1. He’s not really interested in you. It’s possible that he’s not as interested in you as you are in him if he’s online but doesn’t answer your texts. He doesn’t want to have a long, awkward talk about it, so he’s ignoring you and going about his day. He hopes you’ll get the message.

2. He’s talking to other people right now, and you’re not important to him. Obviously, he has other people in his life right now if you are just “talking” to him or even just going on casual dates. He could be talking to one or more of the other women he’s seeing at the same time.

3. He’s too busy to talk right now. He won’t text you every five seconds if he has a meeting at work, is taking care of a parent or child, is in class, or something else. Take a deep breath and wait for him to respond.

4. He likes to play games and wants to feel good about himself. He might be online, but he might choose not to answer your texts. If he doesn’t pay attention to you for a while, he thinks that you will become more desperate and keep chasing him. Feeling wanted is the best feeling in the world for a guy (or girl!). But it doesn’t even give him the pleasure of an ego stroke. He’s not worth it at all.

5. He’s just hanging out and doesn’t want to hang out with anyone. Even if the guy you’re seeing really likes you, he might just need a few hours to look through memes without thinking and not talk to anyone, not even you. Everybody has a different limit on how much digital contact they can handle in a day. By the time you message him, he may have reached it.

6. He missed your texts a lot. We all try to explain away a guy’s lack of response by saying, “Maybe his phone is broken,” but technology isn’t perfect. Notifications from apps don’t go out, messages get lost under other messages, and bad service can stop messages from getting to or being sent. If this only happened once and doesn’t seem like a trend, give it some time to catch up with you. It’s possible that all you need to do now is update your app.