Should I text my ex?

A text to an ex is not one thing

It sounds like a single question, but the answer depends on which message it is, and there are at least five of them. They look alike on the screen. They are different acts.

There is the practical one: you have his jacket, he has your keys, somebody has to say so. There is the apology you owe, for something you did and have not stopped thinking about. There is “I miss you” at midnight, which is true, and which is mostly a description of midnight. There is the birthday message, which feels polite and safe and is rarely only that. And there is the test: a question about a film, a photo of the dog, anything, sent to find out whether he still answers.

None of these is forbidden. But each one asks something different of him, and the trouble is often one kind dressed as another: a test in the clothes of a birthday wish. The real one tends to show through, even when you have not admitted it.

What you want from the hour after

Here is a more useful question than yes or no. Picture the hour after it is sent. What do you want to happen in it?

If the honest answer is “nothing, I just want it said”, that is a message you can probably send, because it is complete the moment it leaves. If the honest answer is “I want him to reply quickly, warmly, and with a question of his own”, then it is not really a message. It is a request, and the request is hidden. You are asking him to show you the door is still open, without saying so.

He can only answer the words in front of him. If he replies “thanks, hope you’re well” to a birthday message that was secretly asking whether he still thinks of you, he has been polite and you have been turned down, and only one of you knows it happened.

The reply you have to be able to bear is no reply

It is natural to weigh a text by imagining the best answer and the worst one. The one that matters is neither. It is the blank: delivered, perhaps read, and then nothing, tonight and tomorrow and next week.

Ask yourself plainly whether you can carry that. Not whether you would like it; whether you could have an ordinary Thursday with it. If you can, the message is yours to send. If silence would have you picking up the phone every ten minutes, then sending it does not end the waiting you are in. It starts a new one with a clock on it.

One thing sits outside all of this. If you are thinking of writing because you are afraid of him, or because he controlled or threatened you and the quiet feels dangerous, a page like this is the wrong help. Someone who can hear the whole story is the right one.

Where astrology fits

You may have heard that Mercury retrograde brings exes back; it is a popular belief, and the sky does not decide who writes to whom. A chart cannot tell you whether he will answer, what he feels, or whether tonight is the night.

What a chart is good for is describing the person holding the phone. Mercury is a way of talking about how you put things into words, and especially how you do it under pressure. Some people go long and explain everything twice. Some go short and sharp and sound colder than they are. Some make a joke, so that nothing can be held against them later. Knowing which you do lets you see what the pressure added to your draft.

The Moon is a way of talking about what settles you, and so about what the urge is really asking for. The pull to text is rarely about information. More often it is a wish to be reassured, or to be chosen, or just to stop feeling alone in the flat at eleven at night. Those are real needs. He is one possible answer to them, and not the only one.

Draft it tonight, read it in daylight

Write the message. All of it, as long and as raw as it wants to be. Write it somewhere with no send button: the notes app, the back of an envelope. Then leave it until morning. This is not a trick to make you give up. The person who writes at midnight and the person who reads at nine are working with different amounts of light.

In the morning, read it as if a friend had received it and handed you her phone, asking what you make of it. What would you say this person wants? Whatever you see from that side of the screen is a fair guess at how it reads from his.

If you send it

• Say one thing. An apology, or a practical question, or that you were thinking of him. Not all three, because a message carrying three things tends to get answered on the easiest one.
• Ask for nothing you could not bear to be refused. If you are not ready to hear “I don’t think that’s a good idea”, do not ask to meet. Leave the question out and let the message stand without one.
• Cut the line that explains why you are writing. “I know this is random” and “no need to reply” are both ways of asking for a reply.

Decide beforehand what you will do with each outcome, including the blank. One message is a message. A second one sent into silence is a different act again, and it is the one people tend to regret.

If you do not send it

Not sending it does not make the urge go away. It needs somewhere to go. Keep the draft; you wrote something true and you are allowed to have it. Then look at what it was asking for, and take that to somebody who can actually give it. If it was “tell me I was not a fool”, a friend who knew you both can say so tonight. If it was company, ring someone and stay on the line while you both make dinner.

The urge comes in waves, and a wave is often shorter than it feels. You do not have to decide for ever. You only have to decide about tonight, and you can ask the question again tomorrow, rested, with the draft still there.