AIBU to ignore frequent long voice notes from a new friend?

[Boxfulloftoys]

Recently became friends/acquaintances with somebody in the same line of work as me. She is very nice but very full on. She regularly sends me voice notes that are a minumum of five minutes long. I work full time,have four teenagers and life is busy. She is single with no children. Anyway yesterday I had a rare day of and I get four messages in the space of 30 minutes. To be honest I didn't even listen to them until this morning.

One of the messages was basically for me to be more considerate and reply. I skipped the rest of the messages. I hate voice notes but I did say that I was of yesterday and didn't want to be on my phone. That was 9am and no reply.

Was I being unreasonable to not reply to her messages yesterday. She always replies to mine straight away. I do like her but I don't even message my closest friends daily let alone send them numerous voice messages.

Yes set your boundaries now and don't give into the emotional blackmail.

I’m not surprised she hasn’t got any other friends if this is how she communicates. Bombards people with voice notes and tells them off when they don’t reply quickly enough!

Well, there's the issue. Why doesn't she have any other friends? There will almost always be a reason, and it's not usually 'Has just arrived from another continent' or 'Wasn't allowed friends by a controlling spouse'.

Just tell her you don't ever listen to voice notes on principle and leave the ball in her camp.

(I listen to them from precisely one friend with an extenuating circumstance.)

I instantly judge people who use voice notes. They’re a certain breed.

If you want to maintain the friendship I’d text her to say voice notes aren’t your thing and if she needs a response to text or phone.

Personally, I’d let her be offended and let the friendship fizzle out.

Thank you for the transcription tip. I didn't know that existed!

I really hate voice notes like that and don't even open them. She's asking you to be considerate when she's being incredibly inconsiderate. I'd be withdrawing from the friendship. I don't like being told off for not listening to someone banging on in repeated messages. I love chatting on the phone when there's time and love getting texts, though don't like the pressure to reply immediately.

I think you need to let her know that voice notes dont work for you. Or if she wants to keep using them she should I expect it to be a while before you can listen to them

Voice notes, what voice notes, do you mean these files i keep getting? Oh I delete those.

Just say maybe you could be more considerate of my time. Just say you don't have time to listen to long voice notes. On the plus side (although it isn't very good) there is a feature on WhatsApp that lets you transcribe it so you can "read" it underneath but it's not the best at it tbh.

I think as a new friend, it's pretty cheeky to ask you to be more considerate. Surely this is the part of getting to know each other and what the communication styles are? I wouldn't dream of sending someone voice notes if they don't like it.

I always think voice notes are for the narcissists who aren’t interested in anyone else but themselves. She’s probably not looking for a meaningful reply… just acknowledgment that you’ve listen to her drone on. She’s offended! 😅

I just don’t listen to voice notes. So I’d have to say that.

@Boxfulloftoys just be honest with her.

"Hi <name>, I didn't reply as to be honest I hate voice notes and don't have time to listen to them. I prefer talking to an actual person or reading a message."

If she take umbrage with that then that's her problem, not yours.

She sounds insane I would wrap that one up OP.

But be careful she doesn’t start ringing you all the time. If she does, don’t feel obliged to answer. Especially when the sob stories (sorry if that sounds unsympathetic) start… .

Sounds like she has latched on to you if she doesn't have any friends, and it sounds intense. I don't mind the occasional voice note, i have a friend who will sometimes send one, but I would hate this as a permanent form of communication.

I love voice notes but I only exchange them with friends who also love them. We do genuinely share all the mundane details of life but it’s a two way thing. If this friend is not getting a reply from you, she should be able to ‘read the room’ and work out that this is just not your thing. Best thing you can do is politely tell her that you prefer to communicate via short text messages.

By the way, your friend being single has nothing to do with it. Having kids doesn’t automatically make you busier than a person who doesn’t. It’s far more likely she just likes this form of communication - my married friends use it as much as my unmarried friends. But again, it’s not your thing so you’ll just have to tell her that.

My son does send me voice notes but he has specific reasons and he knows that I am often unable to listen to them.

I would simply send a text saying, sorry, I am unable to listen to voice notes/have sound on my phone when I am at work or with the children (my work woud get very criss if I did and you never know if what someone is going to say is child appropriate) and so sometimes it might be a few days before I am able to listen.

I hate voice notes with a passion! My brother sends them frequently and I tell him that I can’t listen if I’m at work etc. He ignores this and still sends lengthy voice notes. On WhatsApp the transcribe function is great. I’m honest with people who send voice notes and I tell them I don’t like them!

One friend of mine refers to those as audio podcasts. I asked what she was referring to and apparently is an audio voice text longer than 6 minutes.

I can’t be arsed. Haven’t got time for that. No wonder you don’t listen to them.

I would let her know that your communication style is different and that long voice recordings don’t work for you

"Hi Jane, I don't do voice notes - please send me messages or call me. Thanks!"

Yanbu. Voice notes feel like a regression back to phone calls. If I wanted to hear your voice I’d call you.
She’s asking you to be considerate when she is not considering your needs. And being a good communicator includes listening. She sounds draining and she’s only an acquaintance?

If I receive a voice note I text the person asking if they’re ok and point out I’m unable to listen as I’m at work… they usually then summarise the message by text.
only person I don’t do this is visually impaired, I listen to hers!

I would stop this before it starts. Just send a text letting her know you can't reply quickly and may be busy for the foreseeable future. I already feel like she's friends with you but you are not with her. Better to be straight now, the offer isn't a great new friend, it's an inappropriate and demanding new friend and she won't back off, because she thinks it's ok to behave like this, which it isn't!

I had a friend that did this.

HAD.

I don’t think voice notes are the problem here, as such. Even if she switched to texting or WhatsApp it wouldn’t make much difference as its the frequency and length of messages that’s the problem.

I had a “friend “ like this. Every evening around 7pm she would settle in and send me pages of WhatsApp messages, she even put “to be continued” when she reached the max message length. It was generally a run down of her day - what she’d baked, how dinner prep went, what the dentist said to her children etc. Followed by about ten questions to me to ensure I replied.

I was polite for a while but then I just suggested she get a journal so she could write down her daily meandering thoughts instead. That didn’t work so I said “I can’t answer all those questions”.

Nothing changed so I just stopped replying. She is no longer in contact with me. I feel free.