Friend becoming overbearing

[DontReplyIWillLie]

And not just with me, which is the main issue…

I have a friend, Daisy, who I’ve known for a few years through a hobby. She’s a very nice, kind woman, but she does tend to go overboard on texts, that are largely about nothing. She’s an early riser too, so when my alarm goes off and I barely know where or even who I am, the first thing I see is “Good morning Don’t. Today looks like it will be a lovely day. The sun is already shining. I may take a walk in the park” or similar. Sometimes I don’t remember to reply when I’ve woken up properly, but I must admit that sometimes I just don’t bother, as there’s no question to answer or anything that really requires a reaction. I was hoping this might discourage her from the daily bulletin.

Anyway, she picked up on it and I got this long text saying “I have noticed that sometimes I text you and you do not reply. Please let me know if I have offended you somehow and should not be texting you anymore”. I bit the bullet and said that sometimes I just forget because I see the messages when I’m barely awake, and that sometimes I don’t think something needs a reply if there isn’t a question or something specific to say. She was a bit bewildered about the first part - she was saying “But surely you turn your phone off at night, so you don’t see any messages until you switch it on and can check them?” - but she seemed to have got that I’m not trying to upset her; I just don’t need a text for everything.

However, this communication overdose has now spread to my other friends; people she only knows through me. I ran into a friend, Carol, who I hadn’t seen in ages while on my way to meet Daisy and invited her to join us for a drink. They got on well and swapped numbers, because they share a common interest. Barely a fortnight later Daisy messaged me saying “Have you heard from Carol? Is she okay? I’ve messaged her three times this week and she hasn’t responded”. I was taken aback, and I did say maybe it was a bit much. (I’ve known Carol for years and I probably only hear from her every few weeks or so.) I asked Carol the next time I spoke to her and she awkwardly said that she’d found it a bit odd; she’d really only expected to share a couple of links and so on.

This wasn’t the only time. Another friend runs a bar; I took Daisy in for a drink and we chatted to him while it was quiet. The next time I saw him he said, “Bloody hell, that Daisy’s a bit much, isn’t she? She’s messaged three times asking when she can bring me some cakes! I don’t even know her!” I had no idea she’d even asked for his number.

Anyway, it’s my birthday coming up. I usually go away for it with another friend, as hers is a few days earlier, but we’re not doing that this year. The question is, do I invite Daisy on my birthday night out? I just have visions of her wanting to swap numbers with all my other friends and then chasing them wanting to know why they haven’t replied today, when can she bake them a cake etc.. I really don’t fancy having my friends all complaining to me that they’re being bombarded by someone they barely know.

Do I just not ask her? She doesn’t do social media (part of the reason she always wants to swap numbers - she can’t just add people on Facebook or whatever) so it’s not like she’d see pictures and find out. Or am I being mean?

This is why I don’t have a lot of friends, too much like hard work. My best friend and I talk maybe once every couple of months! We’ve been friends for thirty years,s o that’s pretty solid!

From just the barest amount of information about your friend, it seems like she doesn’t understand or recognise social boundaries. It could be personality, it could be a neurodiversity, or even a personality disorder.

Sounds like the latter to me, someone who prefers intense relationships and doesn’t understand when they’re overbearing and get offended easily, taking things very personally. Whether that is the case or not, I don’t think it’s her fault, just she doesn’t really get it.

No real solutions for you, but to answer the question, if she is your friend and you enjoy her company, invite her. I am sure your friends are emotionally intelligent enough to fend for themselves.

I hate inane texts so completely get where you're coming from. I don't care for texts that are 'how are you, lovely weather today, how's the family' plus photo of random child/plant/pet (I don't expect other people to care about my cats). They feel disingenuous and like I'm texting a stranger (or a parent!) not a friend. Fortunately my friends feel the same. Perhaps you could draw a parallel for Daisy - do most people in her life instigate messages like that?

I would suggest that you need to look at your reactions on this thread and work out why your responses have been as extreme and unhinged as they are.

Isn’t it just! So weird

For the life of me I can’t figure out why your getting such a hard time in these comments @DontReplyIWillLie but I can understand where your coming from she is being too much and you know that she will swap numbers with more of your friends for her to bombard with text messages and you shouldn’t have to deal with your friends coming to you wanting to know why she won’t stop texting them and you will get her asking if that person that she only spoke to for 5 minutes has fallen out with her. She needs telling bluntly that she’s too much and she needs to stop texting everyone constantly. That would annoy the life out of me as well I barely speak to the friends that I do have because I’m just not a sociable person so if someone text me constantly like that I would end up blocking them but I’m autistic and too much socialising gets very overwhelming for me.

Hi Daisy

There is no way I would invite Daisy. See her separately if you have to.

I have a couple of ‘duty’ friends. I find it exhausting as they need ‘managing’ in a completely different way. I’m too nice to cut them off as they have no other real friends. But it can be draining.

Enjoy your birthday without Daisy OP. You have done absolutely nothing wrong.

Jesus you talk some bullshit

Not at all, the dictionary definition is 'someone who reveal PERSONAL/PRIVATE facts about others'.

