Male friend's constant messages stressing me out

[Rae34]

I've been friends with guy for 5 or 6 years. Initially I thought there might be some romantic interest on his part but he never made any romantic effort plus I soon realised I didnt like him that way. Friendship it was!

I usually only see him once or twice a year but over lockdown he has sent me endless streams of long messages. In the last one, I had mentioned the stress of having to deal with bullying in an org I am part of lately and he used this as an excuse to try and offload about this one time when he was bullied. That was a montho ago & I havent replied since.

Before lockdown I enjoyed his company and catching up a couple of times a year. But this morning he has messaged me again! So now I have multiple essays in my inbox.

The truth is I am starting to feel a bit stalked - I know that is too strong a word to use but I don't really know how to handle it when I want to keep him as a friend I see now and then because he is good company in person

he is a very sensitive and quite emotional person

That doesn't mean that you ought to push your own feelings to one side though. How come he gets to say absolutely everything that concerns him in his life all the time to you, expresses clearly how he feels if he's upset with you, to the extent that you're really quite uncomfortable for an extended period of time, and yet you're concerned about even saying to him 'Er, this feels a bit much for me' without there being major, friendship damaging repercussions from him?

Do you minimise your feelings in all your relationships? You need to understand better how to recognise your boundaries and enforce them. This guy is trampling all over you and he doesn't even know because you haven't told him.

I think you need to tell him that you have a family so don't have as much time to devote to friends as you'd like.

I think you need to “divert” away from you being the person he offloads to.

Relationship issues - I’m not really the best person to give advice here.

Feedback on work - I’m really busy and can’t devote enough time to do this justice, perhaps you need to consider getting some professional feedback from (suitable person)?

You might need to keep repeating like this for some time for him to get the message if you don’t want to face it head on.

Perhaps after a few times it gives you an opening to say you have a fair amount on your plate and simply aren’t able to read the sheer volume of messages he’s sending, please can he tone it down as you are feeling stressed about the level of attention he is expecting, and there may be others better able right now to give advice on what he’s asking about.

Thanks, @Eckhart. Having thought about it overnight, I think we were acquaintances/light friends before but he has increasingly pushed for a closer relationship possibly due to the pandemic.

Things that have made me uncomfortable:

• saying he thought the waitress fancied him last time I met him. She was clearly just doing her job & was nothing more than professional. Height of arrogance.
• using wink emojis all of a sudden in messages
• semi confronting me about why it had taken me a month to reply
• he will never pay for drinks while out. I once bought tickets for us both for something, he hadn't yet repaid me and then asked me for cash for a glass of wine at the bar afterward.

BUT we do have a good laugh, share similar politics and we are in the same industry so understand a lot of what each other goes through. This is fine in a low-level friendship way, but not anything more. I think I just need to be polite, say there is a lot on my plate and dial it back to how it was before. I don't want more than this and because I suspect his feelings might be more than friendship, I worry he will hope for more.

You could always rely on the old fallback of the pretend boyfriend OP. Say you've started seeing someone so not as much time to chat. That sorts out both problems in one

Op you sound very selfish, you want his friendship but only on your terms. Friendships are a 2 way street. You want his friendship but only occasionally, you don't want him to bother you in between, but also you don't want to be honest with him cause you don't want to lose the pleasant parts. Is that right?
You have to be honest with him about the nature of your friendship and you expectations, and if that means he decides that's not enough for him, then so be it. Your friendship means more obviously to him than it means to you. It's unreasonable to be annoyed that he keeps messaging you when you haven't explicitly told him that you don't want him to. He obviously hasn't got the hint fromthe fact that you take so long to reply. You are being very unkind to him, this is the equivalent of someone only wanting the occasional hookup but not letting the other person know cause then may rhen lose the hookups!

I think it’s very hard to have a friendship with the opposite sex. I have a couple male friends who are very similar, a bit needy and will often message me daily. I enjoy meeting up with them but occasionally they over step the boundary or ruin things be implying they want more out of the friendship, I then step right back for a bit.

I think you just need to step back, reply less often, tell him your very busy and sometimes it might take a while for you to reply.

This year has been so hard @Cloudfrost. I am just not able to keep up with his long essays which are often just monologues

I dont think I'm being selfish - I'm mentally and emotionally not able to keep up with what he wants from me. It is that simple.

The point is that his communication has increased massively over lockdown for a year now and I never want this level of closeness. We never had this level of closeness previously so I dont see why I am being selfish for wanting to dial it back.

@Lovemusic33 one of my best friends is a man. We have been close since we were kids & I have a couple of other male friends I catch up with & chat with over lockdown.

None of them have confronted me about the length of time it has taken to reply or messaged over and over when I havent yet replied. I agree it can be hard sometimes and sometimes it doesnt work out.

Maybe he thinks it’s ok to message to you because he thinks you’re friends.

