overbearing whatsapping from a “friend”

[IABUQueen]

So when I was in secondary school, there was a group I hanged around with as I was new and they took me in. They were bullies but I didn’t have the confidence to see that. One of the girls that used to tag along with them was heavily bullied by them and as I was too.. I found my way away from them, blocked them all.. and moved on with life, it has been 10 years and I still don’t find them comfortable to be part of my life.

But when I got older, I got contacted by a the girl who was bullied by them. She doesn’t see them as bullies and seems to like them and is in contact with them. I felt really bad for the Fact I had left her on her own to be bullied and ignored her in my later school days.. so I decided to go to her wedding since she invited me.. got her a nice gift and that’s that. She asked me to help her fix her cv to find a job so I felt like I want to do this even though I don’t really see her as a close friend but I wanted to make up for what I felt was poor behaviour of mine in school.

Ever since then... she has been constantly constantly Whatsapping me. She updated me about her life so on.. which was cool.. but it’s been a year now and she texts me everyday with small talk asking me what I’m doing..

I tell her I’m busy, she says , busy doing what??

Then she calls me millions of times if I don’t respond.. sends me million messages asking me why I’m not replying..

I told her look I don’t use WhatsApp that much (I do but with close people)... she asks to meet me every week... she is quite obsessive about me and my life...

I am creeped out.. I only knew her breifly like 14 years ago and she seems really really in my life. If I tell her I’m out, she says outside where ?? I tell her the shop name to end the convo and she asks me what I’m buying.. asks me to send her photos of my child all the time.

I don’t know how to explain how I feel but I’m finding her overbearing

I don’t know how she got the impression we are best friends. I think it’s becahse when she miscarried, and told me about it, she said I’m the only friend that she knows who she can speak to as I have kids and everyone else doesn’t... so I comforted her and told her that I miscarried too and gave her advice which is normal for me..

But the constant daily whatsappung and then acting offended that I’m not responding. Callls in the middle of the night at times at 2 am... saying she saw me online (I breastfeed and so I quickly check my Whatsapp at times but not up for a call from a random girl).

I don’t want to offend her... I just am struggling with her overbearing ness and I don’t particularly fancy a close relationship with her. She was never my type and I only helped her out of sympathy (I know it sounds mean)...

I told her many times not to call at night.. that I’m busy with a baby.. that I don’t do constant whatsapping.

She suffers from OCD and I’m not sure if that’s behind her obsessive texting..she doesn’t seem to stop.

She seems extremely bored and it’s draining

I considered blocking her but I don’t want to feel horrible again. I just don’t want her to expect I will meet her every week and respond to her every hour of the day. We have not much in common at all... never did, aside from being bullied by the same people 14 years ago.

She doesn’t live that near. I haven’t been to hers but it’s half an hour away by underground

I’ve had this happen twice in my life. Always took me unawares. I wouldn’t say I’m an overly nice person, but I am a good listener and I think people have enjoyed that a little too much if they haven’t had it before in life.

One was a cultural mismatch, she was going by the rules of her culture, where women spent a good park of their day together doing household tasks. Not my scene at all. Another was an older professional woman friend who told (only me) about an affair she was having. So I quickly became the only person she could share her emotional roller coaster with. And it was a ridiculous number of contacts a week.

I tried everything to subtly distance myself, to be kind and spare their feelings. Nothing worked. So in both cases I pulled on my big girl assertive pants and rang them myself. I said that I found their need for contact too intense, that it was too out of sych with my own preferences. I specified that I had many friendships, and liked a maximum of twice a week contact in order to enjoy those friendships and still get all my other stuff done in life. I said I ran a personal policy of a 2-3 day turnaround to respond to a text or call, and that I didn’t usually respond to tags, memes or links. I added that I’d understand if my way was not how they preferred things, and they chose to cool the friendship. And wished them the best in life.

One tried to change her ways to better suit mine, but just couldn’t stop herself getting offended when I didn’t respond immediately. So I sent one last farewell message, and answered nothing after that. The other I never heard from again.

I’m convinced that assertiveness, then follow through, is the best way. Don’t let resentment build up in yourself, that’s not being kind.

She's an emotional vampire. For your own mental health cut her loose and don't feel guilty. She won't listen to reason so I would just block her.

I struggle with boundaries so I think I’m going to repeat this to myself enough times until I managed to overcome my sense of guilt and do the right thing of addressing the situation:

“ I have the right to have my time be respected and my focus not be distracted from my responsibilities unless for urgent reasons”..

Is that right ?

