Any advice on this tricky friend situation please?

[oatmilkicedchai]

Hi there,

Not strictly an AIBU (disclaimer) - more here in search of some advice please.

I have a friend that I met whilst at university who I have recently rekindled my friendship with - no falling out we just lost contact. The thing is, is that we are now closer than we were before, which is lovely, and we have spent a good amount of time catching up, both over the phone and in person.

However... he has started to become exceptionally clingy. He has been upset as of late because he has recently lost two friends who exited his life rather dramatically and without much explanation as to why. I am starting to think that perhaps it is because they could not cope with the intensity of things. And it is getting that way for me too, and fast. If left to his own devices he will call me every evening, and if I don't pick up he will either call back again immediately, or call again later on. He is not calling to discuss the fact that he has been ditched by two of his closest friends - he is pretty jovial and just phoning to chat about inane rubbish.

A few days ago I was on WhatsApp and he kept continuously calling whilst I was trying to send someone a voice note - when someone calls you on WhatsApp when you are sending a voice note it automatically cuts the voice note off, so very irritating to be frank. He then immediately send me a message saying 'my calls won't go through' and called a THIRD time. Clearly he could tell they were going through and I was just pressing the hang-up function. I would have messaged him saying I was busy and / or that I would call him later but could not even access my phone for long enough to do so because he just kept calling.

Its also text messages...oh so very many text messages. I feel extremely overwhelmed and I am not good at setting boundaries. AT ALL. I am learning, and trying, but its a slow process. So I do think that it is as much my fault as it is his, probably.

He is an incredibly warm and lovely person and he is sensitive, so I do not want to hurt him, I just dont know how to handle the situation. He has been a good friend to me.

Things all came to a head two days ago when I missed a very important personal deadline because he called me and said he would be quick but then I couldn't get him off the phone!!

I told him that I had missed the deadline later on because he asked how my day was. His response was 'oh I am so sorry I think I have been a distraction' but then he continued to waffle on (as I may be starting to do here haha) and no regard for my space or time or how much of his life stuff I can take on - I have definitely reached the limit of my psychological bandwidth. He is forever asking my advice on things, and questions, and I just do not have the answers to all of these things.

It all feels so extreme.

I do not want to lose the friendship, but I would love to have some help from MNers with setting and maintaining some boundaries please. Any tips or advice?

How do I express to him, with kindness, that I would like to speak once a month on the phone, or in person, and certainly not every day or week?

I should also mention that he has ADHD, but I am not too sure whether this is having an effect or not.

TIA!

Gosh that was an awful lot longer than I had thought it was - so sorry! 😮

It will be awkward and he probably stop being 'nice' but you'll just have to tell him you're setting boundaries. He's clearly not quite healthy as he is driving people away, then finding new ones to bombard.

If it ends in tears then so be it, but he's no real friend. He's just using you as a sounding board.

You are under no obligation to answer his calls and text messages. If you knew you had a deadline then you should have ignored him. He's doing this stuff because you're responding, just stop.

It's very likely that his ADHD is a factor here, but that doesn't mean you have to put up with it. You need to be blunt with him - you don't have to be unkind, but blunt. If the friendship is going to survive, then you have to get things onto a footing where you can say "Sod off, Andrew - I'm working. I've told you I can't talk when I'm working." The alternative is him losing another friend, which would be much harder on him than having to learn to accept boundaries. I would make a few notes (I am ND and struggle with conversations, you may not need to) and have a deliberate conversation with him about what is and is not acceptable in terms of his expectations and behaviour. If he calls and you don't answer, or you decline the call, then he needs to wait and not harangue you.

I would put him on mute and deal with him at your leisure.

He has absolutely no problem crossing the line with your boundries so don't feel bad about being harsh with him. It sounds like you will need to be blunt for him to get it.

The fact that 2 close friends walked away from the friendship speaks volumes.

I'm afraid this isn't a healthy friendship as he is not respecting your space, time and boundaries.

You say you don't want to lose the friendship, and if he is a good friend, he would respect your boundaries.

Personally, at this point I would be trying to phase him out or tell him directly that I am not comfortable with the level of contact . He may not take it too well, but isn't your time and feelings important too?

@WeDontShutUpAboutBruno

I would put him on mute and deal with him at your leisure.

He has absolutely no problem crossing the line with your boundries so don't feel bad about being harsh with him. It sounds like you will need to be blunt for him to get it.

The fact that 2 close friends walked away from the friendship speaks volumes.

