Is this normal friendship behaviour?

[WildWensleydale]

Looking for opinions on whether I am right to feel a bit irriatated by this, or whether I’m being needy or high maintenance. I really don’t know!
I’ll preface this by saying I do have lots of longstanding great friends, it’s not a case of
me clinging to this particular friend at all or that I over-rely on her for emotional support, or rely on her anything actually as she’s proven herself to be so unreliable 😂
When our kids started school 5 years ago, I struck up a friendship with a fellow mum. We got on really well, and have always socialised lots both with and without our children, we are good enough friends we have always spoken very regularly and confided in each other lots over the years.
The entire time I have know her she has always blown very hot and cold. There will be some weeks I will hear from her literally daily with detailed accounts of her life, then at random she literally disappears for 2 months and doesn’t respond to any messages, and I’m left wondering what did I do wrong - this has happened again and again. At first I thought maybe i had inadvertently done something to offend her, or because of the sudden silence worried if something had happened and if she was ok, but it’s happened enough times now for me to know it’s just how she works.
I find this irritating and unkind, for a friend to just drop you at random and not reply to any messages, literally just disappear, then when they feel like it stroll back in. I don’t feel valued as a friend at all and I wouldn’t treat anyone like that if I considered them a friend. She speaks about a lot of friends in the past tense which makes me think she maybe doesn’t place value on friendships, but will always tell me what a good friend I am.
I guess what I’m asking is am I unreasonable to find this really annoying and be considering drastically cooling the friendship when she next turns up? Or am I being weird & taking offence too easily? Is it me? Is this how people usually operate? I don’t know anyone else who behaves like this?!

She’s a user

This is what she does, for whatever reason. You've never told her that it's problematic for you. Maybe you both need to communicate better.

Why would you want to be friends with someone who ignores you for a couple of months from time to time? Just concentrate on your other friends and let her crack on with people who enjoy being treated like that

I guess she isn’t the same as you, but, yes, it’s normal in some friendships for closeness to ebb and flow, other friendships it’s normal for them to be consistent in level of contact.

Exactly. I tend to withdraw when I'm low, though I do tell my friends I'm doing it, that they haven't done anything wrong, I'll be back, I just need some space. If that doesn't work for them, they're not the right type of people to be my friends. So far that hasn't happened, though.

Thanks for your replies. I totally get that people have busy lives, nobody lives in each others pockets etc, as mentioned I have lots of longstanding friendships and while we all do our own thing and may go some time without seeing each other as we all get on with our own stuff, we don’t just suddenly blank each other and I have never known a friend repeatedly disappear and reappear on repeat the way this friend does. Just wondered if it was me having unrealistic expectations of a friendship to find it tiresome now.

If it really grates on you, you can tell her so, see if she is willing to adapt? She must know she does it, and some people will be ok with it, and others won’t.
Depends how much you enjoy her company v how much her changeability puts you off!

If it doesn’t work for you, pull back on the friendship. If it annoys you, it annoys you.

But I wouldn’t necessarily read all the stuff into it about her not valuing you, not valuing friendship, etc.

This how a lot of my friendships work - longstanding ones, with people I love. But we are all pretty busy and overwhelmed with complex caregiving responsibilities, and live in different parts of the world from one another. We’ll have a day or two where it’s non stop jokes and chat over WhatsApp and then nothing for a few months, and we pick up where we left off.

We’re all middle aged, though, and haven’t had the kind of life setup in years where we were able to see friends regularly. I’m sure I’d feel differently if this dynamic was a big departure from other friendships I’d had, or if we were all single in our 20s living it up in London.

Are you trying to constantly message her every day? I had a friend like this, loved her as a friend but she would hound me with facebook messenger every waking moment 24/7 so i had to stop replying.
now i meet up her occasionally but im very careful when i reply to her messages as i dont want her to start hounding me again. Maybe similar situation?

@ComfortFoodCafe No, not at all!
I messaged her once at the beginning of the holidays, asking how her recent holiday abroad was/let me know if you fancy getting together. nothing. Sent her another message maybe a week ago saying how’s your summer going/hope you’re alright/let me know if you fancy catching up, totally ignored. She’s done this so many times over the years and as mentioned I’ve previously worried I’ve done something to upset her to go from speaking all the time to ignoring my messages, worried something has happened, only for her to cheerily reappear like she hasn’t just fucking blanked me for months. I now don’t worry any more when she disappears but I am starting to think she’s a bit of a shit friend and to stop bothering with her

Oh thats a bit strange. Maybe she has mental health issues or anxiety?

I think she is a bit of a shit friend personally. it feels like you are expected to accept whatever crumbs of friendship she feels like throwing your way, and to not ask for more.

