Ask Why does a client go silent for weeks and then come back expecting you to be immediately available?

[Edward22]

It is a pattern that many freelancers have experienced: a client stops responding for a long time, then reappears out of nowhere expecting the project to continue right away. There is no acknowledgment of the gap, no explanation, just a message that reads as if no time has passed. Meanwhile, you may have moved on to other work or simply cannot drop everything to respond. Why do you think some clients treat freelancer availability this way, and how do you handle it when it happens?