I agree, put him on mute/send to voicemail and only answer or reply when you want to.

I'm quite blunt, so I'd probably also say dude I cannot speak to you every single day and reply to loads of messages, it's far too much. If you call and I don't answer it's because I'm busy doing something.

It may very well be ADHD related, but you are still allowed to have boundaries.

I'd say the ADHD plays a part here. I have a good friend who is autistic. They have, in the past, phoned at all hours because they were awake and needed (wanted) to chat to me about something. I had to explain that if I got calls outside certain hours I wouldn't answer. At the time I had an elderly relative in a poorly way and late night or early morning phone calls never boded well.
Things have improved but they will talk and talk, which sometimes is great, other times is exhausting. However they have very few other friends and none now in the area they live in, so it can be tricky to be firm without feeling I am being unkind, sometimes.
I have found it best to explain clearly what is acceptable re levels of contact.

oh. my. goodness (!) I did not know the mute function existed for individual chats I thought it was only for group chats. Thank you ever so much - this is very helpful.

And thank you to everyone else for your helpful suggestions too :)

I did actually tell my friend two days ago that I would not be responding to messages or speaking on the phone for the next 6 weeks as I have an important and looming work deadline, he said all the right things but has now emailed me once since then and sent me two text messages. So I do feel he has crossed the boundary that I have tried to set. I haven't responded and do not plan on doing so unless he continues to message, in which case I will have to tackle it head on.

He is also in the process of becoming psychologist and can talk in a very intelligent and eloquent way about mental health and wellness (which I though would include boundaries), so that just makes it even more confusing.

I have muted him now though.

I would reply to those messages. A short reminder saying something like "did you forget about my deadline, we'll get in touch next week'etc. do t engage with his content though.

If he carries on then definitely ignore. You've become a habit for him

"you've become a habit for him" is quite a sobering sentence to read, and I think you are absolutely right. I need to muster the stones to tell him that it can't continue like this. Lord knows why I am being such a baby about doing so. Just worried about offending him or losing the friendship.

Anyway, I will try and get my act together!

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I have had a very similar situation to you in the past and I know how overwhelming it can be.
In my case it was a female friend that I met her at college. That very first day she called me that night via messenger and that's where it started. I received numerous calls a day. Like you, if i did not answer she would keep calling and would also text. One day I had 7 missed calls.. 7 calls in a row!! She would turn up at my house (uninvited), would call me at times she knew I would be doing bedtime routine.. basically it was so overwhelming and caused me a massive amount of anxiety. Like you I had no idea how to put boundaries in place. People kept telling me to 'just tell her' but I couldn't because she was confrontational/aggressive. People.kept telling me I.would blow up one day if I didn't put boundaries in place and that day came 4 years down the line and I just lost it with her - but still never got rid of her - she seen it as 'an argument' - of which she deemed normal in friendships - I do not deem it normal and have never argued with any of my other friends. Fast forward another year and I just started to ignore her calls, take days to text/call back, put off any meet ups, not answer my door to her and she eventually took the hint and thankfully she is no longer in my life. I know that's not nice and I have never done that to anyone before but I just couldn't take it anymore. So I suppose that is an option for you if you get to the point i was at - fade it out. Other than that I'm not sure what to advise because I really struggled myself when I was in your position. I know how it feels and its awful. One piece of advice I was given was to make yourself less available and only answer/text when it suits you. Wishing you luck.

I've been in a similar situation and I stopped being so available to them.
Left it longer and longer before i responded and made my replies short but apologetic "sorry not replied sooner, work manic" and then ignore further messages same day until much later before replying with something like "hardly had Time to think today, going to chill for the evening, need some headspace".
Do that for a few days and the message starts to hit home to even the most unaware

ADHD is definitely a part of this - a lack of social awareness. He probably doesn't pick up hints or cues very well either, so you're going to have to be blunt, I'm afraid, but you can do that and still be kind. Maybe set a regular phone call day/time and make yourself free to give him the attention he needs, but only then.

Ouuf - how awful and anxiety inducing! It does definitely share similarities with my situation, and thank you for sharing it with me. I am sorry that you lost your friend, but pleased for you that you have some peace of mind back now.

Ah - he's one of those people who is sensitive but it turns out only sensitive to their own needs, not to anyone elses...

Spot on, noodle.

Yeah I has one of these & am feeling suffocated just reading about yours & Greyarea's pests, OP ...