OP has not done that, however Daisy tried to get OP to do that when asking her 'Have you heard from Carol? Is she okay?' which IS a gossip phrase asking Person A for personal details on Person B (who she barely even knows) when its not Person A right to comment or the enquirers right to know.

OP has not told anyone anything personal about Daisy, OP friends have revealed Daisy has texted then but thats not 'personal' or 'private' and not OP that was saying it anyway.

But you are choosing to be left behind... its no one else's job to pander too it. Why would you WANT to be an inconvenience out of just stubbornness. You are also clearly not THAT opposed as you are on MN (forums are a distinctive class of social media... media designed to cause online social situations).

Its the same way we don't pander to people who 'grew up in more racist times' and refuse to change because 'well they just don't want to adapt' etc...

I think this sums up the problem perfectly and well done for standing your ground on this thread OP.

I wouldn’t necessarily have an issue with all the messages per se. But I absolutely hate being ‘chased’ for a reply, or asking me if there is something wrong because I haven’t replied. Or asking if I know if there is something wrong with Carol because she hasn’t replied. I find it a little suffocating. I don’t see text messages as a social contract that you HAVE to respond to (depending on the context of the message of course)

Receiving streams of narrative about every day and mundane things isn’t something I will always feel like replying to. I send messages like this sometimes to my friends when I am feeling sociable but I do not expect a reply from them.

This is pretty offensive to NDities... People who are ND adapt more than any other group. We learn from a young age to be sponges and to copy and mask and follow instruction.

You can see from this thread that the people like Daisy feel ENTITLED to be the center of attention rather that they don't understand. They think 'why should I change? why should I get social media? why should I respect others boundries?' they refuse to take hint even when spelled out for them because of purse selfish stubbornness and paint themselves as victim of everyone 'not being kind' but they are not being kind which is WHY they end up alone.

People with ND (like autism or executive dysfunction etc...) are in many instances far more like to be overwhelmed by constant texts with no prompts in them and the stress of replying or being told off constantly for forgetting to.

From what you have said, it sounds like Daisy is being a real, perhaps old-fashioned friend, who isn't content with meaningless 3 word generic memes and answers on a SM platform to thousands of other people. She wants proper interaction and engagement.

I was thinking like this too. Back in the day there was more face to face interaction and clearly some people prefer this.

Don't invite her! Some friendships need to be kept separate!

Surely old fashioned means face to face not sending daily texts?

I like text chats or WhatsApp for light, low-pressure conversations that might be spread out over hours or days with long gaps if people are busy. I’m also comfortable getting to know new people that way (which I suspect is thanks to a lot of early internet use). I know others feel the opposite though and casual text chat like that only comes after real friendship or not even then, so there are people I just don't talk to that way. Ironically the phone calls they prefer feel more intrusive to me!

I wondered if Daisy just prefers texting too, but the cake stuff suggests she’s trying a bit clumsily to generally speed up friendship formation.

OP, I would go the route of the gentle chat with her and say that as a rule of thumb the thing to do is to reply only as often as the other person does. You do like her, so tell her that you do, but maybe just explain that text as a medium is strange and people experience it in surprisingly different ways - some experience it as safely distant and low key, others as something that puts pressure on them to respond quickly, so it makes them feel tense even if the person sending the message would never want that.

That way you're not telling her she's doing everything objectively wrong so much as pointing out a pitfall due to people having incompatible feelings about text as a medium. You could also reassure her that even slow, infrequent contact can build friendships, it's just that it takes time and rushing it often backfires, and although she might feel that text chat is not rushing it, to other people it can seem like that.

I don't think that's fair. I think there are plenty of ND people who are much more comfortable communicating online via things like WhatsApp (to the extent that they might not always realise at first how uncomfortable with it some other people can be), because it avoids the much worse stress of face to face contact. That doesn't mean it's always easy to reply or know what to say, and never difficult, but sometimes it's a lot easier than the alternative. I can see that some people might find a lot of messages overwhelming, but I don't think you can assume that that's universal and therefore deduce from that that the only thing driving Daisy's behaviour must just be some massive sense of entitlement aka just being a bad person.

I think when you clearly just want to be snarky on MN regardless of context, perhaps it is time to find a hobby.

Yes, that was my thought too. Good advice for Daisy - whom I suspect is indeed the person you responded to - and the other Daisy types on the thread.

@Feelingmuchbetteryou seek utterly insufferable and really rather unpleasant, towards the OP

And you last post at 3pm, and then ignore the hundreds of posts since then, many asking you questions, supporting you, giving advice, just to hone in on my throwaway comment.

Ok

And you get up early to spit venom at a total stranger for no reason at all.

Hmm, Daisy's usual text to the OP in the morning is about that time too isn't it?

Since most would agree that Daisy is a total pain in the arse who should be quietly ignored, there would be no need for the OP to go through post after post saying thanks for agreeing.

But you were a sneering cow, so stood out as an outlier. I daresay that's why she replied to you.

Spit venom

I mean there’s hyperbole and then there’s just… comedy

a number of posters have attacked OP personally, name called
I certainly didn’t

Ok Daisy :)