To feel confused and hurt by a close friend’s hot and cold behaviour?

[TealDreamer]

I’ve been close friends with a friend called Sandra for a couple of years now, and I’m feeling really confused and hurt by her recent behaviour. We have a great time together when we meet up. But then, out of the blue, she’ll stop replying to my texts and calls for weeks or even months, only to come back later with apologies and no explanation.

This has happened several times this year, and while I don’t want to keep chasing her, it’s making me question whether the friendship is really as meaningful to her as it seems when we’re together.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of hot and cold friendship? How did you deal with it, and did you ever resolve things?

Exactly. It's not a constant pressure! I never "pressure" my friends constantly for replies but equally, I dont expect that they will completely ignore me for months at a time because thats not really a friendship at all is it? You cant have a friendship where only you are making the effort or you literally hardly ever communicate.

If you prefer that, thats absolutely fine, but to me, thats a casual distant acquaintance, not a "friend".

Humans are quite varied.

You are happy with your messaging, that's good.

Other people find their phones in general to be a pressure - there's plenty of research on this. You don't know how many messages other people get, or what's going on in general for them.

Some people have in person friendships, not messaging much at all between meet ups.

Some people still have friendships based on chatting in the local pub (obviously a declining pattern) and never message ever.

Quite. To me, it sounds indulgent to choose, and it is choosing to ignore a good friend’s message. It is unkind. To decide it is too much for you to bother with, and societal expectations and pressures are for everyone else is pretty arrogant unless you are ND.

We all feel overwhelmed at times, I definitely find it draining at times. I take breaks from my phone regularly, and I do not always reply immediately. I reply when I can. Sometimes it might be a few hours, it might be a few days but not months! Months is just rude. You have ignored the message by then.

I check in with my friends regularly to see how they are because I care about them.

I have many close friends, then friends and lastly acquaintances. It makes me wonder if lots of people on here mix up the two. What they have is a bunch of loose acquaintances that don’t require much maintenance.

I wonder if ops friend has put her in that category. A fun meet up as and when but not more important than that. It obviously is rude to not reply whatever category they fall into, and unless it was a one off, I would be dropping them either way.

I have seen other people use this for power play too, which is so immature assuming we are all adults. It’s presenting as I am way too important and too busy to reply to you kinda vibe. Mean girl style. Nope. Ditch and move on to better friends. Friends that love you, appreciate your messages and invest time and care into your relationship.

How can we meet up if suggestions of dates to meet up are ignored? I never message with banal chit chat

How would the meet ups ever happen if it takes months to reply?!

I don’t know anyone that goes to the pub a few times a week hoping to run into a friend just by chance?! This tends to be older men that sit by the bar, not a modern day female friendship in my experience.

The OP says she meets up with her friend but the friend doesn't message between.

Yes, I said it declining trend - different people do different things.

My point is humans don't have to text constantly to class someone a friend.

Fair point, but if you are trying to arrange a meet up and someone takes weeks or months to reply it becomes very difficult to actually arrange that. OP hasn't actually said if its difficult to arrange specifically but if her friend is generally ignoring her for weeks at a time it would be very difficult and it doesnt sound like they see each other very often at all

Surely the message between would certainly be about dates to get together amongst other things? So it’s rude to not reply in a timely fashion, even just to say you will come back with a date or whatever.

I would assume she was fading out or has other friends that were her priority. I wouldn’t invest any further time in either of those scenarios.

The casual pub meet has never been a female trend, and secondly no one said anything about ‘constant’ messaging. Most people would find that very annoying.

I'd assumed the friend was ignoring chat.

If someone doesn't arrange meets or reply there's nothing there.

But if meet ups are good, does not messaging between matter?

It’s likely she just wants you there when it suits her op.

You're arguing with me about things I haven't said! I didn't say it had been a female trend (although men (more of them), women and couples still go to pubs/clubs where I live, but in declining numbers and an ageing demographic in general).

My point was that texting between meetings is not essential to a friendship between humans.

Meeting up is the key aspect really - if the time together is good, does it matter if there isn't much texting between?

I am not arguing with you. I am asking you how the meet ups even happen without a degree of communication given spontaneous chance meetings are unlikely in this day and age?

Yes if you always go to the same pub and run into the same people every week its possible, but without the connection in other ways this would fall into at best, a passing acquaintance no?

Yes, I had a friend do this. In the end I stopped being there but I struggled to understand the switch up.

I had a friend do this. I suspect that she was bipolar

I love seeing friends in person. I cannot stand chit chat on my phone. I use my phone enough for self-indulgent scrolling or arranging social meet-ups/paying bills etc. I don’t also want to be on it to have chit chat with someone I intend to meet in person next week. It drives me mental.

Reading this I realise I come across as rude when I suddenly go cold on chit chat or never reply. I have tried to explain to some friends ‘we’ll catch up when I see you’ but they don’t take the hint. I feel so strongly that I don’t want to always be contactable and if I’ve planned to meet you then that suffices as a friendship, not ping pong WhatsApp’s about our day.

But if meet ups are good, does not messaging between matter?

Hmmm, I can only speak for myself but meeting someone twice or three times a year for example with zero communication in between doesnt really indicate a close friendship to me. To me, thats a casual acquaintance person you know who you meet up with very sporadically. Friendship to me involves sharing your lives with your friends and supporting each other. I dont see how that would be possible to do with sparse meetings and zero communication. It would only take a bout of illness for example to not see that person for almost a year.

That doesnt mean I expect constant communication - I dont have time for that either! but I wouldnt personally feel very close to someone I saw that rarely nor would I feel comfortable sharing private aspects of my life.

Absolutely nothing wrong with casual acquaintances either- you can get on wonderfully. But it's not what I would call a good "friend". What if you or the other person need friendship support in between?- it's not going to happen is it?

^ this post nails it so concisely thank you.

I have text flurries with my friends and then weeks of silence or non replies. We are all like that though so it works for us. It depends if she ever initiates stuff or is enthusiastic and communicates when it really matters. I have one friend who is always utterly useless and I gave up on her.

I find this pattern so bloody weird. Ignoring someone for weeks and months is rude, it doesnt matter what your relationship is (unless they are a psycho stalker obvs!).

If you cant respond or are too busy to text regularly then use your words and explain that to them like the grown up you are. Have people lost all of their social skills suddenly? If the amount of texts is too much then tell them in a polite and kind manner, it's really not difficult, so you can work out a compromise of what you can both handle in a way that works for both of you. Isnt that a part of most healthy relationships- communicating?

Communicating your needs/expectations is a basic adult skill and I just cannot comprehend people who dont do that with people they supposedly "care" about. Surely if you care about someone then you would want them to know where you're coming from, not just blatantly ignore them like they're a piece of dirt off your shoe or some kind of toy to picked up and put back again when it suits you or you need something, regardless of how it makes them feel. That is not friendship, it is using someone.

From someone who is increasingly thinking they may be ND, can you please explain to me how you tell the difference between there being weeks between conversations and someone not replying for weeks.

I’m really struggling with the idea of weeks between a conversation being okay but not replying for weeks being not okay, because at some point in a conversation somebody had a message that was the last message in the conversation and nobody then replied to it.

This isn’t meant to be goady. This is an honest question. And perhaps why I don’t have friends that I communicate with over text messages. And reading MN I’m wondering if I actually have friends at all.

The other problem with only having contact a few times a year is you feeling more and more distant. Meetings can just turn into a rehashing of old good times because your present lives have nothing to do with each other.

I do think people can have really different definitions of friendship and agree that a person I only saw once a year and had very sporadic contact with is an acquaintance.