I used to think that being online all the time meant being a good friend.
Reply fast, react fast, always be reachable.

Then I noticed how much of my attention was going into a lag I had no control over. Someone replies in two minutes and I feel pressure to match it. Someone takes two days and I wonder what I did wrong.

High ping doesn’t mean a bad player, and a slow reply doesn’t mean a bad person. Most of the time people are just somewhere else, doing something else.

These days I let my messages sit a little longer. The friendships haven’t suffered. If anything, the conversations have got better.