Bit of a niggle about a friend. WWYD?

Billie-S

Mojisola wrote: »

If your friends stopped contacting you, how long would you let it go before you found time to contact them?

Good question. I get what you're saying ali-t, but if you rarely remember to contact people, as Mojisola said, would you ever get in touch again (if they didn't contact you,) and how long would you leave it?

FBaby

Billie-S wrote: »

Thanks Mojisola, Fbaby and MrCow. All very helpful and constructive advice.

Just one thing fbaby, why do you think it is that you always contact the one friend first? But leave the other to contact you? Just curious. I thought it may help me understand my friend better.

Nothing else than habit forming, I am not too sure why. I suppose I saw it that I had to make the first move with my other friend and so it was nice that this friend was the one to do so.

Billie-S

FBaby wrote: »

Nothing else than habit forming, I am not too sure why. I suppose I saw it that I had to make the first move with my other friend and so it was nice that this friend was the one to do so.

Oh OK. Thanks fbaby. Just wondered.

Primrose

I think in a lot of these cases it is simply that somebody is so busy that time whizzes by, one week dissolves into the next and people simply just don't realise how much time has passed since the last contact. I just suggest getting in touch and not making an issue of it. It,s not worth upsetting a friendship for, even it it's bit of a personal irritant.

theoretica

My grandad has called me precisely once in my life, but I still know he loves me!

daisiegg

I have a very good friend who is absolutely appalling at being in touch. She will NEVER text me first and often takes a week to reply to a text. However, I know this is just what she is like ad I don't let it bother me. She is always keen to get together and often when we meet up we will plan the next meeting there and then (at her suggestion) so I do know she wants to see me. Just for whatever reason she is rubbish at keeping in touch. I also know if there is something big that requires a response (like when I was having pregnancy complications and told her ) she always replies immediately. She is just terrible at replying to more general 'how are things, when shall we meet' messages. I could get annoyed about it but I figure I really value her friendship and we always end up seeing each other one way or another, so I don't really mind that I have to do the chasing.

rachiibell

I am your friend! Well not really but I do behave like her. I am terrible at keeping in touch but it's not because I don't love them and if they were in trouble I would be the first person there for them. I just don't think to arrange catch up meetings. If I see an event I think they'd enjoy then I'd text them and see if they fancied going but I wouldn't think to ask them to just hang out with me. For this reason I spend most of my days off alone whereas my OH will text all his friends to see if they want to do anything whenever he has a day off. People are just different

an9i77

I have a friends like this. I am always the one to initiate contact and it does make me wonder if they are really my friends. It makes me a bit miffed, but I think I've realised I always step into the role of the initiator and then it's hard to change that once the friendship is established. I'm trying to break this pattern in new friendships by waiting for the other person to reciprocate a bit more in the beginning.
OP is this the pattern with most of your friendships, or does it just happen with this one.


If only this one I'd be tempted to 'put up and shut up'. But if it happens with other people too, and it's getting you down, I'd take some time to try and work out why.

ali-t

Mojisola wrote: »

If your friends stopped contacting you, how long would you let it go before you found time to contact them?

It could be weeks or possibly months. I have a Very demanding job and if texts come in when I am working I can read them but won't answer them as if it is to arrange something I need to check diaries etc. my partner works nights so I end up caught up in spending quality time with him for a couple of hours before he heads out to work at 8:30pm. Depending on the kind of day I have had I might have to work from home, study or do the housework. By that time the text has gone out of my head and my brain is mush and I am fit for nothing more than zzzzz.

If it hasn't been too crazy a day I might remember to respond and be proactive. Otherwise it ends up requiring a quiet day at the weekend or when I am on annual leave to go through my phone and make contact with people I haven't seen for a while and get things organised to catch up.

TBH arranging to see friends is just another task on the to do list rather than something I build into my day. I am just as happy being a recluse as having social contact so value not having a packed diary. It doesn't mean I value my friends less. They all know they are loved

seven-day-weekend

Billie-S wrote: »

Just a bit of a small niggle. I just wondered what people thought and what you would do.

I have a friend who I have known since young childhood (we are now both middle aged,) and we fell in and out of friends from about 6 or 7 to about 16. Then we fell out for 3 years and then became very close again, and even went on 3 holidays together and lived in a flat together for 6 months until she decided to go back to live with her parents as she got homesick.

Then we kind of drifted apart at about 22-ish, and I moved away from the town we grew up in. We never saw each other or spoke for 15 years, and then in the 2005-2006 region, we met up by chance in a popular large shopping centre. We had coffee and spent 3 hours catching up, and arranged to meet again.

Upshot is that we have been good friends again for about 7 years, and meet about every 2 to 2 and a half months for coffee or a pub lunch. We buy each other birthday and Christmas gifts, and she buys my 2 girls, and I buy her 3 kids (for Christmas only,..) At first (for the first one or two years,) she texted occasionally, if she hadn't heard from me for a couple of months, but the past few years or so, it's always, always, always me who texts first to say 'hi wanna meet up for our quarterly meet up?' I leave it and leave it and she never texts me. It's always me.

I know it sounds petty, but it's really niggling me. I last saw her in January, and I had contacted her first (again) and after that time, I thought I would see how long it is before she contacts me. She still hasn't. When I contact her, she seems keen to meet and always turns up and never lets me down, and she always buys nice gifts, we get on well, I am comfortable with her, and we have a lot in common, and pretty much almost 40 years of history.

She works 30 hours a week and has 3 kids still at home (although 2 are in their 20s,) and I know she has a big family, (4 siblings and 11 nieces and nephews,) and TBF, my 2 kids are at uni, and I don't work at the mo, so she is probably a lot busier than me at this point in our lives. But even when my kids were at home and I 'was' working, it was still me contacting her first. I have only been 'not working,' and with no kids at home since last summer, yet it's been the last 4 years or so that it seems to have been me always texting/contacting her first.

What would you do? Would you just contact her anyway, and accept that her not ever texting/contacting you first is just a minor flaw (if flaw is the right word!) and in every other way, she is a good laugh, always turns up, buys nice gifts, and is basically a pretty good pal? Or would you wait for her to contact you? Could it be she actually isn't that bothered about seeing me/meeting with me and just does it out of habit/duty?

I wish I knew what she was thinking: like is it possible that her not contacting me first - ever - is not being done deliberately, and that she likes seeing me, but is quite busy and doesn't think to contact me? Or is she hoping I will go away LOL? I mean, it's now been 4 months since we saw each other, and I wonder why she hasn't bothered to contact me after not hearing from me for so long. As I said, I always contact her - always - when a couple of months has passed since I saw her. By the way, we live about 30 miles apart in different towns, and I never bump into her.

Try not to be too brutal.

I haven't read any other replies, but my reply would be this:

She is always happy to see you and always turns up and you always have a good time. She obviously likes seeing you otherwise she would make excuses not to.

I think she is busy and texting you is one of those things that she keeps putting off for no other reason than 'I'll do it later'. I don't think she means anything else by it.

I would accept that at the moment you are the one who is making the first moves and just carry on as you are.

And I have two people to contact about whom whom I've been saying 'I'll do that later' for weeks. Will do it now