How to restart a dead conversation (without the long apology).

"Ok random, but did you ever finish that jigsaw?" is a perfectly good way to restart a conversation that's been dead for three weeks. It's about them, it proves you were listening, and it doesn't mention the three weeks at all.

Most chats don't end. They stall. Somebody sent "haha yeah", the other person had nothing to add to "haha yeah", and both of you assumed the other one would pick it up again. Neither of you did. That's all most dead conversations are, which is good news, because it means reviving one is a lot less awkward than it feels at 11pm with your thumb hovering over send.

First, how dead is it?

A day or two of quiet isn't dead. It's a Wednesday. Reply, or send something new, and don't mention the gap.

A week to a month is the classic dead chat. You need a reason to come back, and the best reason is something they told you before it went quiet.

After a couple of months, it's fine to acknowledge the gap, lightly and once. Pretending it's been ten minutes can come across as odd. Writing a paragraph about it is worse.

One exception. If the chat died on something awkward (they suggested a plan and you never answered, or a joke landed wrong) then that's the thing to deal with first. "Sorry, I left you hanging on the Saturday thing, that was rude of me" does more than any clever opener would, and then you can move on.

Lines that work

Callbacks are the strongest, because they show you remembered something. New things are next best. A light nod to the gap works if it's been a while. Change the details to fit, obviously.

• "did your sister keep the dog in the end?"
• "walked past that ramen place you mentioned. queue round the block. you were right"
• "how did the half marathon go? be honest about the last 3k"
• "how's the new job? are you still the one who has to buy the milk?"
• "settle something for me: is a hot dog a sandwich"
• "saw a dog in a raincoat today and thought of you, which probably says more about me than you"
• "there's a cat café opening near me and I need an opinion. have you ever been to one, are they weird"
• "this chat died of natural causes and I'd like to bring it back. how was Lisbon?"
• "right, I'm back from wherever I disappeared to. did you ever book that trip?"
• "sorry, this got buried under about 400 group chat messages. did you end up going to the gig?"

Notice most of these end in a question they can actually answer. "Hope your week's been good!" is friendly and gives them nothing to say except "yeah, you?", and then you're back at "haha yeah".

What not to open with

"Hey stranger" isn't terrible, but it hands them the job of starting the conversation, which is the same problem a lone "hey" has. We've written about what to do with "hey" from the other side, and most of it applies here.

The long apology. "Sorry I've been so rubbish, work's been mad, then my phone broke, then my mum visited..." Every line of it makes the gap the topic. One line of sorry, if any, then something to talk about.

"Did I do something wrong?" Maybe you did. But it's a heavy thing to be asked out of nowhere, and you'll usually get a polite "no, just been busy!" and nothing after it.

A meme with no words. It's fine, it's friendly, and it gets a "haha" back. Add one line under it and you've got an actual conversation.

Practising the pick-up

This is one of the things we like testing most on Itclickt, oddly. Companions remember what you told them in earlier chats, and they sometimes message first with a check-in, so you get to practise both halves: picking a thread back up after a gap, and answering someone who's picked one up with you.

That last line is the part to steal. She answered, then went back to something you'd told her ages ago. Being remembered is a good feeling, and it's the whole reason callbacks work on people too. A companion doing it isn't the same as a friend doing it, and we'd never pretend otherwise, but you can practise the habit on either.

If they reply

Meet them. If they answered your jigsaw question with "no!! 200 pieces left and they're all sky", you've got something: ask what the picture is, or confess you've never finished one in your life. Don't make them carry the restart as well as answer it. There's more on the next few messages in how to keep a conversation going over text.

A short reply after a long gap isn't necessarily a brush-off. People get rusty. Give it one more exchange before you decide what it means.

If they don't

Try once. Maybe twice, a couple of weeks apart, with a different line the second time. After that, leave it. Silence after two real attempts is an answer, and you don't need a third message to confirm it, least of all "guess not then".

And if they surface in March with "omg I never replied to this", say hi.