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

For the record, being introverted does not equal being flakey. Being introverted also does not equal being anxious.

Anyone can be flakey or anxious regardless of personality trait.

An introvert (who doesn't suffer from anxiety) can only be relieved when plans are cancelled IF they didn't want to do it in the first place. This applies to extroverts and ambiverts too.

Being anxious can cause someone to feel relieved when plans are cancelled, even if they were looking forward to it. Being flakey can do that too: because it's either someone cancels or you cancel anyway.

Being flakey, regardless of personality trait, can cause someone to disregard other people's time by making plans carelessly, knowing they can just cancel whenever they want.

Luckily, flakiness has a simple solution: Don't make plans unless you're sure you'll honour them.

Don't let others pressure you into making plans if you're not sure you want to.

If you do make plans, try your best to honour them no matter what.

Leave the exception to serious issues when you really need to cancel. You seriously don't need to cancel that often. Your time is not more important than others' no matter what you do.

Your friend called OP!
They told me to tell you to Fu...

The OP has vanished...i guess she is treating us the way she treats her friends

Totally with you OP. I don’t miss walking on eggshells around some people because they will kick off if I don’t text back quickly enough or need to cancel (for valid reasons such as illness/family issues/being totally drained from work etc). It’s more stress than it’s worth trying to please these ‘friends’.
Fwiw I have a number of great friends and I don’t feel the need to respond to them the way the OP states. That’s because they are real friends and not selfish needy users.

@TheWoodFromTheTrees

The OP has vanished...i guess she is treating us the way she treats her friends

You know OPs don’t owe you anything right?

@TheWoodFromTheTrees

The OP has vanished...i guess she is treating us the way she treats her friends

I don't necessarily agree with OPs stance in the first post, but that is a weird thing to say.

Think the op was here for confirmation bias but only revealed themselves to be awful. Well done.

It sounds to me as if you're not actually this person's friend at all - a friendship isn't just about what you want or what you get, like any relationship. Your attitude smacks of disrespect to this person- do you even actually like them?

Of course, friendships reach a natural end especially when two people have differing expectations of that friendship. You haven't elaborated on what they're actually like, which is unfortunate but it sounds like letting this 'friendship' go is best for both of you.

I don't get the point of posting this...did I miss a question?

Either way, you sound horrible. Im surprised you have friends.

@JKRowlingforever she posted on Instagram not that long before she died that she was in a bad place with her mental health and then when she reached out to someone they called her draining and a burden.

when she reached out to someone they called her draining and a burden.

What happened to that poor woman was incredibly sad. But - and this might sound quite harsh - perhaps she was.

It's usual to want to support our friends but it was clear Flack was failed by the professionals when what she needed was specifically-geared, intensive help. Her problems were not her friends' to resolve and they were clearly too big for anyone not qualified or professionally-equipped to cope with (and if they had been, that still isn't the job of a friend). Perhaps that friend, too, was at the end of his or her emotional tether and had to decide for themselves where their own boundaries were drawn. It's every individual's fundamental right to protect themselves from being drawn into someone else's emotional mire. Arguably it doesn't help the person at all, and all it does is drag the second person into that negative vortex as well.

The tragic outcome of Flack's story was not the friend's fault.
Perhaps this is the situation the OP is also experiencing. OK so cancelling plans at the 11th hour and taking weeks to respond to texts perhaps isn't the best way to handle it. But the level of demand (and negative cerebral-dumping) suggested in that post isn't a reasonable way to treat someone either.

I'm surprised, given the number of metaphorical tomatoes flung at the OP and repeated posts telling her how awful she is, that some PPs are questioning why she hasn't come back.

Sounds good to me OP... live your own life 🌺

@MarieIVanArkleStinks I agree that it’s not the job of a friend, however I know if that was my friend, I care about them that I would like to do what I could and if that was just them talking to me, surely that isn’t too much to ask from a friend. Sometimes somebody just needs to let it out and not bottle things in because look what happens when it gets too much for people. Not something that I would like on my conscience regardless of it being not my fault.

All this has done is shown me I'm glad that you aren't one of my friends. If you so happened to be I'd be grateful with your new stance, because I don't need a negative friend like you in my life.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks I think it's more how she framed the post. It's anyone's right to want to distance themselves from someone they find completely draining. But OP completely villainised her friend. I'd be horrified to know this is how a friend of mine truly felt about me.

