Friend coming down hard on me for lack of communication

I think having a partner is a very, very weak excuse for not keeping in touch with a friend.
If you wanted to, you would.
When you were on your road trip, if you were ever a passenger in the car, that would’ve been a great time to drop her a message.

If your relationship is 90% WhatsApp but you don’t have time to reply to her on WhatsApp…. Then you don’t really have a relationship do you?

There are quite a few Yabu reaponses on here, some with strong feelings. Could one of you please explain why one communication style should trump another?
the op is already compromising by sending any at all when it’s just to keep the friend happy. Why does the friend not have to compromise at all?

I feel you, OP. She is not a good friend. A good friend would understand that every person has their own preferences and habits when it comes to Whatsapp messaging. Time to get rid of this toxic person from your life. Block and move on.

Out of interest, how do you think people who live alone or don't have partners should meet their basic need for human sharing?

Should they only be friends with other people living alone? Meaning no lasting friendships as people enter relationships/change their living situation. Or just go without basic community and the day to day sharing you have?

@Branleuse
Wtf is the deal with people who think it's OK to pressure friends for constant contact?
Do you only have one friend or no other responsibilities??

I have loads of people who I feel like I'd love to speak to more often. Genuinely. I have family members as well as friends I consider close and extremely important, that I haven't spoken to properly in weeks or months and am desperate for a coffee and catch up.

But you don't need to wait to have a massive catch up. It's that day-to-day contact, little snippets about life, thoughts, jokes, whatever. The same sort of stuff you find to talk to your partner about who you see everyday! Just a sense of community, sharing life with others.

I have a dear friend who used to exchange little messages day to day. Thoughts, jokes, tiny updates. Got a partner and now seems to think every contact has to be a massive "catch up" where we each reel off a list of events in our lives since we last met. The sharing, musing, humour, and just enjoying hanging out all lost. (Fortunately they did understand when I explained and we got it back, a bit!)

It's the day to day little bits of sharing that are needed. No wonder we have a loneliness epidemic if people forget this.

Absolutely this.

You’ll find people will treat you how you treat them so if you find you don’t have any friends supporting you and actually there for you when you need them, you’ll know it’s because you didn’t bother to put in the effort.

Well, if you find communicating with her an inconvenience perhaps you could tell her you haven't got time for her.

because some people hate them!

They can't multi-task so need to drop everything to stop and listen at the voice notes, which kind of defeat the point 😂

I love voice- notes but I only send them to very few people, in case people get bizarrely offended.

I even had to tell my youngest to send me notes instead of faffing typing, he hadn't even consider he could use them for his own mum - no issue with friends of course

I think that's out of order, and I live alone! I have some friends I'm in touch with almost every day, and others I hear from once every few weeks. Everyone has their own shit going on, and I'd never get arsey with someone for not responding. Just ignore her until you have the time to message back, that's fine and most normal people understand that.

She’s needy and needs to get a life.

I think it's ok to say that you can understand how it might feel from.her point of view but then outline your perspective and to gently set some boundaries in terms of saying sometimes you won't be able to respond as quickly or in as much depth as she might like but you still really value the friendship and see it as one of your closest.. Apologising suggests you accept you did something wrong. Do you think you did do something wrong?

I actually quite like voice notes! Because I can listen and send one whilst I’m doing housework or cooking or whatever so it takes no ‘extra’ time

It's like any relationship- you either have matching ideas of what you want it to look like or you don't. If you don't are either of you willing to change or happy to compromise? If not friendship won't work.

If you don't want to be in touch every few days but she does, and presumably you also don't want to hear from her that frequently either then there’s your answer. If your phone does an alert and you think "oh no it's her" and she's brcome a chore you feel bad about then that's that. Unless it's unusual? Like if she is usually great but is having a crisis of some sort and you are willing to stick it out and help her through and then things go back to normal. But it doesn't sound like that's the case.

If you expect your friends to put you as high on the priority list as their partner and children, you are unreasonably needy too

To the ‘it only takes a few minutes’ people, two points
1, no, it doesn’t because it’s clear this friends level of neediness would send an immediate return

1. what about the friendly people who have hundreds of friends they’ve collected over the years and get ten similar messages a day?

Dh goes away regularly for work and even though I’ve good intentions it is really really difficult to keep in touch, same with friends in friend groups, they text as you’re driving into work/ dropping the kids off and you reply, they reply back when you’re in work and you reply a few hours later then they reply again, then you’re in the car again picking up kids. You’re telling your kids to stay off phones then they text again, you’re helping with homework doing dinner. You look like you’re not interested/ have missed loads of a conversation. Also your life is in the car go here go there clean etc etc and they want a run down but ‘I’m just mopping then off to collect first child, then get him something to eat then collect other child also drop other to work … my mum always says ‘you must have news’. Literally no. I have zero news.

That's extreme in my books. I indeed don't have the time or the will to provide biweekly life updates to all my friends on WhatsApp... Not that any of them is asking for it anyway.

I'm curious, do people on here who criticises OP actually do that?

I don't have a huge network, but even I take my closest friends and family, that's at least 10-15 people. A few seconds X 2 conversations per week X 10 people X 4-5 back and forth responses = a lot.

I’m with you, sister!

It would be too much for a lot of people. She’s a friend not a partner. Imagine if all of your friends wanted that level of contact, it would be exhausting, especially if you have a demanding life generally.

Sorry, OP, but this update is hilarious! “Given several people life updates” 😂

I think you are being unreasonable and the fact she lives alone makes it more unreasonable. If she wanted multiple updates a day that would be too much but three or four a week when you know she’s on her own. I think you’re being really harsh.

It’s not every 3 to 4 days though is it, you said you had an extended Christmas and then you were away. I mean every 3 to 4 days is a lot, but every 10 days isn’t much.

You’ve hit nail on the head. Your friend is lonely and desperate for someone to share her day with.

Not much you can do about it other than be sympathetic and reply if you get a chance.

I had a friend like that once. Put up with it for a while then binned her. I HATE neediness like that.