Friend coming down hard on me for lack of communication

To be honest I’m struggling to see the issue here. I think part of it might be that you see yourself as better than she is? You find her tiresome?

When I lived alone, I had a more active social
life than my friends who lived with parents or with their partner. I was early/mid 20s (a few years ago) and I was constantly out or having people over, I was busy socially. It wasn’t the case that I was totally reliant on old friends for socialisation, quite often I was the one to drop out of touch. I would go for dinner/drinks with colleagues most days so it wasn’t even that I needed to actively check in with older friends as to not be lonely if that’s what you’re insinuating. Usually if you live alone, it’s easier for people to come to yours and arrange things from there - to be hub of sorts for your various friendship groups. So yeah, I can’t really see why living alone would make someone more clingy - that’s just this individual friend’s personality.

Voice notes as an "instant messaging" style thing don't work either. Because as the recipient you have to be able to listen. I can maybe glance at a message while on a work call or in the office and check to see if it's anything urgent, but I can't be listening to people talk. I can't listen with DD around in case it's something she shouldn't hear. And if it's the private feelings of a friend, I probably shouldn't listen when DH or my other family/friends are near by.

Equally, in most of those situations if it's not appropriate to call it's likely not appropriate to say it out loud into a voice note.

I think we’ve misunderstood each other - I’m saying I think it’s common sense to pull back if someone isn’t as interested as you are, not that it’s an offensive thing to do!

@Rhaidimiddim
Our pattern of getting together (we lived in different cities and she travelled a lot for work) was one that suited us well to start with, then got difficult, and then very onerous as my life circumstances changed. I kept trying to explain it to her, but she just didn't hear. Or didn't want the arrangement to change (it was one that massively benefitted her).

At least you explained it to her, that is fair enough. Also not sure why your way of meeting had always been one to benefit her and not equal - sounds odd and maybe not a good friendship to start with.

It's very sad to lose a friend though, and I don't understand why people would want to distance themselves from good friends just because of life circumstances - people seem to shrink their worlds in a way that isn't good for anybody.

How has changing the name from voicemail to voice-notes convinced some people to overlook the fact we stopped doing this when texting came in because they are fucking horrible?

Sometimes, due to depression and long covid, I simply do not have the headspace for even a simple WhatsApp message, @Sueeet. I do apologise to my friends when this has happened, and thankfully they are understanding, and accept that I’m not just being lazy or a bad friend.

I accept it can be hard to understand how a simple WhatsApp message can be an almost impossible task, if you have never experienced it, but I assure you it is very real. To be honest, I am not sure I have the words to explain how it feels - the best I can do is that it feels like thinking through concrete and it makes me feel like I can’t find a single word or thought to send in reply to a message, whilst at the same time, telling me what a failure I am for feeling that way.

This, agree entirely.

I have had this situation with a work buddy who was incredibly intense. She was more than just a colleague but simultaneously wanted to speak constantly, insisted on giving colleagues / me pet names, and it became quite suffocating once I had had children. I tried to make it work but once I left the company I just couldn't sustain it. I did explain to her though. At the end of the day, I had life long friends I was struggling to see, and this particular friendship was very "small talk", yet she was very over bearing. It was needy, suffocating and really hard work.

But it's not about just not understanding friendship, or a particular person's style of friendship. In the OPs instance, and what many have referred to in the thread, is when people have a good friendship that is working however it works, then one person decides to change it.

It's up to them, but also understandable the other person will be confused and hurt by this. (Because it is painful to lose people you love and the good times you share). You think you have someone in your life where you mutually appreciate and understand each other and then suddenly it's all different.

A photo or video of what? Most of my friends don't want a photo of my dog sleeping and I'm quite selective about who gets photos of DC because once they're gone there's no controlling what happens with them. Most people aren't taking many photos throughout the day otherwise.

But why do you find it bizarre that people aren't all the same as you?

A lot of people don’t like voice notes!

I find it hard to believe that people actually believe that everyone else’s lives runs like theirs do.

my best friend lives a few doors away from me, we have been friends since I was 5 and she was 3. (Now both in our 40s) we both have kids, demanding jobs and demanding families. We barely speak week to week, and it’s mostly through snapchat. We know we both have busy lives, we know that sometimes it may takes hours, sometimes the next day before we reply, because even though we have read a message, we need to think about a reply, or maybe read it whilst doing something else and say in our heads what our reply is but actually forget to do it. (We have a yearly conversation on Facebook where she posted something on my wall and it took me a full year to reply and now we just add to it every year 😂.)

saying that I also have friends who would reply to me the second I send a message, they also know and accept that I am not the same.

I don’t want to have to think about things sometimes, and yes it might take me a few seconds or a few minutes out my day to send a message, but if I’m stressed, upset, angry or just tired, that might be more than my brain wants to deal with at that time.

Type a few words and send a photo or video

because in total its maybe 20 mins out of my whole day.. 30 would be pushing it.

While I'm stood waiting for the kettle to boil, or sat drinking my morning coffee, when i'm waiting to pick my teenagers up from college, or sitting eating my lunch/dinner.

It doesn't stop anything else being done, or delay anything, it's moments in the day when i'm not occupied and have a minute or two of not doing anything or i'm waiting for something.

ETA: in the evenings its like now. dinner is done, his kid is watching tv, mine are doing whatever teenagers do in their rooms, so we're chatting over dm about random shit. Today's topic is Squid Game which is what his kid has on, and his crappy meetings he had at work.

Made me chuckle a lot, cheers!

I didn't see this before, apologies.. nothing you have done here is wrong is it..

I guess have a frank talk. If it doesn't work, then only you can decide if you can give her the sort of friendship she wants (no shame if you can't) and only she can decide to take a day or two as no communication as rejection or not.

I tried one and the trickle sound drowned out my voice. It may something to do with putting the phone on the edge of the bathtub. It's a good thing I didn't fart!

I was giving the perspective of the over-enthusiastic texter, not playing word games.

Genuinely how do you have time to get anything else done? I love my best friend but this would take too much mental and emotional energy for me, I couldn't sustain it. And I'd feel like I was on my phone all day.

I'm glad it works for you but this thread is like learning about a parallel universe as I think I'm actually quite communicative compared to a lot of people. Apparently that's way off base.

Okay, sure.

I find it really bizarre when people think it's bizarre that people have different personalities and needs....

Neither of them are in the wrong. They just have different needs from the friendship, which happens.

People have different styles of friendship, they have different lives, different energy levels and different preferences for how to keep in contact.

It's ok to have a different need to someone else. Does t make OP "in the wrong". Or her friend.

I think you just don't want or need that much contact with this person and that's okay.

I'm the type of person that loves regularly checking in and chatting with friends. I find it really bizarre that people don't feel the same, or can't "find the time". I wonder if it's an extrovert thing? A couple of my friends have said to me they don't feel the need to chat so regularly, I just accept it and get on with texting the ones who are chatty, I wouldn't give them a hard time over it!