How to respond when he's trying too hard to impress

Trying too hard isn't about him being fake or a bad person. It's about insecurity or inexperience. He either doesn't know you well enough to relax yet, or he's anxious about messing this up. The longer compliments, the emojis, the "you're the best person ever" energy, the promises about how great things will be. These are all tells that he's running on a script in his head instead of just texting like a normal human.

Notice the gap between how he texts and how a normal conversation actually feels. Real banter has breathing room. It has questions. It has moments where neither person is trying. When someone's trying too hard, every message feels like it's aimed at you. It's performative. Once you spot that, you know what you're dealing with, and you can decide whether to invite him to relax or move on.

Your reply needs to do two things at once. First, it signals that you don't need the performance. You're not blown away by effort. You're interested in actual conversation. Second, it asks him a real question or makes a real observation that pulls him out of his script and back into talking like a person.

Short is the move here. One or two sentences max. No emojis unless you already use them naturally in your texts. No matching his compliments or his energy. Instead, pick out one small thing he said, respond to it simply, and ask him something that requires a real answer. This resets the baseline. He'll either match your tone and calm down, or he'll keep performing and you'll see that pretty fast.

Send your message within a few hours so he's not left wondering if you ghosted. Don't wait until late at night. The timing of your reply matters less than the content, but sending it when you're in the moment of reading and responding is better than crafting something hours later.

If he keeps trying too hard after your reset, you've got maybe two or three messages to see if he'll drop it. If he doesn't calibrate after that, the performance style is probably just who he is right now, and you can decide if that's someone you want to keep talking to. Don't spend energy trying to train him out of it. Move on or see him in person, because sometimes people relax once the conversation is face to face.