To wish my friend would stop texting me all the time

[Leavemealoneplease]

She is on maternity leave and I guess she’s bored but honestly it’s constant and such banal stuff. She asks me questions and then makes ridiculous comments in reply.

I’m just finding it exhausting.

People who do this make their friend feel afraid to message them cos past experience shows if they do message, it’ll only encourage them and start up a whole new flurry of messages for days or weeks on end! Their actions with the incessant messaging sadly make people around them back off further and further.

People who text too much drive me mad too OP. It's actually a selfish and entitled way to behave - the texter is assuming they have a right to your time over and over again. If people want a catch up they should call or arrange a coffee, not send 15 texts that interrupt you every time! Agree with PP's that you should reply to the first one saying 'so sorry, rushing around like mad today so might not be able to reply. Let's have s coffee this week' or whatever is appropriate.

How can someone phoning you and wanting to meet for coffee take up LESS of your time?

I kinda get this!

I’d rather meet up with a friend once every month or two for an hour or two having coffee and catching up than spend hours every week trading inane messages back and forth. Quality time and all that.

Obviously only if I liked and wanted to see the person though. OP doesn’t sound like she likes this person much, understandably.

I have a friend like this.

She’s so needy. And I’m incredibly busy compared to her.

But we’ve hit a routine where I respond when I can as often as I can.

I love her. I don’t want her upset. And sometimes it sort of annoys me but then I think she must be feeling lonely so I suck it up!

Texting in itself isn’t intrusive, it’s the least intrusive form of communication really as you can send it at your leisure to be picked up and responded to at the recipient’s leisure, so it’s great in that respect.

It’s more the frequency that makes it intrusive in this case. As if someone is messaging every day multiple times it’s probably also true that they want a reply every day, so the expectations on the recipient are very different. I’d be frustrated if anyone I knew was messaging me daily, ringing me daily, popping over daily, if I wasn’t enthusiastically doing the same to them (and therefore it wasn’t equal).

People who message incessantly to a slightly reluctant recipient who doesn’t respond half as much or as enthusiastically are usually either poor at reading social signals or just don’t care, and that can be extremely frustrating if you’re someone who struggles to put boundaries in place and only respond when it’s convenient for you.

It feels a bit intrusive sometimes. ITs non stop. Photos and videos of the baby. Stupid comments ‘how are you?’ ‘I’m hot! How are you x’ ‘take your clothes off and run round naked’. Ok, daft comment but she doesn’t stop. I jokingly reply with ‘not sure that would earn me a promotion!’ ‘Oh why not they’d love it! Oh go on, do it!’

It’s relentless and sometimes I just want some peace

Please tell her op.
This thread has put me off texting anyone tbh.

I have a friend like this. It would me up a while back, but you can take control. I only look at my phone now in the morning, lunchtime and evening. If I see a message on WhatsApp, I don’t open it until I’m on ‘phone time’. It hasn’t affected our friendship, but I’m not pissed off about the messaging anymore.
It’s generally chicken and egg - the more you reply, the more people text. Most of my other friends, we have a text exchange once or twice a week, maybe.

Just tell her work have noticed how often you are on your phone so you will no longer reply to her during working hours. Then when you are at home you can use excuses like cooking, bedtime (assuming you have kids) and general house work as excuses to not reply.

"Ooh, I was hoovering"
"We were watching a film"
"I was in the middle of cooking dinner"

Rinse and repeat.

'Rinse and repeat'
If you have to think of her as dirty washing you may as well do her a favour and block her

To people who’ve been put off texting, are you honestly unsure that you’re able to tell whether you’re texting a reasonable amount or whether the other person is responding in kind?

@bizarretortoise I’m intrigued by your limited phone time. I could do with implementing something similar.

Any tips on how you cut your usage? Or are you just super disciplined and and can only pick your phone up three times a day?