Just sounds like a mate whose bored in lockdown so extra messages being sent. Sounds normal.

If he liked you wouldn’t he have already tried something on being as he has had years to try?

I think your reading to much into it.

I'm surprised at the responses you've had here OP, I'd absolutely hate to be in a situation like you describe it doesn't sound like you vent to him anywhere near as much as he vents to you, and he is clearly a mental drain as far as you're concerned. You need to gently establish some boundaries I think, as he's pushing and you're unhappy.

I have been far away for quite a while until the last couple of years & i dont meet up with him often. He seems to get friendzoned & I've made it clear previously the age gap is too much. He keeps going after people that are spoken for too which is weird.

I'm going on a gut feeling. The last time we met I had a feeling he liked me. I could be wrong and it doesn't change anything anyway. I'm starting to feel very bad reading these responses!

I sell online and occasionally this has happened to me with an "old" customer who gets a bit clingy. I had one who kept writing to tell me all her misfortunes with their landlord, express her views on US politics, and so on. My response was to reply to about one in three with a short paragraph commenting briefly. The others I booted back with an "out of office" message which of course you can get away with when you are in business. I run a company not a lonely hearts bureau.

OP, do you realise that if you had posted this on the Feminist chat board, you’d have received completely different responses, mostly along the lines of “women are not men’s emotional support humans”.

Bin him off OP, he sounds like a self-centred PITA. Block and move on.

Also, visit the Feminist chat board on here ...

I'm starting to feel very bad reading these responses!

Don’t. He’s crossing your boundaries. The friendship has run its course. You are perfectly at liberty to choose the kind of friendship you have with anyone.

@HopeClearwater the irony is - I'm in a supposedly feminist organisation where a woman was being bullied, that was the stressful issue I was dealing with - and he brought it back to himself!

Like I say, I don't want to burn bridges as we move in similar circles but I simply dont want the level of friendship he does. And I do feel uncomfortable as I've stated

Well the not paying for a drink when he owed you money rules him right out of any romantic interest obvs, even without anything else.
I would hate this too, it's very difficult to reply with one sentence when someone has written an essay. Typing on a phone doesn't lend itself to this type of interaction imo.
Maybe just reply that you aren't good with long text conversations but look forward to catching up over a beer at some point soon. And try and close it down. Good luck!

He sounds like a massive user. He wants your attention and it's got to be all about him. If you tell him something that's going on with you, it's straight back to him again. He wants you to pay for stuff but won't reciprocate.

He's not friendship material. I know you don't want to think ill of him but I suspect his sensitivity is learned and he knows that if he comes across that way you're much less likely to call him on his selfishness.

I would stop responding. You've got too much on and you're not interested. Trust your gut. Something isn't right. That is enough.

He's too intense for a friend. He'd probably be too intense even as a boyfriend.

It sounds to me like your relationship, whatever it is, is all about him. It's hard to say without knowing both of you, but if he's the kind of person to send you long, unsolicited messages or rants regularly (which I think he does), and every conversation is 1-2-3 back to me, then you aren't his friend, you're his unpaid therapist.

Also, I think the level of contact he needs from you says to me that although you might think of you as friends, he's certainly expecting and intimate level frequency contact with you.

Also, he might be sensitive and emotional, but it doesn't matter. He's an adult man, not a 5 year old child. He probably won't take it well though. Expect guilt tripping, accusations that you're not a good friend or similar. Ignore it and move on because this friendship sounds heavy, intense and too much for you and you have the right to decide what kind of relationships you want.

He is emotionally dysfunctional as evidenced by his repeated chaotic and failed romantic relationships.

His pattern of intimate relating is now obvious to you as he has pushed the acquaintance friendship to another level.

This is of no interest to you and is unappealing (as I am sure it is with his romantic RS) - your gut is sensing something off - listen to it.

He is disrespectful to you in many ways. He is refusing to sense and acknowledge your implicit boundaries (taking time to respond) - ignores this and doubles down thundering on with his own demanding agenda.

People like this are on a loop - ever few months it’s the same RS drama.

Best advice you can give him is to invest in a professional therapist so that he can fix his issues and learn to emotionally regulate once and for all.

You have zero obligation to this character. I suspect that he has run out of road with all of his other female friends and you are the last man standing.

Don’t let people drain you repeatedly. They never change. They take more and more.

Rae why on earth do you 'want to keep him as a friend'. Life doesn't work like this - you don't like his clearly odd behaviour, you need to cut him out.

You are worryign too much about 'burning bridges' and keeping him as a friend. This needs to be quite clear to him.

Just say "hey dude, I'm not in the right place for lots of long messages and I feel like you're expecting equal effort back, and I can't offer that. Can we just keep it to occasional check-ins, and let's look forward to catching up next time [we/group] gets together again."