Friend coming down hard on me for lack of communication

[Uhohhouse]

I have a friend with whom about 90% of our relationship is on WhatsApp as we live in opposite ends kf the country. From time to time I will drop off communication wise and only be able to manage a quick emoji response or one liner, and i think this is because I have a partner and also live with extended family: it means that I am constantly engaging with people non stop whereas she lives alone.
Last week I got a rap on the knuckles for "dropping off the radar" and I apologised for making her feel neglected. The truth was I was having a hit of an extended christmas and there was loads of family visits happening and then me and DP went on a week-long roadtrip.

I ca t help but feel resentful though. On the one hand I DONT want her to feel neglected but on the other hand I dont have this issue with any other friends.

Has anyone had something similar?

You only share with the people you live with?!
Are you assuming you will all live together forever? If not, will you want to connect more with others one day? What do you think people who live alone should do, just not share with anyone? And is it really enough for you to have so few proper, deep connections? Don't you want community? (Unless there will be a drip feed that you live in a commune!)

You say friends are not interested and you have too many to share at that level. But it's the few who one really "clicks" with where you would want to share at that level, not every single friend/friendly acquaintance.

I don't think this is why people are lonely. They are lonely because they don't reach out to the people around them in their local communities, shops, voluntary work, join local groups etc. It is what are called 'loose social connections' that are more predictive of loneliness and the bad health effects of that; close friends come after that.

I don't know how it's actually measured in terms of predicting loneliness. But there's a difference between "loose social connections" and real, deep loneliness that comes from not having people to really share with. It's a quietly devastating loneliness to be surrounded by friendly acquaintances and looser friendships but not have the particularly special close people.

Oddly enough, an awful lot of people who don't reach out, make those social connections, make an effort... do not feel lonely. They don't bother with social connections precisely because they have their partner or family and don't think beyond that. Of course, that may lead to loneliness later in life...

As for not regularly talking to someone the other end of the country, in the past - I did acknowledge that. My point was about day-to-day sharing, whether in person or enabled across distances by phones. So many people nowadays seem to not want to connect or share like this at all (apart from with partner/children).

I think I probably haven't expressed myself very well. I have a lot of friends. I don't tell them the details of my everyday life and what I had for dinner though unless I talk with them on that particular day. I have deep friendships going back decades, and the one rule I go by is to realise there's an ebb and flow to these things. The depth for me wouldn't come from everyday chit chat, but touching base when we can and having a deeper chat on those lovely occasions we can get together in real life, or talk on the phone for two hours, or go out for dinner. That happens pretty frequently as I make time for my close friends.

I wouldn't want a friend who had tackled me three years ago about not being communicative enough, and I wouldn't want repeats of that regularly. It doesn't come with my friendship territory. I really don't know people who behave like this in real life.

I don’t feel the need to share my thoughts with people daily I share some stuff with my husband but some things I prefer to think about and work through alone and most things I am concerned about seem less inportant the next day. I wouldn’t have got in to a relationship like the OP’s with her friend in the first place though. It sounds to have a teenage intensity to it.

Agreed. And even that wouldn’t be a solution because not all flatmates want to chat.

I have a good friend who has 3 kids and a husband and she’s very active in her community - has lots of local friends, knows her neighbours, goes to church, her parents live near and she works 3-5 days per week.

So she happens to live in another continent and I am telling you I hear from her way more than the vast majority of my friends here
including the single childfree ones.

It’s honestly so nice hearing from her regularly about her day at work, her kids, her sister. She usually contacts me every few days. When she gets busy she still manages to send me a message telling me how she is,
what she’s doing that week and asking after me.

If she mentions her brother is visiting for a few days for example, I’ll reply briefly to say have fun or whatever, but then I would usually wait until he left before messaging her again - unless she messages first.

I think it’s about give and take on both sides. She is considerate enough to give me a heads up that she may be busier than usual, and for my part I try to be considerate by not bombarding her with texts when I know she has a house full of guests and a busy schedule.

And it goes both ways. I recently told her if I’m quiet for the next little while it’s because I’m dealing with some stuff that I don’t yet want to discuss or go into with her.

She responded immediately with a lovely message and she still checks in now and again but it’s less frequent as she knows I’m a bit less available.

I feel it’s all about communication.

Weeks? Try months lol I have a friend who takes up to 6 months to reply. It’s absurd. She has also made no effort to meet up in person since pre pandemic. She honestly isn’t a bad person, but she is wrapped up in her long term boyfriend completely.

I must admit I’ve grown tired of the super slow replies, the never meeting in person - then It’s always a big song and dance to arrange a catch up phone call. But i am one of the first she will call if she has any issues with her partner.

Last time she forgot to call me and she wanted me to reschedule: I was just like look let’s leave it for now because I felt it was almost like an obligation for her. I did that for her sake and mine, I don’t want a friend to ring me out of duty.

At this point I am bored of the occasional intermittent contact we have. She’s not on social media either and I feel we don’t really have a clue what’s going on in each others life.

I stopped sending her birthday presents too because she had forgotten my birthday twice in a row, so I figured she was over it. But she apparently noticed when it was me who didn’t acknowledge her birthday. She made a big deal of mentioning it was her birthday recently and how lovely her partner had been.

I think she expected me to apologise for not acknowledging her birthday. But I just said that’s nice you have your partner to do that for you :) and left it at that!

