Are friends just supposed to be like a TV? You talk to them when it’s convenient for you and you can’t think of something else to do?
I’ve just realized all the people I thought were my friends only talk to me on their schedule, when they feel like it. I’m left on read for days, meetings are ignored, text message conversations just end abruptly until they get back from vacation…
Is this it? Is this what friendship is? Because I don’t want it. I don’t want to feel like I have people to rely on only to find out that I’m just a convenience for people.
There’s an old joke: Friends help you move. Real friends help you move the body.
Friendship comes in many different forms and at many different levels. There’s nothing wrong with having casual friends who you see primarily to have a good time, but that is not all there is. More serious friendships involve mutual support as well as shared interests.
No, but be mindful there are many kinds of friends of varying degrees of closeness. A distant friend might fit your description. A close friend could be more attentive.
Keep in mind that people are busy, have work, families, tragedies and dramas of their own. It isn’t always easy to be responsive to the level your suggesting.
Also, Marshall McLuhan said “The medium is the message”. Your complaint…
"I’m left on read for days, meetings are ignored, text message conversations just end abruptly until they get back from vacation…
Those are asynchronous mediums. They are meant to get back to you when convenient. If you wanted immediacy, have a phone call, visit in person. The medium (asynchronous written messages) is the message (you don’t need to respond right away).
It is not reasonable to expect someone on vacation to be tied to you electronically. They are on vacation! Leave them alone until they come back. Then have your convo and spend time with your friend.
I left a friend an audio on whatsapp and he said two days later and he wrote “oh, shit, ijust got this, I’ll listen soon.” Two days after that, he still hadn’t listened to it.
Is that weird? I got not getting back to people right away, but if I send a friend a text I kind oF expect them to read it relatively soon and reply in a day or two.
In that particular case, I think the message format might have been an issue. I personally always find audio messages very inconvenient, as I’m not going to annoy everyone around me by listening to them in public. So I’d plan to listen to them later, but I might have forgotten about the message entirely by the time I got home. By the next time I remember the message, it could be an inconvenient timing again etc. A proper text message is almost always preferable.
I have heard teens use them all the time and it just seems like such a terrible form of communication. I think I would rather an email.
Audios fill a space between texts & phone call because you can’t get a lot of information in and they can listen at their convenience; they can be abused though.
I actually re-recorded this particular audio to be more concise. 2 minutes I think, listenable in 1 at 2x.
Your scenario of why it wasn’t listened too makes sense, tho.
Are all your text messages voice recordings? That very well could be the problem there. If you’re texting, text them. If you need to convey a lot of information that you can’t or don’t want to text, call them.
Atleast personally, ill never or only extremely begrudgingly listen to a voice recording, let alone call someone.
Nah, text messages are text messages.
I’ll audio my spanish friends more since they send me audios all the time, but my english friends are too busy for that.
What you’re describing i snot friendship. Friendship is a rare thing, like love is rare. What you’re describing is just people you know and enjoy spending time with. Which is fine, btw, it is just not friendship ;)
Friendship is rarer than love for I’ve had many more long-term girlfriends than true friends. Unfortunately, being a romantic partner seems to be the only way to be a priority in anyone’s life.
being a romantic partner seems to be the only way to be a priority in anyone’s life.
I would say this may not be the ‘right’ way to consider the question. But it’s hard to explain, even more so in English. The aim should not be to be a priority. It should be to be valuable to one another.
I know a few people but I’ve one friend. One, that’s it. We’ve been friend since we were kids (now nearing our 60s). We don’t live in the same country anymore and, naturally since we also both try to reduce our impact on the environment by traveling (a lot) less, we don’t see that often. Also, we both have our life(s), friends, and family. And that’s fine: we seldom meet, we even seldom chat like we used (spending countless night discussing philosophy and politics (we both are complete opposites on that matter) and spending countless hours writing to one another the moment we could not meet IRL anymore) but we are friends. We both know from experience the moment we need it the other will be at our door, virtually our in person depending the situation. To me that’s friendship: we don’t spend a lot more time with many other persons, but that doesn’t change a thing. I mean, we can and have put such or such discussion on hold, sometimes for a year or more and get back to it the moment the opportunity arise like if we had left it the night before…
It is something we learned back in the 80s and 90s, before we had readily available ‘Internet’ and before everybody and their mother switched to email and later on to social networks, back when we had to use snail mail to discuss despite distance and wait for our letter to reach them, and wait even more to receive their response. Not just the two of us, many other people used to do that back then. Being patient and being fine with only getting a few minutes here and there and make the most out of those.
