A long wait isn’t a no. Sometimes it’s just a slow inbox.

Absence of news gets read as bad news, because your mind would rather have a decided story than an open one. The actual reasons for delay are usually boring: the person is behind, the decision involves four people, somebody is away. Reading silence as rejection just means you grieve something that has not happened.

Hold the question open instead of closing it early, which is harder but more accurate. Give it the normal amount of time for whatever it is, a week or two, then follow up once. In the meantime, act as though the answer is still unknown, because it is. Keep your other options moving.