Trouble with a friend who has very different 'closeness' needs than I do?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m having trouble thinking of a good title to get my meaning across, hopefully something better will occur to me before I post.

Anyway. I admit I am way on the introvert side when it comes to interpersonal relationships. I have family, and a couple really close friends that I am up to being with almost any time, but otherwise I prefer to keep my friendships, well, more casual? Less intimate? More distant? Again, I’m failing to find exactly the right word, sorry. I’m not talking about physical closeness or emotional intimacy (such as what subjects we can talk about or what details we can share), more like, well, how OFTEN I want to engage with them.

Like I have friends, people I’ve known and kept in light contact with since college, that I may see/talk to only once or twice a year, and that’s fine with me. Another friend and I have a standing date to have lunch the first Tuesday of the month to chat and catch up. Again, that’s fine with me. If you will, it ‘satisfies’ my appetite for how much interaction I want with that person, and seems to suit her well, too.

Of course, I’m talking about ordinary times. If some crisis arises either of us will contact the other as often as needed, and help out the usual ways, and that’s fine, too. It’s more along the lines of, I don’t need to know what you (casual friend of mine) ate for dinner last night, or what you said to the woman you met while walking your dog, or how many birds came to your new bird feeder. It’s okay if stuff like this comes up while we are talking, it’s just that I don’t need to be kept apprised of it on an on-going daily basis. I only have room in my head for just so much basically meaningless life trivia, you know?

Last fall I made friends with a new woman who joined a group I socialize with. Understand, she’s a perfectly nice human being, we have some shared interests, and I quite enjoyed talking with her … sometimes. Like some chitchat during the refreshment breaks at our club meeting. Or a minute or two friendly exchange if we ran into each other at a store or something.

But she seems to be, well, hungry for interaction on a scale way different than me. As in, invitations to come to dinner or watch a movie or socialize in various ways at least once a week, continuing even though I almost always made excuses for why I couldn’t. Running up and sometimes literally hanging onto to my arm when we met unplanned while I was running errands. Once she spotted my husband and I in line at a movie theater and rushed over to join us, looking all happy and delighted, and seemed to automatically assume that since she and I knew each other, of course she would sit beside us in the theater, tried to chat with me repeatedly through the movie itself (something I abhor, and she kept doing it even after I finally resorted to “shushing” her each time), then tried to get us to go out with her for a coffee or drink or something after the movie. She knows my phone number (got it from the membership list of that club, I guess, I never gave it to her) and would call me multiple times each week ‘oh, I just wanted to chat.’

And now, with the lock down, she calls me several times a day! Because we’re both ‘stuck at home’ (Hey, I like my home.), and how ‘we’re both bored out of our minds’ (I have NEVER been bored while I’m alone, just with the wrong company), and ‘isn’t it great to have someone to talk to’ (If it’s the right person, yes.) And it’s driving me nuts.

Like I said, she’s a perfectly fine person, she’s not weird or crazy or a conspiracy nut or anything. She just wants to rattle on about every thing that happens and every thought that comes into her head and I JUST DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT. <pant, pant>

I’ve tried hinting. I’ve tried letting the phone calls go to the answering service, and not returning any. I’ve tried telling her I’m actually delighted to have time to tackle some time-consuming projects I’ve never been able to get around to before and how I don’t want my writing sessions interrupted. No effect. It’s like she simply can’t wrap her mind around the idea that some people just aren’t up for endless chitchat all the time.

I’m about at the point of screaming “LEAVE ME ALONE” and slamming down the phone next time.

Which would be horribly wrong, and objectively she’s done nothing to deserve it…but I now cringe and get automatically upset whenever the telephone rings. :frowning:

2

You have seriously got to stop answering the phone. You owe her nothing.

3

Miss Manners has some ideas on the subject.

https://verilymag.com/2019/04/boundaries-tips-overcommitment-saying-no

4

I run into someone like this every few years it seems. They just don’t have the social awareness of how to read others comfort levels with them and prey on people who are too “nice” and “don’t want to be mean”.
They are probably used to either rudely being told to bug-off or just simply ignored and avoided. If they can’t catch a clue from that then it’s really on them to figure out why they’re scaring away all their friends.
I’d just either avoid her as best you can or politely do her a favor and tell her she’s invading your social comfort space. If she get’s hurt or angry it’s probably for the best as the sooner she can figure it out the sooner she can deal with it.

