Have you ever had a friend like this?

Alonewith2cats · Jul 29, 2013

Don't get me wrong. I do want her friendship but she can be too intense. She likes to talk on the phone a lot more than I do. I don't like to spend long periods of time holding my cell phone to my ear and listen to someone talk. I do like to see friends regularly. I also don't feel the need to talk every day, a few times a week would be sufficient. It's at the point where I sometimes don't answer my phone when she calls. I always call her back later when I'm relaxed and not doing something. Yesterday I had lunch with her, went to the movies, then went to Target with her even though I didn't really want to go to Target. I'm independent enough that I didn't think I had to, from my point of view she can go to Target on her own and I can go home after a nice morning and early afternoon at the mall for lunch and a movie, I don't require friends to accompany me somewhere if they don't want to go, but I went because she really wanted me to and was unhappy when I said I didn't want to go. Later that evening she called me to get a website for a recipe. I e-mailed it to her but she wanted to stay on the phone and chat and I had cut the conversation short as nicely as I can. Again, it's not that I don't want to be friends with her, I just need a little breathing room but I don't want to hurt her feelings.

VanillaCreme · Jul 29, 2013

Yeah, I've had friends like that. Thing is, I don't think she realizes it. I had a friend years ago, who was the same way. It was a dude, and it's not that I minded talking to him, but at the time, I was so preoccupied with things, my mind just wasn't thinking straight. I eventually told him my thoughts on it, and how I just couldn't spend every waking moment with him. He took it to heart at first, taking what I said personally, and he told me that he just wouldn't talk to me anymore. And he really didn't talk to me for months, but called me up again later on, apologizing to me and telling me that he shouldn't have taken it to heart.

He was a nice guy, just had some personal issues - that I knew about because we talked about them before - and I wasn't the one to solve those for him. I haven't spoken to him in a few years now, but I'd gladly talk to him again. Just not every single day. I'm sure he's busy with his life now anyway.

But, if you think you can lay it down nicely, I'd tell her how I felt. I understand what you mean... It's not that you don't like her. You do. You just don't want to spend every minute talking to her. If you do decide to tell her, I hope she understands that you just need some space and time without her.

9006 · Jul 29, 2013

I understand what you mean, sounds like she's a little overwhelming.

I think it's best you tell her how you feel otherwise it'll build up and end up with dread about her calling or whatever. But I think it's important to make her understand so I'd take some time to think how to put it in "her words".

Peaches · Jul 29, 2013

Lol, I used to be that friend

ok, only about the phone part. Then I learned to focus on people with same conversational need, so everything was fine.
Don't worry, if you are really friends, when you simply respect your boundaries and just abstain from doing the things that are too much for you, making it clear that that is as far as you can go, at some point she should understand it. In fact bending over, like going to see movies that you don't want to see without having some kind of tradeoff (I do this this time, but next time you do this) eventually backfires, because even these small things at some point I realized produce a lot of resentment.
If you are in general there for her, except for the breathing space, she will understand and be grateful. You must respect who you are first, otherwise what you really feel will come out at the more inappropriate moment, that's at least what always happens to me.

ladyforsaken · Jul 29, 2013

I used to have a friend like that. I couldn't do it. I tried for awhile to do things with her because she asked, but it was exhausting because I wasn't really up for any of that... just was very anti-social. So I stopped. And she moved on to another person. I'm not as close to her anymore now but I'm fine with it. Can't keep up with that sort of personality :\ just doesn't really go with mine.

Tiina63 · Jul 29, 2013

I had a friend who had schizophrenia (she died some years ago) and for many years she phoned me every day, sometimes twice a day, to talk, and I did find it really stressful. Not because of what she said or anything but because I don't really like being on the phone so much with anyone. It affected my concentration as I was always wondering when she would call again. Sometimes I disconnected the phone after she had called so that I could relax for a while.

Fustar · Jul 29, 2013

Yeah, I had a friend that called me all the time, we would hang out for a couple of hours and I would want to go, and they would try to guilt me into hanging out longer. I would have days I would dread having my phone on, and even when I didn't pick up I would get a voicemail letting me know I needed to learn to pick my phone up. That and he always wanted me to spend the night, which was cool when I was 12, but we're in our 20's now. He was married to my sister, which made things even worse.