I can relate to this so so much! To the point where I have turned off my phone for 3 months (yes, 3 months) just to avoid receiving and replying to messages, but it's not about what I'm saying it's just the act of texting. It doesn't just happen when I'm messaging guys, it's just texting and messaging in general. It's been years now and it's tiring. I actually lost a very good friend over this so while it may seem trivial to others, I understand how it can really affect your day to day life. I find it's worse for me on two occasions: 1.) After/during a stressful period like exams, I get anxiety about texts which seems to stem from general anxiety about the exams themselves to where I just can't organise myself enough to communicate 2.) Where the messaging going to lead to some sort of invitation to something that I don't want to do but feel I can't say no to like a friend's party. It's frustrating because I can't pinpoint exactly where it's coming from, and it's hard to explain to people. One thing I've found helps me when it comes to replying is to reply as soon as I see a text come in. I know some people say you should wait x amount of minutes so you don't seem desperate but no one really reads in to that, and I never read into the amount of time people take to reply. I feel that if I ignore a message, the anxiety builds up to the point where I just ignore it and it eats away at me, and I end up looking rude. Forcing myself to reply straight away has really helped! Another thing that I find is that I write and rewrite drafts of a message I'm going to send before actually sending it. I'm usually not worried about what I'm saying, it's more to just delay the process I guess. If you're the same, the best advice I can give is to just send the first message that comes into your head. People generally don't read in to what you're saying or how you said it. If you send messages straight away without dwelling on them, it really helps to stop the anxiety from building up. You say that it happens specifically with girls you're trying to pull, do you think maybe it could be a sort of fear of rejection? Like you're afraid to say something wrong, or that it will come across the wrong way? If so, then you're probably just overthinking what you're saying! Most people don't get anxiety about texting, and so they won't read into your messages. I've found that I read into things way too much (like phrasing, order of words etc.) and that if someone doesn't reply or if their replies get short they've lost interest in me. I know this is irrational and something that's helped is to distract myself once I've sent a message and not re-read it. Just forget about it. If they reply, they reply. If they don't, they're probably just busy and will later. Sorry I feel like I've rambled on here but I guess I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone with this :) I hope this helps you at least a little bit!