Have NC changed for this because I don't want this to out me.
Met this friend about 18 months ago. I will start by saying she is a lovely, sweet, trustworthy person. But I just don't know how to deal with her.
She is early 20s. Has had a tough life and has and lives with abusive parents. You wouldn't know it to look at them and her sometimes but she has confined me in me about things and I've try to offer as much practical advice as I can
She can be quite difficult to deal with. Usually she is quite happy, chatty and can make even the most miserable of us laugh- so I know when she is in a bad mood "and closes off". Of course she is entitled to her privacy but it can be difficult to deal with the silence and sad looks when she won't talk to you and your spending time with her.
I used to see her everyday as our offices were next to each other. We just got chatting one day and then we were going for lunches together, would see her when I parked up in the morning and went for the very occasional drink. I will say that I guess I iniated the friendship because at first I thought she would be a fun person to be friends with and knew she was shy (spoke to one of her co workers who agrees she is a nice girl but doesn't really speak to anyone). We had been friends for a few months before she confined in me about her problems. I asked one day what was wrong and that if she needed someone to talk to I was there and she told me. I did say I would always be there for her as a friend if she wanted support and she could contact me anytime. She never seemed to outside of work hours so I just assumed she had someone else to talk to.
Anyway she left her job a few weeks ago. There was a bit of bad feeling and people came to me saying different things and I decided to give her space. She would text me everyday asking me how I was, what I was doing, how was work etc. I felt obliged to reply so I did text her back and ask her how she was, offered her some support. I've been having a tough time myself the past few weeks so I did text her to try to cheer her up to make myself feel better. We met for lunch one day and everything seemed OK.
And then this is where it goes a bit weird. She will drive aimlessly around the town and keep passing the offices where I work, where I park as if she is looking for me. Of course it is our local town and she might need to go shopping etc but she will be there everyday. And if she is in town she will text me saying "let's go for lunch" or texts me saying "I need to go into town today if you want to meet up at lunch or after work I'll fit my plans in around that"
She will park up where I park when I'm working. It is a free car park but there are other places she can park for free. It's a bit more of a walk to get in town but only another 5 minutes.
She texts me everyday asking how I am, what I'm doing, misses me etc. I do miss her so I say it back but I'm responding because I can't deal with a guilt trip text message I imagine she would send if I didn't. I tried not replying but she just texts me the day after. She has asked me three times this week if I want to meet up and I've skirted around the texts but she isn't getting the hint.