AIBU to feel hurt when a friend ignores all group plans?

[ForDucksSake]

I'm hoping I don't get my arse handed to me here but will absolutely accept if I'm in the wrong.

I have a long-standing friend (around 12 years now) who I'm very fond of. There are 5 of us who regularly do things together: concerts, theatre, meals out, nights around each others houses etc., so although we all have other friends and interests, I would say that we are close friends.

She never arranges or suggests anything to do and never has us round to her own house, which is fine, none of the rest of us really mind this as we know the idea of it stresses her out (although our 'in' nights are basically drinking wine and eating crisps, not fancy). I do need to point out that she suffers from anxiety. I'm not unsympathetic to this.

The issue is when we arrange anything, it's through our group chat as it's by far the easiest way to 'speak' to each other to talk about dates that we are all free etc. She never (or very rarely) responds to these. She reads them and doesn't respond. She'll message individually about how your day has been but completely ignore the other messages. We've tried all the usual things like tagging her etc but she still ignores. The problem is that if one of us is buying tickets, we don't know how many to buy. If we are arranging lifts, we don't know if we're picking her up or whose car to take etc. She waits until the very last minute then messages one of us privately, which means that person has to message everyone else to let them know what's happening because she just won't message the group chat. Last year one of us was buying tickets for us all to go to a gig and she read and didn't respond, so our other friend went ahead and booked them. Cut to the week before and she messages (in the group chat for once) and asks about arrangements. Not only did we all think that she just didn't want to come, she hadn't paid for a ticket either. She was really upset saying that we had gone ahead without her and had left her out etc etc. So she doesn't want to respond, but still wants to be included.

Now it's happened again and she has ignored my invitation to a get together. I am just sick of wondering if I've done something wrong, or said something to offend her etc. Invariably it's not that, it's just that she says she feels 'overwhelmed' by responding in the group chat. I think we're all so sick of it now. Back to my AIBU. Surely she should actually consider how her ignoring and constantly having us second guess every situation is really pretty shit on the rest of us? I'm actually starting to feel quite upset at just being ignored and I don't think this would even cross her mind.

Oh god loads of times. 'If I don't hear by x, I'll assume it's not for you' or similar. She'll say that she missed the message.

Your response to this just needs to be “oh dear, that’s a shame for you.” And carry on as you are. If she continues to miss out… so be it.

I agree with this. I am ND and can get overwhelmed but I always participate in group chats organising events and am always quick to either commit or say I won’t be going.

Attention seeking seems likely here.

Keep doing what you’re doing now. Give deadlines and don’t pander to any nonsense.

Going forwards I would set a deadline for any more meet ups and if she misses it, then it’s tough. When the deadline comes, just list everyone who has said they will attend and that’s it really. You’ve all pandered to her enough, I have anxiety but I still respond to group chats because the people in it are my friends.

I simply cannot be bothered with this sort of thing any more (this may of course be a side effect of being over 50). If the OP's friend finds the group chat overwhelming then she doesn't have to be in it. Yes, anxiety is an appallingly debilitating condition but it is not a unlimited free pass to behave poorly.

Maybe start using polls in the Whatsapp group for these things and see if she finds it easier to just click one of the given options than write a reply or engage in conversation. I hate responding to group messages, but assume if nobody hears from me I am not included in whatever plans they're making. I figure silence = opted out.

This really makes sense. She has told us in the part of so many people/friendship groups who have 'dropped' her over the years. It's never her fault, it's always them.

Incredibly difficult and frustrating. Yes, understandable that she has anxiety or whatever else it is causing her to feel too overwhelmed to communicate, but that doesn't lessen the burden that people's various anxieties and other needs put on their friends. Personally I feel exhausted by the range of sensitivities I need to navigate to keep friendships these days.

I think one person needs to speak with her face to face and ask how you can all best communicate with her. Would a system where one person was her contact, and she could agree to always reply to that one person and in good time? Or ask whether the Polls method would make it easier for her.

And it is OK to tell her that being ignored upsets you and you find it rude.

Op start a new WhatsApp group and leave her at her mind games. I could not be doing with that. She sounds a bloody nightmare! A pick me kind of person that I would have zero tolerance for.

I think for me the main thing is that I just think it's rude not to respond to an invitation, even if it's from someone close to you. It's ok not to want to go, I just don't think it's good manners to ignore.

It's OK to tell her this.

I agree. Start a new whatsapp group. Don't include her. Carry on doing stuff with the others. Let her play her passive aggressive mind games on her own

Have you tried copy pasting the group message into a private message to her too, so she can choose how to reply?

She’s at least had the message twice then, so really can’t be reasonably upset if you go ahead without her if she didn’t bother to reply to either.