5

You kind of have to extrapolate from the specific advice in that column to this situation, because it is slightly different.

I think what Miss Manners would recommend is for OP to say something like “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now, why don’t I call you back later.” Don’t offer excuses or explanations, and if she asks “what are you doing?” just repeat with variations, like “I’m sorry, right now is not a good time for me, I’ll call you when I have time to chat.” Persistence without guilt and without explanation seems to be what Miss Manners advocates, and I think it would probably work if you can manage to do it. It runs against most of our social experience, but it’s also pretty unanswerable as long as you don’t give reasons or excuses.

You may hurt her feelings or lose her friendship by doing this, I don’t know how serious those outcomes are to you.

6

Yeah, Miss Manners is right, my problem is that I’ve always come up with excuses, multiple ones, trying not to hurt her feelings instead of just being “No, that doesn’t work for me” period.

Oh, that’s a good one. With the implied ‘don’t call me.’

The thing is, I know she lives alone, and is estranged from kids, and pretty much has no other family so I’m sure she’s feeling lost and isolated.

I wonder, is there any sort of volunteer work that a young-elderly woman can do by phone? Maybe calling a list of other elderly live-alones each day, to make sure they’re okay? I bet that would be good for her.

Or at least spread her impact on other people around significantly.

Heh. “Hubby and I are trying for the world record in performing each sex position in the fastest time.” Bet she won’t follow up on that.

Well, I’d rather not hurt her, but losing the friendship won’t dismay me the way I feel about her right now.

7

Here are some volunteer activities she could do from her home. She’d feel needed (because she would be), and some of them involve interaction with others, which would also be good for her.

8

Is this a landline phone? If there’s a way to block the calls, then I’d do that.

This person is going to end up hurt and angry no matter how you handle it. Some people simply don’t have good boundaries and are perpetually baffled and offended that other people do.

9

Don’t allow her to turn her problems into your problems. Repeat this to yourself as needed.

And you are not obliged to otherwise solve her problems for her by finding her something useful to do. All you can do is to teach her by example a possibly painful but useful lesson that other people have lives that are more important to them than she is. When she finally learns that, she might try to make herself useful, and therefore less boring.

10

You’re an optimist, my dear Rod. Anyone who talks like we hear in O.P. (e.g. “…since we’re both bored out of our minds” when nobody said anything about being bored) is incapable of grasping that others have fundamentally different perspectives or desires. At best, they have a vague sense that some people are “weird” but still believe their feelings and desires are the human default.

Telling them you don’t enjoy random social interaction often leads to kindhearted but misguided attempts to “fix” you.

O.P. may benefit from a technique called “grey rock” where you give polite, friendly responses that don’t give the person anything to “cling” to, if that makes sense. It’s generally used to cope with abusive people, including narcissists, but can be adapted for situations like this one:

11

Yes. Period.

This is sad, but it is not your problem. Some people enjoy taking on the lonely and isolated as projects, but if I am not mistaken, the whole point of your starting this thread is that you do not with to do this. That is fine. We all have our hobbies. I collect coins, read, and study foreign languages. My friend W knits, and collects books on architecture. My brother collects sci-fi memorabilia, tends to his native-plant yard in CA.

Are you really interested in helping her find an outlet, or is this just guilt? If this is guilt, don’t do it. She may not take to any of your suggestions, and then you may be resentful, while in the meantime, she will be encouraged by the contact you have made with her. Unless you are prepared to 1) deal with the fallout if this backfires, and 2) stick with helping her find something meaningful in her life over a long haul, do not get involved with her as a project.

There’s your answer.

Honestly, the longer this drags on, the more hurt she will be when she is finally cut off. The sooner you do this the better. Let her find someone else to cling to who is in a position to deal with her.

Yup.

Yup.

I do not know her. I have never met her. Also, IANAD.

However, just to cover all contingencies, I am going to suggest that there is at least a possibility that she has either Borderline Personality Disorder, or is somewhat autistic, and this accounts for her inability to “get it.” If either of those things is true, she is *never *going to get it. She needs to be cut off completely, or told in black & white terms that you need space, and are not interested in pursuing a friendship with her. If she has BPD, a conversation like that will go over really badly, but if she is autistic, it might be an “Aha!” moment.

