Are you a crap friend?

[ForBreezySloth]

Not malicious or toxic - just not great at replying, not always emotionally available, or you fall off the radar when life gets busy? I’ve been thinking lately about how hard adult friendships can be to maintain and whether we’re more crap at it than we like to admit.

I try and be a good friend but agree sometimes life gets a bit crazy and you just aren’t available when you’d like to be.

I think it depends on the friendships for me. My closest circle I'll show up whatever, I know they would do for me too. But honestly, the peripheral friends (school mums I don't have much history with as an example), I probably do dip in and out and wouldn't think twice about cancelling plans if I didn't feel like doing something.

Yes I don't see my best friends for months at a time. We all have kids and jobs plus prioritise different hobbies. At this stage we're still just mates because we've been mates for 20 years.

We talk almost daily on WhatsApp but not sure that counts.

When we are together it's always good though, which is why we've been friends for so long.

A lot to be said for low maintenance friends, I'd say I am one such.

Yes, I think I am a bit of a crap friend tbh. I am very easily overwhelmed socially and am a bit of a loner. I'm OK at replying to messages, but meeting up with people, even people I like, isn't something I enjoy. Even if I love the people I'm meeting, I get exhausted. (Think I might be neurodivergent, and that the exhaustion comes from the constant masking when I'm in social situations.)

I have made a few friends like me over the years though, and we're very very close and understand one another. With these people, there is never any pressure at all to socialise.

I must admit that I find a lot of people's ideas of friendship very intimidating, especially when I see people I know going clubbing for weekends with their mates, or on hen weekends. I would need to sleep for a week after that! But I appreciate that I'm the odd one in this.

All of the above. I am REALLY crap. I just don't have the commitment to do the work to maintain friendships. So the ones I still have are long distance ones, where I'm physically not able to be very present. It's a bit lonely. But it's my own fault.

By those parameters yes, I probably am a crap friend in that I am rubbish at replying to messages and definitely fall off the radar when things get busy. I have adhd and autism and there are times when I find socialising hard and step back from communications and I can also be rubbish at initiating conversations as can be a bit ‘out of sight out of mind’ with friends and I certainly forget to reply and leave people on read a lot. I am a good friend in lots of other ways though and most of my friends are also neurodivergent and so thankfully how good we are at messaging or staying in touch isn’t the way we measure the friendships.

No..I am a great friend..I don't have small children though.

I also dont go clubbing. Gentler pastimes.

I am the exact same as you. The idea pops up occasionally to be sociable then just fizzles out again as quick

I probably am to be honest.
I went through a period of severe depression and kind of fell of the edge of the earth contact wise. I came back feeling incredibly anxious about any form of social contact (I struggled to go outside if the neighbours were getting in the car) and I still prefer my own company. Being with people worries me. I do always send birthday cards and presents and message on big occasions or hard times. I acknowledge that I'm pretty crap and I should make more effort.

I am a SHITE friend. I find working full time, parenting, food shopping, keeping the house clean and life too full on to make time for friends. I don't even get invited to anything anymore because I never end up going so I don't blame them for not inviting me.
Even when I do make plans, I get to the week it is happening and don't want to do the plans anymore. The only good thing about my friendship is that I'm honest and will just admit I can't be arsed rather than making an excuse 😂

What a lot of people on Mn don’t seem to grasp about friendships is it’s not a matter of bustling around sending ‘checking in’ texts, being helpful in emergencies, not ‘flaking’ on meetings, and being a listening ear — the question is fundamentally ‘Are you really interested in one another?’ If you are, your friendship is flexible enough to withstand silences, disagreements, or life complications, or disliking decisions the other has made.

Yes, I was crap before and now our marriage is falling apart and I’m dragging my way through work kids and life, I’m terrible. When my friends pm me to see how I’m getting on I cry because I wasn’t there for them enough when big stuff was going on with them (in some cases I didn’t know they had it going on because I didn’t check in). Crying now even writing this as I don’t deserve them

I'm a crap friend. I've no close friends that I see regularly, nobody I'd be immediately asking to call round if I had a crisis. It's my fault as I just can't be bothered maintaining friendships, partly because I've great family support so I don't need friends, but also because I'm a private person and I don't open up to people easily. Also I'm very busy and I'm happy in my own company.

No neurodivergence or anything like that to explain my lack of effort to maintain friendships.

Two friends who have kept a connection both live abroad, one I see once a year, the other it might be once every two years. We message occasionally, but that's it, but somehow those friendships have survived. Possibly because of the distance, as that removes all pressure and expectation to maintain a connection beyond the occasional?

I hate telephoning and so that probably makes me crap. I do message a lot though. I‘m low maintenance and pretty self-sufficient, and don’t really like to be in very intense friendships. But yes, I’m interested in what my friends have going on and will help them out when needed.

I'd flip this to be honest and say that true friends are the ones you don't have to stay in contact with constantly. You just know as soon as you are in touch, things are right back to where you left off. And if you or they ever needed help, you would be there for each other in an instant.

By your definition I am. Although if someone truly needs me, I’d be there in a heartbeat. I don’t bitch, lie or create drama. I’m kind and caring. But yes, can be unreliable communication wise and when I get busy I shut down. I’ve gotten to the age where I think take it or leave it. I am who I am and true friends don’t mind that.

I've got friends who I'll always try to be there for and support. If a long term friend who I value upsets me, I'm more forgiving and will put it behind me and move on. But if relatively new friendships don't work out, I'll move on as I'm not as invested. On the whole though I would say I'm a good friend. I don't have a lot of spare time to socialise but I always reply to messages and if I say I'm going to do something, I do it.

Probably fantastic in some ways and rubbish in others. I'm very generous and helpful (I love connecting friends who might get on or can help each other out in business, I send friends links to articles related to their interests, job ads if they're looking and I come across something suitable), I don't disappear during hard life moments like divorce or deaths. But I don't have enough time or money (to do interesting things like go on a holiday) to be a really good friend to my single people, and I get people's life events mixed up, forget which year they had their big operation or lost their job and so on. I feel awful when they're talking about an experience and I can't remember the details exactly or when it was. To be fair, I'm often hazy about my own life events aswell!

I'm a great friend

I’m low maintenance I hate clingy friendships and value my friends who can just be casual dip in and out, not talk for a month, 6 months or a year and the catch up and have a blast, I have lots of them and I’m a bloody great friend to them, I’ve flown half way across the world to comfort a friend.

I seem to have gathered most of them now and have lots in different parts of my life all dotted about.

When I meet the clingy, coffee, catch up, weekend catch up types I back off as I’m working flat out and my weekends are mine so to them I must seem totally crappy and distant.

I do love those people and admire their energy and can get caught up socially but I think I just like my own space a bit too much.

I’m a crap friend but I fully accept others being crap friends too. There is a kinship in not taking things too seriously and knowing you are not a priority and people might cancel or be flaky. Ironically, once you establish that kind of mutual agreement to be imperfect friends, friendships actually become stronger.

I have lots of close friendships that aren't actually close - as in, we only talk a few times a year and meet once or twice a year, if we're in the proximity, but I expect to still be loving them when I die. When we do meet, it's very close and the chat never falters. That's all I've got, tbh, I have 3 kids and a job and a depressed husband and 2 sisters and a brother and parents and in laws..
I don't have time or heads pace for constant messages.

Yes, I'm a crap friend.
I have a lot going on and don't have the energy for the commitment.
I'm very close to my sisters, if I had no sisters I'd make more of an effort.

I feel like SM can wreck a RL friendship with an oversharer. It's too easy to find out what they have going on without even getting in touch.