Right? What if they are playing hard to get in the initial phase of getting to know each other? Confusingly, after having already put noticable effort on communication, but then withdrawing that almost fully and resorting to breadcrumb generic chats that make me wonder what has happened or what I have done wrong.

For me, regardless of how busy I get, I always not only respond, but also proactively check up on those that matter to me and or I'm genuinely interested in maintaining the connection with them.