I need to learn a lesson from all this. I feel violated but not sure how to express it so is that the boundary I should rehearse ?

dont let resentment build that’s not being kind

That was a wake up call. Thanks for that. I’m working on not being passive aggressive.. and I didn’t recognise this situation as a yet another example of what I need to work on.

I suffer with FOG, fear obligation and guilt which is probably my contribution to this confusing dynamic. I feel guilty for being uncomfortable which usually leads to me not being clear enough and eventually resenting how invaded I feel.

Maybe this situation is good In hindsight. For my personal development

I find it uncomfortable that your unwilling to block someone that you consider, on some level, to be potential risk to your son in order to spare their feelings.

Message her now to explain politely why you're dropping out the friendship, and then block her on all forms of social media. Block her number also. If she shows up, do not answer the door. Phone the police if she persists.

I find it uncomfortable that your unwilling to block someone that you consider, on some level, to be potential risk to your son in order to spare their feelings.

She hasn’t done anything to suggest she is a potential risk. She has just been overly obsessive and too indulged.. I’m trying to unpick why that “feels” like potential risk in a logical sense because I only have instincts to go by.

I sort of am the type of person that let my instincts guide me but I don’t usually take action unless I’ve got a logical confirmation. Is that bad ?

WhT I will do about it is that I never invite her to the house again.. I stopped sending her photos of my son when I noticed obsession.

I put it down to my possible “stranger danger” response.. as I don’t actually know her well at all.. know nothing about her.. so I naturally don’t like strangers to be overly involved in my personal life.

I wasn’t sure if my instincts were guiding me to something else. Was hoping someone here would help me unpick this too.

The only situation I’m
Sure about is that her overbearing messaging is affecting my stress levels and so I’m going to deal with this very soon. Everything else is speculation

Op that all sounds so draining. If it were me I would tell her what's acceptable (ie. how often, when and how she can contact you), she'll probably ignore it. Tell her again and that sadly you'll have to stop contact if she can't stick to that, she'll probably ignore that too and then block her? If she did stick to an acceptable level of contact could you live with that or do you just want her out of your life?
I don't think you should let your guilt guide your decision.

I've met people like this. Best to just block her after saying you're exhausted with baby and going off grid for a while.

I’ve had a three friendships like this. They always seem nice but a bit..odd to start with. That’s okay, I’m odd too (I have ASD). Then suddenly it’s suffocating! Obsessive messages, calls, messages that just read ???? If you haven’t replied to a question quickly enough. I’ve successfully managed to step back. Worst one was a colleague who would ring me for a chat when we’d been at work together all day! I was talking to her more than DH!

I have had to: not open messages when they come, not be visible online on Facebook (some people don’t get that you may be browsing FB but that doesn’t mean you’re free to chat, I often browse on the loo!!), not answer calls and text back later saying ‘Sorry! Really busy!’. I started to message ‘I will be very busy/away from signal the next few days, I’ll contact you when things calm down’ which helps to start to create some distant.

You do have to be perisistent though. It’s not an overnight turn around. I get FOG too (dysfunctional family relationships) and I think needy people latch on to friendly people who a likely to support them because of FOG, most people withdraw early on!

You are right, “I have the right to have my time be respected and my focus not be distracted from my responsibilities unless for urgent reasons”.. needs to be your mantra. I wonder if your radar is up simply because this is quiet creepy behaviour. If it was a relationship, this would be red flag territory! Everyone would say dump and run for the hills! So why do we feel obliged to be kinder to friends? Yes it’s important to be a good friend but if someone has no respect for your boundaries, if they are hounding you and disturbing you at 2am, they’re not being a good friend and it’s okay to let them go.

Does she know where you live?

If not - BLOCK, BLOCK, BLOCK. You don't owe friendship to someone because they were bullied by some girls 10 years ago.

You sound like you're giving this situation far too much headspace. So block away for your own sanity. Block and move on. She is not your responsibility. You will feel like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders.

It sounds like you are entertaining this nonsense. You clearly know that she has no boundaries and is overbearing. She makes you feel uncomfortable and is obsessive about your son. Unless you are enjoying this, the obvious answer is to block her.

Christ, I would not be able to cope with this. I probably wouldn't have got myself this obtained though, sincd I'm so terrible at replying to messages and returning calls

You've said she wasn't aware she was being bullied at school, has OCD, she clearly doesn't understand acceptable social norms, she has obsessive behaviour and an obsessive interest in your son. I'd be very surprised if she wasn't autistic to be honest. I wonder if you could get in touch with a relative and ask them to intervene?