I had a friend like this.. got sick of it, she would message me saying hey stranger then would get a super long message about her relationship problems etc. Would arrange to meet up and she'd talk at me the whole time then I wouldn't hear from her again for months.
I dont give her the time of day anymore

I've got friends like this, it doesn't bother me because I can find a simple text draining at times and with them I know that I'm not expected to reply straight away. We understand each other, we can have breaks and then when we talk again we're still as close as ever. We have dropped things straight away for each other when needed eg relationship break ups, bereavement but the general chat doesn't have to be consistent.

A few thoughts:

If a friend of mine doesn't reply to messages that have no specific 'call to action', I assume they're busy or can't prioritise a response for whatever reason, not that I've done something to offend them, or that they don't value my friendship, or that they're 'blanking' me.

If someone says to me 'let me know if you fancy meeting up,' that doesn't feel like it necessitates a prompt response.

Whereas, if a friend says 'I'm in your neighbourhood next week, do you have time for a drink on Tuesday?' I'll reply right away so that they can plan.

And if they say, 'Let's plan a night out! When's everyone available?' I'll answer with my availability.

But vague 'how are you?' messages with a mention of possibly meeting up at some point, but no concrete suggestions or plans or dates that might work don't signal to me that I need to reply swiftly, particularly when I'm very busy or preoccupied. And after that it's easy for the message to fall off my radar.

If you really like this person (which I can't tell from your posts) it might be as simple as being more specific and assertive in your messages. If you want to meet up, suggest a time and place.

If the lack of consistent communication really annoys you or hurts your feelings, you're probably not compatible.

I've not found myself to be very compatible with people who find it anxiety-provoking or hurtful not to have a prompt response - however much we may like each other.

It feels like I'm always in the doghouse, and I get tired of feeling like that, as I'm sure they get tired of feeling like I'm blanking them or disrespecting them or whatever. Neither of us is right or wrong, we're just not compatible.

Oh I’ve never made her feel like she’s in the doghouse, she’s even said to me “I know I’m a shit friend” and I’ve shrugged it off good naturedly but I’ve also made the point of telling her I was worried something had happened to her when she went 3 months without replying to anything.
If she wasn’t so super keen to talk and spend time together other times, I would definitely have taken the hint and stopped trying/ditched her by now. Think I’ve finally reached that point 😂

If you're close and confide in each other, haven't you ever asked her why she does this?

I suppose I didn’t want to come across as being needy or pushy, so I haven’t ever “pulled her up” on it.

Yeah, but that’s just a pass agg way of guilt-tripping someone. ‘I hadn’t heard from you in so long, I was worried something had happened to you!’

I mean, were you really?

Say what you mean, or drop the friendship, but don’t do the faux concern thing.

Far better just to say, ‘what’s up with your not being in touch for months on end?’ And then she might say, ‘I’m just not great with texting / a bit flaky / super busy / whatever’ and you’ll know it’s not that she’s angry with you or deliberately trying to mess you about, and you can decide whether you’re OK to downgrade the friendship in your mind to one where you communicate more sporadically, or whether this doesn’t work for you and you want to stop bothering altogether.

Does she have any illnesses, depression, neurodivergence or is she just someone that isn’t very organised?

Given it’s what she has always been like and there is no reason to think you have done anything wrong, it sounds normal for her. It’s possible that you think more highly of her or prioritise her more so that you feel the times apart more than she does.

She probably has pretty significant mental health problems.
I have a couple of friends who do this. Both of them are too overwhelmed/low to reply to anyone when they are in their really bad place.
I try to be understanding and I know they’ll come back eventually

@VoltaireMittyDream It wasn’t fake concern, I genuinely was wondering WTF had happened for her to drop off the face of the earth suddenly, to go from texting me constant updates of her day and suggesting making various plans to literally disappearing. It wasn’t said in a ticking off kind of way, I literally said “I was just worried something had happened” there was no drama attached to it.
I think although we have a similar sense of humour etc we are probably quite different people in terms of reliability and being considerate, and as another poster mentioned the friendship is clearly not important to her. I wouldn’t bother to fall out with her over it but I definitely will be stepping back.

Have you spelled out to her directly (not saying you were "worried" about her) that you find her behaviour unacceptable?

I think you have to try that and see what the response is.

She clearly has some mental health issues. It may be that she goes through phases when she can't handle dealing with social stuff.

You either have to lay your cards on the table and say you can't handle it or you accept that this is what she's like.

Fair enough - I’m probably reading my own stuff into it there!

I've had friends like this @WildWensleydale . I think she just sees you as a "school mum" friend who is great to have when nothing better is available. Sorry to be so blunt but you deserve better. I think that you have to consider her an aquaintance from now on and be a bit distant. Match her energy if you want to see her every once in a while. Just don't think of her as a friend. She's not