How to manage demanding friends

The friend that has a low level of persistence about them, who you found something in common with and at first was excited to share your experiences and to hear about theirs. A month later you find yourself receiving at least 4–5 texts per day from them, all needing your immediate attention.

Let us call her Sarah, my friend who persistently texts ‘how are you?’ every day, my innocuous reply a gateway to complain about her last 24 hours. I tried to put in some boundaries when I observed this ‘need’ for my attention and told Sarah to give me some space, that I needed some ‘reflection time and that I’d be in touch soon’. She took this an invitation to ask what I was reflecting on. The speed of her reply indicating that her phone is kept close to her at all times of the day with the sound on.

So now I find myself playing little games in my head with Sarah. ‘Oh look’ I say to myself ‘well done, you haven’t replied to her for 14 hours’, so proud I am of my pathetic ‘boundaries’. Conveniently ignoring the fact that I’ve thought about my lack of reply at least every 30 minutes that I’ve been awake. What if she is having a bad day? I ponder, setting myself up to take responsibility for emotions that are not my own. Something I allow myself to easily fall into, being needed, being important, giving me a ‘high’ of friendship.

This pressure to reply IMMEDIATELY to people, to be available at the whim of others. There is so much expectation to be available that I have received texts when I haven’t replied to a non-urgent email within a couple of hours. Up until a few months ago its a strategy that would have elicited from me the response that this person wanted, a frantic me apologizing, making up some lie as to my delay and mentally noting that I should always reply to this ‘friend’ immediately to avoid any future ‘telling off’ or ‘hurt’. My desire to be liked and accepted was so strong.

I fight with myself. Knowing that I don’t need this person’s love or acceptance of myself, that I only I am the only one that can truly give that to me. If this is true then why does it bother me so much not to reply?

I’ve been starting to claim space back for myself, pretending that this is the 1980s and everyone has a home phone, and only some people have an answering machine. I tell people that I am ‘busy’ with work or that it is a timezone issue. During lockdown and now as we transition out of it, its been a little bit trickier, forcing me at least to find ways around my strong avoidance techniques. There is the old ‘oh I didn’t see it’, or the classic ‘I forgot’ and ‘It must have gone to my old number’.

Unless your friend is on the same page as you and understands that the timely reply or not, and the subsequent quality of your reply is not a reflection of their self worth or yours, it feels like the interaction if fraught with unmet expectations. I found that during lockdown that I gravitated to these people, the ones that were more ‘present’ in their conversations, not just replying for the sake of it, or seeking other people’s attention to distract them from their reality. We are all guilty of it. But I feel like now I see it so much clearer that it’s going to be very hard to go back to the way it was.

I have taken steps to clear out some of these old friendships and culled my Facebook friends, closed Instagram accounts, and changed numbers. Ghosting is the oldest way to claim space for myself, I just need to be careful that it’s not my pattern, that I can still confront people when I need too, set boundaries, and all that jazz. The worrying never stops.