Seems like you’re a man of a few words, huh?
One-word response. You must be a man of mystery, huh?

Duly noted, do you always like keeping things short and sweet?
I see, and I noticed that you like one-word responses. Is that your thing?

He can always respond with a one-word response, but he certainly knows that his lack of tacking effort is on your radar.

This also opens up the possibility for him to say something like:

Sorry, I was busy at (specific activity) and couldn’t give you a longer response.

If he does choose to keep responding with a one-word response, then you just might have to consider that this guy just might not be worth texting or spending time on.

Here’s what you can do when he keeps being immature and lacking any interest.

4) Text Back With A One Word Response Yourself

If the guy keeps repetitively responding to your texts with just one word, then it’s time to fight with fire. Text back with one-word responses and give him a taste of his own medicine.

Does this come off as immature? Yup.

Does this come off as passive-aggressive? Yup.
But is this fair based upon how he’s responded to you? Absolutely.

In fact, if you really want to send him a message, you can respond with a long chain of one-word responses. For example, if you ask him a question and he says maybe, you can say:

Cool. Great. Grand. Wonderful. Thanks.

As stated earlier, it’s a pretty childish thing to do, but you’re not the one who led with a lack of effort and a maximum amount of immaturity.

If you don’t want to stoop down to his level, then I completely understand where you’re coming from.

If it reaches this stage, then the chances are much higher that you’re most likely not interested in texting him anymore. There are plenty of other guys who will give you the time of day.

Here is the last response that you can use to counter his one-word texts, and it’s actually no response at all.

5) Don’t Even Bother Texting Back (Ghost Him)

If the guy uses one-word responses for most of his texts, then you just might want to forget about giving him the time of day and stop texting him.

As the popular quote states:

Sometimes the best response, is no response.

The same is true here, but keep in mind that this option should only be used after:

You’ve exhausted all of your other options.
He has no reason to keep responding like that.

He knows that you don’t care for his lack of effort.
He continues to act immaturely and respond with one-word texts.

In other words, you can pretty much ghost him. If he happens to text you later down the road in a normal and coherent way, then it’s up to you if you want to continue on with the conversation.

The situation even gets weirder if the guy was the one who gave you his number, because he should be much more interested, right?

I’m not usually an advocate of ghosting someone, but when you get to this point, the guy should know that he had it coming.

Plus, there’s no reason to explain yourself to him anyway. It’s not like he’s going to have any valid (or lengthy) input when he responds to your text.

What Do Short Text Responses Mean?

Short text responses can mean a lot of things, but two big reasons for them is that the person is too busy to give you a longer response, or they just aren’t interested.

While it can be very annoying to receive a short text response, make sure that you don’t quickly jump to conclusions. After all, people aren’t able to be on their phones for every minute and every second of the day.

Let’s talk more about why you’re likely to receive these short, and often random, text responses.

1) Short Text Responses Can Mean Busyness

This is the perfect example of where receiving a short text response is a really good thing, and it’s because the person on the other side is really busy.

A lot of weird feelings and emotions can arise from texting, especially when you don’t get the perfect response that you’ve been thinking of.

With that being said, sometimes you have to accept the fact that a short text response is so much better than not getting a response at all.

Here are a few possible scenarios for you to think about:

Someone at school who is not able to text back.
Someone bust at work not being able to text back.

Someone in the middle of a movie (at a theater) not being able to text back.
Or being in a location where texting is difficult (like texting when he’s on vacation).

Think about all of those possibilities above, and the fact that they shouldn’t be texting you back… and they still do.

Sometimes we need to take a look at the spectrum of possibilities, and things could be so much more. They could have just not responded and then ghosted you (which is the worst outcome).

Speaking of bad outcomes, it’s time to look at the other side of what it can mean to receive shorter text messages.

1) Short Text Responses Can Mean Apathy

You also have to keep in mind that constant and continuous short test responses can mean apathy, or in other words, they just don’t care enough for longer responses.

There’s a popular quote that I’d like to share with you here:

When someone acts like they don’t care, believe them.

Many times, this is going to be the truth, especially if this short-texting response behavior has been going on for a long period of time.

Sometimes the person just isn’t busy but has other priorities and interests that are more important than sending longer text responses.

Sometimes, it is what it is, and you need to understand that. By doing so makes it much easier to move on and not devote so much time to the person who just doesn’t seem to care.

Why Do Guys Respond With One-Word Answers? Final Words

Guys respond with one-word answers because many times, it’s just their nature of texting. They like getting straight to the point, and often don’t feel the need to further explain themselves.

When it comes to texting you guys, you can certainly expect this type of behavior. In fact, the more you text, the more that you’re going to end up seeing it.

To give the guys a little more credit, you also have to keep in mind that he might just be too busy to respond with a much longer text message.

While it can immature and frustrating to get hit with constant one-word text responses, eventually that will stop.

You’ll find the guy that genuinely cares about having a great conversation with you through text. He’ll put actual effort and thoughts into his responses, and everything will flow nicely.

Until then, you can expect to see a lot of one-word text responses, it’s just how many guys are… k?