She’s hard work!

We have someone like this in one of my groups. I’m usually the person that organises when something is suggested and I got sick of her not responding. Now I organise things as if she’s always not coming and when she eventually got in touch I told her I didn’t hear from her so she has to buy her own tickets, make her own transport arrangements etc. I cannot be arsed with people like her and don’t put up with them, no matter how much I like them. Now, she usually responds quickly and if not, doesn’t attend.

Why should she? There is no need.

This may sound harsh but it strikes me that those that have previously dropped her had both self respect and self esteem, two things this grouping lacks.

Stop taking on board her behaviour.
Send a message with a response deadline and don't engage with he whining and upset.

Pull back completely from one on one contact.
It is hard to fathom why anyone would have the bandwidth as an adult for such a self absorbed rude person.
The world doesn't revolve around her and you allowing her behaviour to impact you and stress you is a bit mad.
Disengage from it.You cannot change her, so change and control your response to her and her whining drama when everyone isn't bending over backwards to facilitate her.

As for allowing her to control you so that you were late? That is 100% on you. Start looking at how much you enable her and her behaviour and fix that. You will not fix her.
I think you have issues that you would buy into this.
Wishing you well.

this is classic undiagnosed female autism, an adult with no learned coping mechanisms for the world they are living in

she can’t cope with the information when it’s presented, can’t cope with the social expectation or pressure and can’t articulate that in a useful way to help maintain her friendships

Does she have a very acute sense of social justice? Does she talk about being wronged a lot (or other people being ‘bullied’ or somehow wronged)? Has she lost jobs in the past without understanding why?

If any of these apply, I would encourage her to get an assessment and therapy to help improve her social communication skills

It’ll take 2 seconds and accommodates how OPs friend prefers to message.

just talk to her

Agree with others: tough love is needed. I'd make a bit of banter out of it, like "Everyone let me know if you can make it - @ Friend, yes, this also means you 😜". If you really want to cover yourself in her eyes, forward the message directly to her as well, although frankly I think she needs to learn. You're not asking much to request that she occasionally reads messages she's tagged in. I too would find this extremely flaky and annoying.

I had friends like this. Perpetual victims, couldn't cope with making commitments. Somehow their inability to decide or commit was something we had to twist ourselves in knots to put right.

They expected the world to accommodate them when they said Yes long after a deadline passes, then moaned about Poor Me, Left Out Again when it was far too late.

Eventually people get sick of it and stop inviting people like this along. The deadline is the deadline, end of.

No need for banter here, just plain talking, no need to pander to an adult woman.
Her actions means she misses out. Shame for her but not for the rest of you.

Agreed, this is the way to deal with this.

I was late because she'd managed to persuade the other person giving lifts to go and get her first when she hadn't originally responded. I didn't know until they were late to pick me up. I'm not sure how that's 100% on me or her controlling me.

Having said that, the more I read responses, I really feel like we need to change our own responses to her silence. I don't want to hurt her feelings and I really do care about her, but I don't feel it should always be down to the rest of us to pussy foot around her.

I have a friend like this. She didn’t respond to invitations, didn’t initiate anything but would complain if left out. I would remind her each time that she had been invited but had not responded. She acknowledged that she did this but the behaviour didn’t change. We tried talking to her about this but it didn’t go well, at all.

While I’m sure my friend didn’t intend to come across as selfish, that is how it felt to us. We could see the effort she made with new friends (she has a wide circle of friends but she does fall out with people frequently) but there is none of that effort for one of her oldest friend groups. I think she just took it for granted that we would always be there, because we had been.

We have been friends for over 30 years and I love her, but I decided that my ‘inner circle’ of friends would be those who reciprocated the effort I put into our friendship. And that might mean she became a less-close friend.

So I have stopped trying to get her involved or to confirm anything. I now just share what I am doing and invite anyone who is interested to join in. I removed the pressure to respond. I don’t follow up. If she doesn’t respond, so be it. I am organising things that I want to do rather than try to get group agreement. And I move ahead with things.

Funnily enough, this friend has now organised 3 events. This is more than she has done in the past three years. Maybe I (we) needed to give her room? Take the pressure off? Or, in what I suspect is the case, she’s realised we are not engaging the way we used to, so she is now directing some of her effort to our old friendship group, rather than just focusing on exciting, new friends.

You can’t change her behaviour. You can only change your actions and your responses.

I would tag her in the message - say I can see you have read the message if you don't respond then don't complain that you aren't included
She's an adult - stop treating her like a child and pandering to her - she is capable of messaging individually and knows everyone in the chat so she has no plausable excuse