And they ARE pests.
I told mine on 3 separate occasions that I was not comfortable with 30 minute phone calls, & preferred to set a date to meet in person, however casually.
He ignored that, & kept calling.
Very keen to get his own need to inflict his verbal diarrhoea on me - not keen at all in hearing my need or respecting my time & boundary.

I have learned to be pretty assertive over the decades, but this mismatched social etiquette thing can be so hard to navigate - especially when the imposed-upon has been female-socialised to ministrate to & facilitate others, & #BeFeckinKind, while the imposer has all the advantages of male-socialsed expectation of delighted attentiveness to his presence.

If he'd met me part-way I'd have indulged a long call once a month or something, & met him outside of that for coffee/a beer etc.
But the less he listened, the more dread I felt every time his number came up. He took to leaving 2-minute long voicemails when I didn't pick up - along the lines of "only me!" Harry Enfield style, with cutesy little "don'tcha just love my zaniness" pet names or calling my house "your little housey" in a oily, oh-so-special way .... in short, irritating the fuck out of me til all that was left was bitch eating crackers feelings about him.
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bitch%20Eating%20Crackers

So I faded ... & he responded by telling a mutual acquaintance he was "worried about" me (ie frustrated he couldn't control the amount of time I wished to give him). That pissed me off with the acquaintance too - WTF is she on to decide she's his Flying Monkey?
When that tactic failed, he turned up at my (remote, rural & not an I=Open House) gaff in tears. So being only partly gittish, I couldn't take my own advice (see the 'popping in thread) & tell him it wasn't convenient, & felt duty-bound to give him a couple of hours. Of my sunday afternoon - cheers for that, Limpet Man!

Of course he construed this as permission to ring up & expect long chats again, so I had to finally brace myself & deal with it bluntly.
It dawned on me that the circumstances of our meeting - we has each moved to a rural location & by coincidence used to be near-neighbours from the same place 200 miles away, & even more coincidence shared a close friend way back when ... made for a faster than usual get-to-know you & an assumption (on his part) that we were closer than the few hours we had actually spent together would usually mean.
So I put this to him as tactfully as I could manage, It was really, really hard - but - communication is everything! I explained the dynamics may feel closer than they really are, due to the coincidence of sharing an old friend & telling each other old anecdotes from familiar haunts. He didn't like that, & when I offered to make a regular meet up, just insisted that it would not work for him (he has some disabilities that, to be fair, he manages admirably, but argh the GUILT TRIP) & he NEEDED the phone calls, it was pretty upsetting for both of us. I had to end up with "I'm not able to offer the level of intensity you need, & I'm sorry about it but if I don't tell you, you are going to keep ringing & being upset that I'm not going to participate."

Yikes! & SOD this new platform - the "you cannot access mumsnet" black banner came down, & posted that giant screed above before I could edit it down into something digestible so apologies all for length & typos. 😥

But clearly needed to vent that little lot, so thank you for posting, @oatmilkicedchai & I hope you get some good (& concise!) answers to your quandary ...

I have a friend that likes a good conversation think an hour at a time, usually I wear my microphone headphones and then try to multi task, all the best op

Currently have mine on mute after trying for 2 years without success to curtail her from turning our text chat into her newsfeed and twitter timeline.

If you have an iPhone, you can set up a "Focus" for work and "Personal" time, and set rules so that only phone calls/texts from certain people come through during that time.

For mine, I tried stating outright - even rudely - not to do x or y, it is frustrating/exhausting me, etc. But I realised that establishing boundaries doesn't mean controlling the other person's behavior but enforcing how you'll respond. So when she incessantly texts during the day, I simply ignore. It was very liberating to realise I can simply mute and ignore rather than having to respond whenever she wants me to.

He didn't make you miss your deadline, you missed your deadline, I'm sorry but you're an adult, you simply had to say "so sorry x I've got to go now, I've got to get my work done for my deadline" and hang up. You need to take responsibility for your own boundaries. If you don't want to answer the calls don't and mute it, if you don't want to get so many messages say you will be too busy to respond to messages till x and then don't respond till then.

Sorry, but you are your real problem. You are allowing him to hold you hostage like this. You're blaming him for missing a deadline? Come on now.

This man is not your friend. He's a hassle and a problem. Cut him loose.

I'm exhausted just reading that! I've got a friend who I find a bit full on with messaging but this guy is another level entirely. Definitely mute him and don't reply to him during the period you've requested that he give you space. If he continues to pester I think you'll have to let him go for the sake of your sanity!