like, I don’t (expect to) spend all my time with my spouse… 34 years and counting together. A liberty we both consider a key part in respecting one another’s. She has friends and activities I can’t be bothered with, like I have mine she can’t be bothered with. And we both are fine with that. We’re a couple but we remain two individuals that will do stuff on their own, including spending time with other people and having fun without their partner.
All of that to say we should be fine not being the constant ‘priority’ of someone we truly care, and appreciate whatever time we can spend together, no matter how little.
I remember composing letters in college, just barely pre-internet. It was a lovely art. Next time I find a book of letter, I’m picking it up.
I’m a regular contact type of person. This whole thing of “we don’t talk for years but then we have a phone call and catch up” is not for me.
I remember composing letters in college, just barely pre-internet. It was a lovely art. Next time I find a book of letter, I’m picking it up.
+1 because I can’t do more :)
I’m a regular contact type of person. This whole thing of “we don’t talk for years but then we have a phone call and catch up” is not for me.
- It needs not be years, it’s just a way of speaking.
- Like anything new, we learn to be good at it. Remember your first bike ride? Mine hurt. How you learned to write? Was it by writing an amazing poem in an not less amazing cursive or was it by clumsily tracing batons letters (and getting them wrong)? Me too ;) Remember how you learned to walk? Was it by running and winning a marathon or by falling, over and over again on your diapered bottom? That’s learning and that’s worth it. Bot saying you should do this or that, just that maybe it’s worth trying even if it’s not that great to start with ;)
Are you talking about the “catching up phone call”? I’m fine with those, but I go through a lot of things alone; and when I do, I don’t feel like those people who are not in contact are good friends.
In the de-personalized age of the internet, it does seem like a lot of people are behaving that way. But I would say that this is the difference between friends and acquaintances.
I grew up before the internet became ubiquitous, and friends were far more integral to one’s social life.
Bowling Alone, published in 2000, was already noting significant social rot. And lots of people are reporting that they have literally zero reliable friends.
No most definitely not and I’m not even that good on the social and relationship part.
While mutual entertainment is good for both, friends are supposed to support each other as well, within their capabilities. Aka you need a couch moved. You call a firend.
Your friends mood is down due to some problem, you try to bring it up or help them resolve that issue or at least lessen the impact of it. Your partner kicks you out, friend will lend you their couch to crash on.I remember a friend was supposed to help me move a TV I was buying new. He completely ghosted me all day. Turns out he was on Steam playing games.
Maybe my mistake is thinking people are real friends and not just cutting them off? It’s so rare to find people I find minimally interesting, tho.
That isn’t a friend, it is someone who shares mutual interests. You don’t need to cut them off, just acknowledge the actual relationship and decide if that is what you want.
I have four friends. Those four friends also have their own lives and aren’t available 24/7, but they will help putnif they can and I return the favor when I am able. There are a lot of other people I can hang out and do stuff with, but I wouldn’t expect them to help out with something outside shared interests. They might, but I wouldn’t expect them to.
This friend is someone I spent constant time with, someone whom I emotionally carried through his divorce; so I thought we were real friends.
Just saying it’s not easy to distinguish because sometimes there is a form of emotional intimacy that makes you feel connected and then you find out that it’s just one-way.
That was most definitely a bad friend.
Everyone makes that mistake in one point of their life, just learn from it and move on. Though you don’t have to cut off people, just remember that they might not be that helpful, especially if you struggle to find people who intreset you.
Like the current example, if you need someone to play some games with, that bad friend might be good enough for that occasion, but when you need some help with carrying something, theres bo point to rely on that particular friend.
