Get over yourself, "friend"!

[FriendlyDolphin]

In 2021 I'm going to be done with apologising. Somehow I've always felt in the wrong with some of my friends, and maybe I am, but I would actually rather stick with the friends who are on my wave length rather than constantly grovel and apologise to friends who arent.

For the record:

• I won't be replying to your long, meandering, endless stream of messages about your emotional life STRAIGHT AWAY because I DONT WANT TO. These arent "hi hows it going?" messages. If I feel like I need to take a few weeks to respond then I will.
• I will be feeling free to cancel. Yes, okay, we made plans to have coffee 2 weeks ago, and now with three days to go it's not convenient anymore. Sorry about that. Until now I've just gone with it because whenever I have cancelled in the past you have sulked. From now on I will be cancelling if it's not convenient anymore. You are completely entitled to find that rude. I personally find it rude to be that uptight - why would you rather someone feel guiltripped into seeing you despite telling you they have work piled up, than postpone? Weird. If someone cancels on me I'm actually secretly received.
• If i don't feel like being in touch, I won't be. I dont actually owe you check ins or continuous dialoguing. In fact my closest friend, we can go a month without checking in - because we respect one another and figure that the other must have stuff going on and will be in touch when she can catch her breath. It's about trust and security.

Basically, I am not a product - when we became friends you didnt take out a "subscription" to me, with a set number of hours owed. Maybe if you were a little lighter and a little less focused on what YOU "get out" of the friendship you would learn to appreciate people for who they are, and accept their different ways of being rather than try to bend them into your own shape. Which makes them snap. Maybe enjoy people for what they bring and how they make you feel, rather than hold them up to your own ideals constantly.

Basically, in 2021 I will be doing what feels right to me, and I'm sorry if that doesnt work for you

I had a vampire friend like this. For two years she sucked me dry until I was sick of hearing from her. It actually killed the friendship, we never recovered from it and I'd known her ten years. I didn't want to ditch her really, for old times sake I suppose. I set new rules because ordinary, flexible to the situation, boundaries wasn't enough. So I never accepted calls from her or replied to texts after 7.30pm, because I need a couple hours peace by myself before sleeping. I always needed to be up and out in the mornings so I didn't talk to her then either because although I had a spare half hour I didn't want to get sucked into her drama and end up late or stressed before I'd even started the day. I took to wearing a watch and when I did speak to her I made a point of checking the time and mentally gave her half hour. I prefer to meet in person I don't want a life lived over the phone or internet so I had to limit that. I'd let her talk about whatever it was bothering her but after 20min I'd jump in and offer advice or opinion on what she'd said so far. Wait for her to respond a few minutes then cut her off with "sorry I'm going out now and my friend has arrived" or "my dinner is ready and I need to get it out the oven" or similar excuse. Wish her luck with the problem, say goodbye and hang up. She sounded disgruntled and surprised every time. What I found was she very quickly stopped calling! She only ever called when there was a problem and obviously felt she wasn't getting what she needed from me. I got a few texts, around one every few months, just asking how I am but never responding to my replies. So I faded out, started replying with "I'm fine thanks x" I hadn't heard from her in almost a year when I got a new phone and number, so I just didn't pass it on to her. My life is so much lighter now. Although a lovely person, she was very negative all the time.

I know someone else who does the exact same 'don't leave me alooooone!' routine your friend does OP. I had to point it out to the person in the end, I'm still unsure if they have/had awareness of starting a new conversation (often by "let me just show you this (totally non essential thing that's not even relevent to our previous convo) quickly" and half hour later I'd still be there. Now I just say "No, you're doing it again, I'm leaving like I said." It means I have to be strong and recognise when it's happening though. But for this person, it's worth it.

Sorry to make that post all about me OP. Just wanted to share what helped me move forwards.

You have to say 'I have a zoom call in 4t minutes/need to pick up my dry cleaning before they close at 6' etc with people who dont respect you trying to close out a phone conversations.
Otherwise you're sacrificing a whole evening of your down time to be someone's sounding board and no one can do that regularly.

@BlueThistles of course age is relevant. At twenty people are still learning to manage difficult relationships. At 40 you would expect someone to be reasonably competent at it.

OP I suspect that your friend is not aware of how you really feel or what you are writing here and you need to be honest with them and tell them what you have written here so that they can decide if they want to continue to be friends with you.

As long as you don’t mind being treated the same way. As pp said, you won’t have this problem in 2022

@Unicant. I’m in 100 percent agreement with you. I too have had these kind of ‘friends’ and the damage they can cause can be terrible and long lasting. Take care OP. I hope you find the strength to move on in your life without these kind of friendships and without all the hurt that they can cause. It could also be that you have just outgrown each other and that’s absolutely ok too. 🌷🌷🌷♥️

I think I get your point OP.
What I don't get is why you decided to post about it. Sounds like you know what you need to do.
As good friends, we need to be there for each other when the chips are down. But if all your relationship has ever been is about being an empathic listener for this person, maybe they don't need you, they need a counsellor.

Well, your nickname definitely isn't true. You might want to add "un" at the start.

You say you struggle to make friends. I cannot for the life of me understand why that would be...

You teach people how to treat you.

I think if the friendship is causing you so much aggro you should just go NC with the friend. There’s no point taking weeks to reply or cancelling all the time when you’re just spending ages frothing over their missed calls and messages or seemingly even the fact they’ve dared to make plans with you. Just cut them out, tell them why if you want to, but feigning relationships with people you have such utter contempt for isn’t healthy for both parties

I don't know why people don't Intuit how a friendship is going. If someone takes weeks to reply, they're just not that into you anymore. Let it drift, don't cling.