How does a man feel when you ignore him?

There is a very well known experiment in psychology called Cyberball. Someone is sat in front of a screen, they play catch with two other players, and after a while the other two stop throwing them the ball. That is all. The other players are programs, the person often knows it, and the game only lasts a few minutes.

That is still enough to lower their mood, their self-esteem and their sense of existing for other people. Kipling Williams, the researcher behind this work, showed that being ignored hits four basic needs: belonging to a group, feeling valued, keeping some control over what happens to you, and mattering to someone. Silence attacks all four at once.

Another study, published in Science in 2003 by Naomi Eisenberger and her team, scanned participants' brains during that same game. The areas that light up when you are left out are partly the ones that process physical pain. So when a man says it "hurt" that you stopped answering, he is not just using a figure of speech.

One last point before we get into the detail, and it matters for what follows. These effects show up even when the person being ignored knows it is a game, and even when they do not like the people ignoring them at all. In other words, the pain of being ignored proves nothing about feelings. Him suffering from your silence does not mean he loves you.

The timings change from one man to another, but the order barely moves. Here is how it usually goes.

The most interesting stage is the doubt, because that is where everything is decided. A man who does not understand why you have stopped replying makes up an explanation on his own, and he rarely picks the right one. He thinks about another man, about something he might have said, about you losing interest in general. Almost never about the real reason, especially if you never told him.

And that is also where silence backfires. You are hoping he will understand. He is busy inventing. There is no reason for the two stories to match.

This is the point that changes everything. The same silence, sent to four different men, produces four results that have nothing to do with each other.

The one who is afraid of being left: he cracks within hours. He writes, he calls, he even apologises for things he never did. Your silence has a huge effect on him, but what comes back to you is anxiety, not love. That reaction is typical of men who experience every absence as the start of a break-up.

The one who backs off when things heat up: he does the exact opposite. Your silence suits him perfectly, he takes it as permission to disappear too, and you can wait a long time. This is the profile that feels relieved when the pressure drops, and he is the worst possible audience for this method.

The one who is simply comfortable in his own skin: he notices, he asks a direct question, and if you still do not answer, he draws the obvious conclusion and moves on. No drama, but no coming back either.

The one who manipulates: to him, your silence is an arm wrestle. He does not feel your absence, he feels a loss of control, and he will do whatever it takes to get it back. Usually by punishing you with a longer silence of his own.

You can see the problem. With the first two, silence gets a reaction, just not the one you were after. With the other two, it gets nothing at all, or worse.

Honest answer: sometimes yes, and that is exactly the problem.

Silence brings back a man who already cared about you. It does not create feelings where there were none. So you cannot gain anything you did not already have, and you risk losing what you did have: someone who switches off, or who comes back for the wrong reasons.

A return driven by panic looks nothing like a return that was chosen. A man who comes back because he panicked comes back in an uncomfortable state, and that discomfort does not last. Two weeks later, once everything has calmed down, the reason he came back has gone. You end up exactly where you started, except that in the meantime you have learned to stop talking to each other.

There is one case where none of this applies, and that is a break-up. After a separation, going quiet is not a technique, it is the only way to let things settle on both sides. If that is where you are, know that a man often takes the hit of a break-up several weeks late, and that his silence in the first few days tells you nothing about what he will think in a month.

Everything above is about silence used as a tool, to get something. Going quiet to protect yourself is a different thing entirely, and it is often the best move available.

You have every reason to stop replying if you feel belittled, if you have been the only one making an effort for months, if conversations systematically end up turned against you, or if you need some calm to think without being talked round. In those cases silence is not a coded message. It is a boundary.

The difference comes down to one simple thing: a boundary is announced once, before it starts. One sentence is enough. "I need a few days without talking, I will come back to you." After that you can say nothing for a week without it being a game, because the other person knows where they stand.

Silence as a technique is never announced, precisely because it relies on worry to work. That is what makes it uncomfortable for everyone involved, including the person using it.

And if your real question is what he feels for you, regardless of this whole silence business, there is something simpler than waiting for a message: the way he behaves when you are not supposed to be watching says far more. And if it is your ex who is on your mind, we built a test to sort out what is left between you.

How long before he reacts? Between two days and a week in most cases, if he is going to react at all. Past two weeks with no sign whatsoever, it is no longer a question of timing.

Is he thinking about me during all that? Yes, but not the way you imagine. He thinks about it in bursts, when something reminds him, not continuously the way you might be doing.

He read my message and did not answer, what does that mean? Usually that he does not know what to say and is putting it off. Silence after read receipts is rarely a decision, it is hesitation settling in.

Can I go back on it? Yes, and it takes one sentence, with no long justification. "I needed some space, I am here if you want to talk about it." The shorter the explanation, the easier it is to receive.