Because of this, I suggest simply cutting off contact initially. Reserve having an explicit conversation only in the event that she escalates her attempts to contact you, and shows no signs of abating after a significant amount of time.

If you really are unable not to answer the phone when you get a call, then block her number.

If I sound harsh, it’s because I have been where you are. I have tried to help people who seemed desperately lonely, thinking I could help them open up their lives, and eventually they would not be so dependent on me, and had it fail. They didn’t want help, they just wanted to fulfill all their needs for social interaction, human contact, etc., and were not interested in any other options. This happened to me more than once, because I used to be the kind of person who thought I could help anyone, and I actually did help some people learn to find social outlets and make other friends, and improve their lives; some people were just improperly socialized as children, and a short course in social skills changes their world. But the ratio of fails to wins was not good, and I ended up blocking a lot of phone numbers. Since I’ve had a child to look after, I’ve stopped trying to fix other people.

Additionally, IANA doctor, therapist, or really, anyone with special training. If I were, maybe I would have had more success, or at least been able to spot the beyond-repair people from the ones who just needed a little tune up, before I got involved.

Sorry for the long response, but I truly believe that there is only one way this can end, and the sooner it does so, the better for both of you.

12

I don’t have a landline, and the few people I give my cellphone number to understand from the start that I prefer text communication, to the point that I never answer phone calls. If someone were to call me right now, I’d wait till they left their voicemail, then I’d read it and reply via text. If the voicemail were, “hey, I need to talk to you” my text reply might be, “'Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. 'Sup?”

I’m happy, and to me that’s all that matters.

13

This is pretty much me, too. I don’t even turn my ringer on. I had it turned on when my mother was dying, and sometimes I have it on when I am concerned something might come up with my son.

If I happen to see the phone ringing, and it’s my brother, who calls only when it’s an emergency, because he knows my feelings about the phone, I answer; if it’s DH from work, who has limited windows when he can use a phone, I answer; if it’s my son’s school, I answer; if it’s my stepfather, who does not have a cell phone, and whose hearing is not the best, and sometimes does not understand voicemails if I call back, I answer. That’s pretty much it.

Albeit, if a good friend texts and says, “I need to talk right now,” and I text back and say “What’s up?” and she texts that she got some awful news, I will call, or text “Do you want me to come over?”

I’m not a heartless snake. I’ve just given up on trying to save the world, and reserve my energy for people with whom I maintain close relationships. I used to spread myself too thin; now, when I choose to be there for someone, I’m fully present and useful.

14

My dear purple, is it possible you mistook someone else’s post for mine? When I suggested she “teach by example” I was referring to techniques I outlined in my earlier post in this thread. Nowhere did I suggest that the OP should tell this person that she doesn’t enjoy random social interaction.

Probably I should have said “If she learns that” instead of “When she learns that” but otherwise I don’t see any connection between what I said and your post.

15

I think I might say – ONCE – ‘I’m sorry, I’m terrible with phone conversations, and I really can’t keep dealing with all these phone calls. I wish you well, but I’m going to have to stop doing this.’

Then stop doing it. If it’s her number on the phone, just don’t answer it.

That at least clarifies to the caller – if they’re able to take it in – that the problem isn’t some specific thing that they said, or that you’re lying collapsed on the floor unable to reach the phone (what if she wastes police time calling in a welfare check on you, if you just quit answering?); but that, in general, you’re not willing to keep having these conversations.

16

I think that’s the way to go. It’s not just her, it’s that you’re just too busy with “projects”. You said that hasn’t worked, but say it combined with the “I just can’t deal with the calls…GOODBYE.” Like:

Good luck. I had a “friend” like this once, and I got blunter and ruder til I finally just said “Look, you want to be friends, but I just do NOT have time for any more people in my life. I’m sorry.” It worked, and I’d run into him occasionally (small town here) and I’d be sure to ask him how he was doing, and when he told me “okay”, I wouldn’t follow up. I’d say “That’s great. Sorry I don’t have time to get together, but I’m glad you’re okay.”

Well, that was thirty years ago, and I still feel guilty about it… but I’d feel worse if I hadn’t pulled the Band-Aid off quickly.