It’s crazy because I see my friends who live abroad more than I see her. Maybe it’s intentional but I feel relegated to friendly acquaintance status. That’s fine, that’s up to her but if we are no longer close friends I also don’t want her popping into my life randomly and expecting a mammoth update session.

i didn’t reply to her genetic Christmas text, if she wants to have a real conversation she knows where i am -if not, we will let the friendship go then.

Yanbu. She sounds exhausting.
But she sounds important to you so maybe worth discussing again and redrawing the lines of expectations so you are not going to be constantly set up to fail. You can acknowledge she might feel hurt and that yes your circumstances have changed without bending to her will on this. I would ask her what is the difference between her dropping off when she goes on holiday but not you (I'm curious about that).

I honestly think all the people criticising the OP have no idea what it's like to have a friend like this and how exhausting and draining it can be. They are like emotional vampires.

What was outcome? Were you able to express how you felt at the time? I think this is a really interesting discussion topic btw so thanks for raising it. Lots of interesting comments on both sides.

I think there is a problem when you start to see communicating with your friend as a 'to-do' item.

Talking to your friends shouldn't be a chore, it should be a pleasure, a mental break from the 'to-do' list to just have a moment with a friend to relax, chat, and a laugh.

I view those moments through the day like i'm stood at the coffee machine, taking 5, shooting the breeze and talking crap.

If taking 5 minutes for a friend is a 'to-do list' item, you need to ask yourself what has happened and why that is.

Yes exactly, I put it in inverted commas because that’s what the previous poster had called it.

I completely agree with you. Calling it a To do list is calling it life admin, not catching up with friends from a place of love and warmth.

People have already said why it's a problem or why it would be a problem.
It isn't 5 minutes for a friend. It's constant having to think about someone that has become too intrusive.

I love my friends and I consider myself friendly and loving, but I have a lot on and I get overwhelmed by people's demands for my attention tbh. I end up feeling like I've spread myself too thin. It's never just 5 mins and there's also a lot of people.

I think at this stage of my life, I've already lost the friendships that were too intense for me or vice versa. The ones that have lasted are the ones that can survive being ghosted here and there.

Well yeah it shouldn't be a chore, so her friend needs to be wary that she's not putting herself into that category unwittingly by making op feel that she needs to do more than is natural for her.

Fckn extroverts never seem to get it.

It should be a pleasure?
It's only 5 mins?
One long distance friend should have the same priority as your immediate family and partner?

This is probably why most of my surviving friendships are with autistics 😉

I agree, @Branleuse - it always seems as if introverts are supposed to be the ones that have to force themselves to do the things we are really struggling with - why can’t extroverts try to understand that there are things which are so easy and quick for them, that are a real struggle for us? Would it really be so difficult for them to understand that, and to give us a bit of compassion and understanding?

I think that probably is what she’s looking for. That daily interaction that you would have with household members.

But it’s just not realistic in someone who is simply a friend.

I would probably put my cards on the table - “I’m just not much of a communicator on a frequent basis by messages or phone, and tend to prefer catch up in person when I see you”

It doesn’t have to all be done to her preferences

It's possible to be autistic and still want close sharing friendships.
I would know...

Edited to add...
The suicide rate for autistic women, especially in early middle age (when peers become their least sociable) is astonishingly high. One hypothesis for this is the longing to connect and share but far fewer opportunities to do so. Many acquaintances and few real friends is the curse of many autistic women.
So, it's not very nice to be described as "fckn extroverts". We are simply being human, the social species we are.

As an aside, there's something I'm finding intriguing here.

Many months ago, I posted (under a different username) asking for advice about a specific situation. Posters honed in on the broader situation including my not great mental state at the time. The odd thing was, they didn't seem to comprehend that I didn't have friends who would immediately drop everything and come to my aid, or who I could immediately talk to without having to wait for them to have free time.

On this thread, whether posters are on the side of sharing and being social, or prefer to only share with people they live with, everyone can understand that plenty of people don't have super close people in their lives. Yet in other situations, including here on MN, people just assume you have someone there for you at all times.

Couldn't agree more.

Every 3 to 4 days seems very high maintenance to me! My friends (some of whom live hundreds of miles away) communicate with in depth catch ups every few weeks and in the meanwhile may send each other a silly meme or similar. Thats fine for me and them; anything like every 3 days would send me nuts

i am audhd, and an introvert. try again.

talking to my best friend isnt a drain on my energy, i look forward to it.

and why did it need 3 separate replies with apparently 3 different opinions?

DD had a friend who would send her frequent voice notes about the latest drama in her life. DD would speed them up so they didn't eat into her day too much. They are now NC (long story not related to the voice notes).

i cant stand voice notes, if i wanted to listen/talk, i'd phone.
i use a voice to text translator and type my responses.

My friends who wfh often message on whattsapp but because I'm also interacting and can't have my phone out there will sometimes be hundreds of chat texts I haven't seen. They know now why I can't but it took a long time to get the message across after quite a few 'hey you alive/ok?'

Same with busy times, like you and your friend, but I do try and keep in touch but just say sorry if I don't respond for a while. Xx

Oh, come on, I got a message from my brother, sent last night. I hadn't seen it until this morning until he sent another 'aren't you communicating?' It was only a meme! People get bombarded with messages all the time, you can't be on duty 24/7