I don't like your updates OP, I'm taking it back about giving her an extra chance. She needs to be cut loose now. Keep it simple and calm, but firm. "I asked you to back off from sending too many messages and calling late at night. You continue to send a lot of messages and call up too much, so I now need to block you from contacting me. I wish you well, but I don't want to communicate with you any more."

Block

Bock

Block

She's sucking the life out of you, you're becoming anxious. Why wouldn't you block her? You are getting nothing from this relationship, it is not enhancing your life in any way. It is not a friendship

I'd just block her and move on.

Life is too short for this nonsense. She's playing you and overstepping boundaries. She relies on you feeling sorry for her so she gets away with what is essentially crap behaviour.

OP, send her a message and tell her you are doing a social media detox over the holidays, and hope she has a great summer. Then block her. This is an easy way to spare her feelings but also to put some distance between you.

Sounds dreadful!
Would you miss her if she disappeared from your life? If not, then block her. It's not your responsibility to make her life better, that's her job. Focus on your family and good friends.

Your updates are driving me mad OP. You have written down your concerns, explained how over bearing and uncomfortable this makes you and yet you seem to be refusing to really take any advice. Why on earth won't you block her?!
She has boundary problems and so do you. They are just a different kind of problem but together they are explosive. She is fully taking advantage of the fact you will answer at some point. She phoned you at 2am and you didn't block her?! The message you sent her really wasn't that bad?!

Honestly I would block on every platform. You say she hasn't actually done anything to make you feel you are in danger but she is! She is basically stalking you. If you had a partner doing this, we would all be telling you he was abusive and controlling and to dump him.

Come on, wise up. The softly softly approach will not work. Block her, keep hold of all the messages and if she turns up at your door I would be logging it with the police and I don't say that lightly. She sounds like she could escalate, whether or not you text her back.

Trust your instincts. Don’t analyse them.

Read The Gift of Fear if you want to know why.

Your instincts about her obsession with your son are letting you know that something is off. Don’t ignore that information.

I mean this kindly but stop trying to help her. She hasnt asked for it and what she does want (ie close friendship) you're not prepared to give her. Do as others gave suggested and block her.

Stop being so wishy washy and a people pleaser.
You are over analysing this.
She's doing your head in, you've told her to stop but she doesnt so stop letting it happen. The balls in your court so to speak.
Stand up for yourself otherwise nothing is going to change and you'll still be moanng in 12 months.

Sorry this is so long but I hope you might be able to unpick something from it.
The social media side goes over my head, but your posts remind me of a situation needing much more than I was able to give. It was a real life friendship, where 'blocking' wasn't an option and a learning curve. If we'd had social media I can imagine how it would have been used.

I accidentally encouraged things in many ways, she had unusual social skills, and boundaries, mine weren't that great, and

she, her partner, my dc's and I, all got on.

Her life then went disastrously wrong and I wanted to be there for her, initially accepting the intensity when she was overwhelmed and devastated by horrible events, and left with me as her only friend.

After helping fix the immediate practical end and a lot of emotional support for a couple of years I tried to gradually lower the commitment. (from hours most days, sometimes whole days)

She said she understood but pushed all the time. I also felt manipulated when I'd try to keep conversations light. (I now know she felt hurt and trivialized by me trying to avoid stuff.)
She appeared to then become quite fixated by my dc too, which wasn't on, especially when it turned out to be affected behavior. It unnerved me.

I kept saying DC where my priority, I later realized that she felt that her prioritizing them too, would end what she saw as a conflicting interest for me.
She was just doing what she could with the skill set she had.

She had ASD, but In the end it became clear she also had borderline personality disorder and so much of her behavior was driven by fear of abandonment which lead to behaviors that caused others to want to abandon her.

A horribly sad and cruel situation and she didn't chose it and couldn't control it.

I tried to help her access help, there really was none forthcoming.
I asked a lead professional what I should do, ( I meant accessing help for her) his response was "run!" which left me angry for her and feeling even more like I couldn't.

I warned my friend where my actual line was, but she inevitably crossed it and was unable to acknowledge more than 'sorry I was upset about it', I told her I couldn't continue. I now know telling her, was almost an invitation to 'try me.'

With hindsight proper friendship couldn't be negotiated until she had significant professional input. She couldn't get it. It wasn't her fault, but I needed to understand it also wasn't my responsibility.

I read the words fear, obligation, guilt, and they resonate deeply.

I was right to trust my instinct regarding my DC's and take them out of the equation, but it didn't make her a bad or dangerous person, just ill equipped for the situation.