@FriendlyDolphin well aren’t you delightful . Why would it take anyone ‘weeks’ to respond to a message? Also cancelling plans because you can’t be bothered, without a thought for the other person makes you appear up your own arse

@MarieIVanArkleStinks yes Flack had serious issues and yes the burden of this does fall on family and friends rather than some therapist a person would see once or twice a week.

It seems some people here are the types of “friends” the OP has had enough of. The defensiveness - yikes.

Well that was... Interesting.

I'm not a dick, a twat, a bitch, up my own arse, a narcissist, selfish, uncaring, self centred, self important, or any of the other slurs that have been thrown my way.

Just someone who received yet another message last night demanding that I call them tomorrow because they needed my help deciphering a situation.

Did it ever occur to you, amidst your frothing, that perhaps ranting (and yes granted it was ranting) was just an outlet I needed to let out the aggression I DO NOT INTEND to put on my friend(s)?

I do need to put up boundaries and it is something i struggle with. I struggle to be kind yet firm, generally i end up just going with it and as you can see it ends up building resentment.

My resolution for 2021 is to be more frank with people while being kind and to yes, disentangle from friendships that to me, personally, feel too intense. Its not that o dont want to be present for my friends. Its that I dont want to continuously feel pressured to be highly involved in their emotional lives, continuously, whilst also having a full time job and other responsibilities.

Granted I have also been unfair. Its not right to cancel plans at the last minute. That is disrespectful. It's also disrespectful to leave people hanging for weeks rather than just quickly let them know that I'm not really available right now. I will work on that and that will be another of my resolutions.

But frankly if some of you get your kicks out of calling people a dick or twat and make sweeping judgments on people you dont know, wrapped in your dressing gown over your morning coffee, just for laughs, then hopefully you can use this experience to work on your own resolutions.

You were angry because you want to ditch your friend and it's all her fault. Now you're angry because people responded to your anger, and it's all their fault. Did you ever consider you have nothing to be angry about? If you don't want to be friends with someone, don't be friends with them. If you want people to respond to you with understanding, try showing understanding yourself. It's not that other people are horrible and making judgements on you 'for laughs' - they are responding to what you are contributing, which is anger, resentment, entitlement, and blame.

Just end these friendships. You don't enjoy them or your friends by the sounds of it. So what's the point?

They're going to end anyways if you keep cancelling or not responding messages for weeks.

Flack had serious issues and yes the burden of this does fall on family and friends rather than some therapist a person would see once or twice a week.

I disagree. Family and friends can be supportive within their own limits, but people have lives. The old analogy of fitting your own oxygen mask before putting on someone else's holds true here. Do otherwise and all that happens is you both suffocate.

Nor would love alone have saved Caroline Flack: by all accounts she had plenty of that. She was ill. Her own family took the view that the system failed her. And the idea that the burden of responsibility for that failure falls squarely onto them is very unfair.

People can listen and help a struggling person within reason, but if someone drained half an hour of my time periodically on inconsequential negative shit that's cluttered their day and then complained when I didn't instantly respond, that is an imposition. And I'd be distancing myself. Were the boot on the other foot the last thing in the world I'd ever want to be is a burden to any of my family or friends. It's not up to them to save me.

The best thing to do OP is do what you want to do, take weeks to respond to messages if that suits you, be kind and explain to the friend you don’t have time right now but then ignore any complaints or sulking from them. I don’t think you’re a horrible person, you sound fed up of self centred friends and expect them to have normal boundaries (ie not dumping everything on you) when it comes to friendship.

@FriendlyDolpin

I'm not a dick, a twat, a bitch, up my own arse, a narcissist, selfish, uncaring, self centred, self important, or any of the other slurs that have been thrown my way.

I agree you've been treated horribly on this particularly ugly thread. Your last post is self-reflective and shows you know your handling of this hasn't necessarily been ideal. Whose is, when put under this amount of pressure? We are all human and all have angry moments sometimes when things really come to a head and we feel we are being dumped on and taken for granted.

You'd clearly reached your own saturation point and were sick of it. Emotional vampires also tend to home in on empaths, which probably tells you something.

It's understandable that people sometimes need to vent. It hasn't been an easy year for anyone.

If you send that you won't have any issue with her being your friend any longer.

You sound like the epitome of narcissism.
Good luck keeping friends with this attitude!