To reduce contact with a friend

[ConfusedAndStressed95]

I have a friend who I adore but I'm not sure I can cope with. He's often lovely and supportive but I'm finding communicating with him mentally draining. I feel like he requires me to give/be more than I am and I can't keep up with it.

Everything is about him, he is always right and needs to be the loudest voice in the room and center of attention. Which doesn't really bother me on a day to day basis. If he needs that fair enough I don't care enough about what he's talking about to challenge it. However the requests for me to message him which he'll then not answer for days or maybe a week or more despite being active and messaging others and the messages that I've sent being at his request. Which I hate because often it is something that needs sorting/organising and he'll get back to me on the day before or day of and expect me to be able to magic the plans out of thin air. He often drops me if someone more interesting comes along and I don't want to allow that. I don't want them to be able to treat me as a doormat but I've no idea how to fix this.

I can't ignore him completely because he's friends with mutual friends and we attend a lot of the same groups. The other side to this is that he's often incredibly lovely to me. I feel that he may be love bombing me unintentionally and I don't know how to prevent it and reestablish boundaries.

Please tell me how to fix this without having it become a massive issue and damaging other friendships.

@messolini9, brilliant thank you I'll look into it. Hopefully it'll help.

A pleasure OP.
It WILL help, if you let it.
This man is taking up far too much of your time & thought processes.
You do not need to facilitate or appease him - you are bettter off working on yourself, & what you want, & creating a small amount of distance from him.

@messolini9, I know. It’s just hard to do when two of my five housemates are also his friends and another two know him. And with him being in my house at least twice a week with no possibility of stopping it. All I can do with one is be out on Friday morning when he’s over because I’ll see him a lot at the weekend.

Yes, that is hard Confused.

But you will look back on this chapter of your life at some point in the not too distant future, & realise what a learning experience it was. And it certainly seems like you are surrounded by other good friends. Keep pluggng away at your own self-esteem, assertiveness, & boundary-setting. None of us were born knowing how to handle this stuff ... it's going through it that makes us wiser!

@messolini9, that’s true. Though a large part of me wants to be really petty and immature and block him from everything and just cease speaking to and acknowledging him completely. I won’t because I can’t really explain or justify that one though.

Hmmm ... I would haard that that large part of you is neither petty or insecure. I suspect it is your instinct screaming at you to distance yourself.

Obviously you can't do that comfortably because of the social & living situation. But you can address how you deal with him, react to him, & how much you let his actions affect your feelings.

He's clearly a big personality. But you don't need to fall in with his need for attention, make plans for him, organise things for him, or respond quickly (even at all, sometmes) to his messages.

Here's another thing that might be helpful, if you haven't seen it before - "Grey Rock" is all about taking the emotion & ammunition out of of everyday conversations with draining personality types.
www.e-counseling.com/mental-health/what-is-the-grey-rock-method/

HAZARD btw - not 'haard' !

@messolini9, I've not heard of grey rock so I'll look into that as well. Honestly at this point I'm willing to try anything. It sounds pathetic that he's had such an effect on me but I've honestly had such a crappy year and there isn't much more I can take. I'm so worn down with everything I've made massive changes this year to improve things and he's the one constant issue and something needs to be done.

You are putting other peoples expectations before your need for some peace and stability. Its completely normal and OK to need head space, and some time for personal contemplation. Just say you are doing that because you have some things you need to work on.

Assuming you’re an early 20s female (I’m not Sherlock Holmes just reading your username ) I think in general when socialising there’s a LOT of weird people out there who are interested in connecting socially claiming to be “friends” but who certainly won’t have your best interests at heart

Especially if you’re quite an intelligent, thoughtful, conscientious person who wants to “do the right thing” and has an idea of how they “ought” to act they tend to detect this and use it as an opportunity to manipulate.

What I learned is that people who are fairly “intense and love bomby” tend to often be the weirdos.

Most mainstream people your age should be working/studying/moving their life forward/maybe getting into coupley relationships.

So actually “superficial” friendships based on ease and going out on holiday and doing nice things (rather than playing therapist or rescuer) are ok.

It’s actually fine to just be part of a big group.

If someone (Male or female) has the time and energy and inclination to do all sorts of favours or “go out of their way” hugely for you they are often controlling or emotionally unbalanced or something is off in the dynamic.

It’s like “trying to be family” when they’re actually not?

He attends Bible Study at your house, my goodness OP it doesn't sound like Christian behaviour to me.

@Inebriati, That’s a good thing to say.

@YellowBup, I get that and we are part of a wider group of friends, working and studying but I just can’t make head nor tails of his behaviour. I’ve met his family and his siblings are lovely but his parents and the dynamics are incredibly odd.

@TheWernethWife, it doesn’t seem like particularly Christian behaviour to me but I can’t judge him on that as I’m sure there are times I don’t behave in a particularly Christian manner.

I’m just up worried because he’s coming over tomorrow (well today now) and I’m going have to interact with him and then I’m away with the uni society that he and some of our other friends are part of so I’m likely to be around him a lot then.

Well I'm now anxious and annoyed. He's over an hour late for games without warning which has annoyed the rest of our friends and they're quizzing me on why he's not here and saying that I need to message him to find out if he's coming but I really don't want to so I've told one of our friends to message him herself. I'll not be able to avoid him this weekend but I've no idea how I'll stay civil when I next see him as I'm ready to blow a fuse at the disrespect I've had to deal with over the past couple of years from him.