Really stressed due to friend

[bebarkered]

I have a friend who I've known for ten years. She lives 140 miles from me so we only meet in person on overseas holidays.
We call each other a lot. It's a case of I listen to her mainly, she's always asking for advice about a guy she's obsessed with and I oblige. I stay on the phone to her for anywhere between 4 - 8 hours each time to allow her to talk about this issue.
She also has me bidding for clothes, shoes, handbags, perfume and skincare on sites such as Vinted and Ebay. I do all the searching, messaging sellers, and I pay for all her items and she gives it me back £10 per month approximately. She won't do online shopping as doesn't trust her card details being given to any site.

She doesn't listen to me when I'm talking, and, when I point this out to her she says you've hurt me. She does suffer from anxiety, so, when I pull her up on it she says it's all down to her anxiety. I always 'fall soft' with her when she says she gets offhand with me due to her anxiety.
I wondered what any of you think about this?

You can tell her you had a scare re. your card and stop doing the Ebay stuff for her.

The calls are insane, I thought 35min was too long and my phone is nearly on fire after those.

Try to find other friends and make yourself busy with things you want to do.

She sounds a bit of a looney to be honest.

Christ if someone tried to keep me on a call more than 10 mins I'd say I had to go. Why on earth do you think you deserve to be treated so poorly?

In some ways this is easy really. Just don’t pick up the phone. When you’re ready and you have 10 mins ring her back on the landline. Prime another friend to ring you in 10 mins and then say to her you’ll have to go, catch up next week…

Wtf why are you doing a credit system with her! How strange. I get she doesn't want to use her card but surely if your buying things for her she should be paying you back in full? Not £10 a month?

You clearly don't get anything out of this friendship. How much money does she owe you?

I would just see her in person only and stop the calls. 4-8 hours is ridiculous - what on earth do you to talk about???

If she is better then meet her when it is convenient for you. Stop the rest and start putting your own needs first, extending social circles that are more enriching than this friendship so you really don't have time for her to take advantage of your time/energy!

You are literally paying for the friendship in terms of money and time/energy. Stop.

If you don't want to end the relationship then you need a plan b

Sadly your card broke so you're waiting for a new one.
You seem to have been blocked on eBay, not sure what's happened...
Give her ten min/half an hour on the phone, if she doesn't have a conversation (ie ask anything about you!) walk to the front door and press the bell. 'Sorry, someone's at the door I have to go!'

You don't have to answer the phone to her, you're not her employee (although if you wrote down a PA's job description, it'd be similar)

what do you want to do? practice a response....."No I have decided I don't want to ..... anymore" so that when she asks you to be a personal shopper and you feel you don't want to do that anymore you already have a planned response. She can't actually make you if you don't want to. What are you afraid of if you say 'no'? think that through or if you have found there is a pattern in your life and you don't like it think about seeing a counsellor. If you are happy to talk to her but want it to be shorter and she doesn't honour your' I am leaving the conversation noises' think of a response. I had a difficult relationship with someone that for various reasons was trying to build. It took me a while to manage to break in with "I have to go" but I set an alarm and said 'my (other) phone is ringing so I'll speak to you another time'. Another thing to say is 'I only have so many minutes to talk to you today' at the start of the conversation but you don't need to say why. Also you do not have to answer the phone if you don't want to. I have lots of people I will gladly spend a long time on the phone with because they live a long way away from me. We don't always talk about me or always talk about them although there have definitely been times when that happened.
on the whole when I read your post it sounds like she is a leech, which is a very sad thing to say

She sounds like a teenager, mooning over someone for hours on the phone.

OP, if you gave up these 4-8 hour phone calls plus the eBay stuff, you would have SO MUCH time to take up a hobby/class or multiple things to get to know new people and make new friends.
I’ve seen several people post on local Facebook female groups to say they want to meet new people and there are always responses. If you put a quarter of your current efforts into finding new friends you definitely would!
And more importantly, someone talking about them all the time is not companionship for you.

You're a fool. She does all this because you let her.