No, friendships are a source of companionship and support. They’re people you can share your highs and lows with.
Yes, if you’re a sociopath.
Covid, Social Media and Late Stage Capitalism have turned many people into sociopaths.That’s a little extreme, but I think there is a real component of social rot in the decline of friendships.
I’ve looked into the “common mistakes people make in friendships” and I don’t think I’m making any of those.
I’m pretty discriminating in who I want to be my friend, I don’t charge into a relatiosnhip, I’m taking time to build them, I’m not high maintenance or talk only about myself, I also don’t think I"m coming across as a despearte people pleaser (definitely not my vibe!).
So I’m just sort of left with a feeling that society cares about only two relationships:
- People to have sex with.
- People who are evidence that sex was had in the past (ie, children).
And that’s it.
Everyone else is just a TV set.
How old are you currently and how old are your friends? You don’t have to actually answer that question but I think it would give you a bit more insight into what’s happening. Many friendships transform slowly based on the life path you or your friends are on, with path diverging more each year if you are not both headed towards the same life goals.
For instance, if a friend of yours wants to get married and have kids, then they’re probably going to be prioritizing their relationships with their family or with other friends planning families since it’s easier to stay in sync with these people.
If your friend likes to party, stay up later than you, and push on your newer comfort zones, then it makes it more challenging to maintain an active friendship. If you were that way in the past with your friend and are no longer that way, then you have to juggle an old identity that doesn’t quite fit anymore and a new one which may not match your friend’s path.
Expectations change in relationships as well, especially if you’re living with your SO. Seeing your friends once or twice a week after work might not fly, especially if you have kids that require more oversight, attention, and care.
Even just texting friends requires some mutual engagement. If your friends also have a lot of friends it’s probably even tougher for them to be juggling texting each of these friends and staying up to date on everything they have going on. If they have three friend groups and an SO for instance, that’s about one weekend a month with each friend group plus at minimum one spent with their family
I frequently will take days to get back to my own family or even my best friend, it’s not because I don’t care but often because they are asking for a time investment I’m not ready to commit to in that moment (eg, them saying “let’s do x on y day” when I have no clue if I have another commitment with my immediate family on y day). If I got more questions like “do you think you’ll have time in the next week or so?” it’d be easier give a more definitive answer as well since it’s more accommodating of my time.
TL;DR: You could be doing everything ‘right’, but that doesn’t mean the specific people you’re friends with have the bandwidth for the more active friendship you’re looking for.
This is very unhealthy and not representative of what’s really happening. A therapist could help you with your dissatisfaction.
What?
Edit:
Alternate title: Gaslighter suggests gaslighting.
This is also not a healthy response.
You’re really good at invalidating people’s experiences. You’d enjoy being a therapist .
I’m begining to understand your frustrations with friends.
You also lack accountability; you must already be licensed.
No, I’ve had some pretty good friendships and real ones are not supposed to be like that at all.
Thinking of people as disposable like that, of just getting them out the drawer using them when convenient and then putting them back in the drawer again, is one of the many symptoms of the throwaway society we have developed and is not normal at all.
We treat objects like this, we treat the Earth like this, we treat life itself like this, so it’s unsurprising that we treat other people like this too, because it’s become so normalised, we grow up thinking that way, that we don’t even think of it as abnormal anymore.
I’d say helpfulness, responsiveness and being friends are three different things, that can be overlapping or not.
I know some people who always respond and keep the conversation alive even though we’re not friends, and i can be ghosted for days by close friends, who i lived intense things with.
I know some people who helped me moving out even though we were just accointances, and i have friends who are lazy enough to avoid this, but i live spending time with them anyway.
These are very fluid for me, so i’d say to avoid worrying, it’s best to not expect a lot from people, and/or to try to find friends that seem to match your needs
I think this is true, it’s not a continunum but a mixed bag. Like the friend that left on my read would probably make an effort to help me move; guess what I really value is responsiveness.
deleted by creator
I’d say distraction rather than entertainment.
