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?

Ok Daisy :)

And you just joined this morning… interesting.

Yes I’m Daisy, sure let’s go with that

Aw, diddums, sorry to disappoint you, were you hoping to troll through my backlog of comments and harass me 😥 I genuinely give zero fucks if you want to pretend you think I am the OP as we both know that's a lot of wank.

Ok Daisy :)

Just read how tough your life is…. Ok, you have bigger fish to fry. Sorry x

Hahahaha! You are a mental case Daisy, you really are :) 😘

It's a few texts.

Just say you'd rather not get them.

And don't discuss her with other people. That's nasty.

Don't introduce her to your friends if yo think they'll find her "overbearing".

I mean a daily text might be annoying but I wouldn't call it "overbearing".

So hang on - according to you, I’m a sad case for responding on my own thread “all day”, but then when I’m not available to respond, that’s wrong too? How does that work?

It is very annoying and strange that random different posts keep calling anyone that disagrees with the op ‘Daisy’

It’s quite insulting to Daisy herself for one, as she isn’t an awful leper to brand dissenting people with, and it does usually happen when op isn’t posting. It’s also interesting that op hasn’t asked pp to stop being unkind about her ‘friend’ like that. Daisy sounds like a nice person even if she comes across too eager and helpful, she has probably had a horrible childhood/or bullied at school if she people pleases to this degree, it’s very sad.

We would sincerely love to hear Daisy’s side of the story if she genuinely turns up on here! I am sure we would be calling for her to raise her standards, and find better/real friends.

The person who replied to you goes around posting contrarian nonsense on pretty much every thread she's on, being just slyly unpleasant enough not to get herself booted off the site.

I know this because after she stalked my comments, and was so disappointed to find they only go back a few, she then tried faux concern about how tough she is pretending to believe my life is. And at that point I had a look at her comment history.

She has posted a great many comments which all amount to the same faux concern, faux reasonableness, venom under the surface. She's the woman in the village who smiles and writes poison pen letters.

She has posted absolutely nothing that bears any semblance to anything helpful, but lots of sly jibes, as far back as I looked.

I was wrong about her being Daisy, shes Baby Reinder. Or maybe Miss Haversham.

People like her give me the absolute creeps. Be absolutely assured her sly ridiculing snipes have nothing at all to do with you and everything to do with her own problems.

It’s also interesting that op hasn’t asked pp to stop being unkind about her ‘friend’ like that.

Is it? Because given half these posts were on the middle of the night, isn’t it more likely I was just asleep and not on 24-hour thread watch?

Daisy sounds like a nice person even if she comes across too eager and helpful

Well that was one thing we always agreed on. You never noticed because you were too busy calling me a bitch, a gossip and someone who didn’t have any real friends.

Guess who doesn’t sound like a nice person?

Yes, I checked out some of her other posts last night. Some poor woman who was upset about being excluded from a work outing got a particularly hard time from her.

You are being ridiculous. In your earlier post you accused the OP of spending the entire day posting on the thread she started but now you are complaining that she hasn't posted since 3.00 pm. You're just pissed off because OP, quite rightly, accused you of being hypocritical.

Indeed, you are very unpleasant and according to the OPs own posts Daisy is kind and nice, so she definitely cannot be you.

The only thing you have in common with her is attention seeking behaviour.

It's actually the pattern for this poster. She just posts sly, watered down venom on a repeating loop. It's nothing to do with this thread, it's just who she is.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t believe for a minute that any of the dissenting posters on this thread is Daisy. I didn’t specify that because I thought it was fairly obvious that people were saying things like that as a joke.

Sad that people are unloading on you.

You were factual with your posts.

Daisy is a needy cunt - do yourself a favour, wide fucking berth, dont invite her to ANYTHING of yours because she will start grabbing peoples numbers and texting them nothing but endless horseshit.

She isnt a friend, shes a screw short of a toolbox. AVOID!

To be honest, I really did think that "Feelingmuchbetter" was Daisy to begin with, as she was so determined to be insulting, was taking everything very personally and simply making things up to suit herself - it seemed that her bad faith responses were coming from a very personal and triggered place.

But it did occur to me a bit later that really, if Daisy is basically a nice soul she could not be Feelingmuchbetter.

To return to the original question - don't invite Daisy to meet your other friends. She has already imposed on several of them and you are not her caregiver. It is not your job to have to make your own life less pleasant or yourself more anxious in order to suit Daisy's wants.

One of the aspects we overlook when introducing friends to friends is that we are basically giving them a reference. That can come back to bite us. Friend circles just don't always mix and match and there is nothing wrong with that.

As for the texts, I would just ignore anything I didn't want to respond to, any follow ups, anything at all that I found too much and respond when I normally would, in my own time. She will either get the hint, or she won't, but there's no reason why you should change what you're doing or your level of communication and interaction, if it makes you unhappy to do so.

You're back!

You have been consistently rude and utterly horrible to the OP throughout this thread so your hand-wringing about OP not leaping to Daisy's defense when other posters have, in your opinion, been unkind to Daisy (who isn't on here and so is completely unaffected and unharmed by these posts) is hypocritical and misplaced.

OP has told us that Daisy is a nice person. However, Daisy isn't coming across as too helpful because sending multiple texts to people she hardly knows and then chasing OP to ask why they haven't responded is the opposite of helpful. It's all about her own needs, not other people's. I would call her behaviour quite selfish and self-absorbed. It still doesn't make her a bad person but she is annoying a lot of people.

Posters who pile onto the OP often come out with 'I'd like to hear their side of the story'. Don't post on here if that's what you want as we only ever hear one side of the story.

And as you are on here not really gaining anything from all of these posts annd advice op, apart from creating cat fights and really unpleasant interactions.
With your poor friend being called a c* on here just now, this really is not a nice place to be.

The thread seems to be reflecting a cesspit. I am out! My sympathy lies with lovely Daisy and I hope she posts for advice on MN, and gets the support she needs.

You told us all that you were 'out' hours ago and you definitely weren't. Posters who announce their departure from a thread are generally self-absorbed and full of their own self-importance.

You are behaving like a name calling child. Your character assassination of the OP, whose posts about Daisy have not been unkind, make you sound utterly dreadful and if you are empathising with Daisy because you also find friendships difficult, it's not hard to see the reason why.

You're leaving because you have made an absolute arse of yourself and been shot down in flames. No reason, at all, to announce your departure. Byeeee! Don't let the door hit you, etc.

I don't understand this. There's nothing "old fashioned" about sending texts, and if you want proper interaction and engagement surely you phone people? Sending texts is the reverse of "more face to face interaction".

To be honest I am relieved you don’t like me. Given the attitude you have displayed throughout this thread, I’d think I was doing something seriously wrong in life if you did like me.

One of the aspects we overlook when introducing friends to friends is that we are basically giving them a reference. That can come back to bite us. Friend circles just don't always mix and match and there is nothing wrong with that.

Yes, it’s very much this! I can cope with my friends not liking one another - it just happens sometimes - but if one becomes an active annoyance to another, that creates a difficulty for me. It’s all very well saying “They’re adults; they can sort it out themselves” as some posters have done, but I don’t want to end up in a scenario where friends are wary of inviting me in case Daisy is part of the package.