How do you navigate an imbalanced friendship?
I want to give some context before I get to the meat and potatoes. I (M28) have IRL friends that I communicate and spend time with regularly. However, I do not engage in conversations with them daily. I'm not a texter, or a phone call person. If one of them has a question, or wants to share a meme, I'll respond, but I don't have digital conversations that stretch for hours. I prefer in person communication, and in person I don't shut the fuck up.
Additionally, I do not have any 'Online' friends. All of my friendships are with people I know in real life. I have talked with others on Discord, but again, I don't engage in casual chatter. I'll respond when prompted, but that's about it.
Now that that's out of the way, both of these things kind of got turned on their head in the beginning of November, when I met Alice (F28) through a Roleplaying Discord server. We had kind of eyed each other for a Roleplay session, and it went well. What I wasn't really prepared for, was her poking me in DMs afterwards just to chat. Not really my thing, buuuut, long story short we have now talked every day since then. We wish each other a good morning and good night. Sometimes we talk all day, sometimes we just get a few messages if we're busy. She's the first new friend I've made since high school, and that is a title I don't use lightly. The fact is, I just have zero interest in interacting freely with most people. Typically they end up annoying me in some way.
I'm not shy at all, not particularly introverted, I just really don't like talking to people.
And yet, somehow, I find myself trying to talk to Alice all day. I feel myself growing antsy when I go just a few hours without talking to her. Here's where the imbalance part comes from: Alice isn't like me. She has a group of people she talks with regularly, I'm just one of them. Whereas she is the only person I talk to daily. I completely acknowledge that this is 100% a me problem; I don't want this to come across as me being jealous of her friends. She struggles to balance time between her girlfriend, me, and her other friends, and most of the time I just feel kind of bad for her, like I'm a dog begging for table scraps, and she's trying to appease everybody.
On the other hand, I can also pretty confidently look at our older conversations, and note that we don't talk as much as we used to. Our conversations used to be long and while we still sometimes have longer chats, it's really only when I get her on a tangent involving a particular interest of hers. I don't want to dig too deep into why that is, it could be the 'met someone new' energy has worn off and I'm just not as much of a priority anymore, maybe I became annoying at some point and remain blissfully unaware of it, I dunno.
My question is, how do you handle wanting to spend more time with someone who just cannot spend that time with you?
TL;DR: Made a new friend online, and she doesn't have nearly as much time for me as I have for her.
the other commenters have made really good points. i would also like to suggest, and this may totally not track for you, so feel free to dismiss if it does not: wondering whether it's really true that you don't like talking to people and that you don't want that kind of close communication with friends. your actions and feelings in this situation may say otherwise. that perhaps you want it, but that it's hard to make connections and build trust with people to connect and continue to connect in those ways, for you.
i had a similar experience, would always say and think i was a very private person who just didn't want to have that kind of relationship with friends. but then when i did occasionally connect with someone like that, it was almost like a high, which then comes with its own problems, for you and the other person, both because you are leaning on them almost entirely for that kind of connection, and because you are inexperienced with it.
ultimately, my attitude towards it turned out to be the self-protecting lie ( "i don't have friends i connect with in that way, so i don't want them") i told myself because a combination of depression, anxiety, and untreated other mh conditions made it very difficult for me to form and maintain close relationships (specifically, also made online and asynchronous conversation difficult as well as general kind of 'bonding').
working on all that made it much easier to form, diversify, and keep those relationships, and then i didn't have to lean so heavily on the few people who, before, managed to break through my brain slime.
I’ve struggled with friendships for a plethora of reasons for most of my life, with some notable rough periods and some notably wonderful periods. During those rough periods I’ve had to reflect and internalize many lessons especially recently:
No one friend can be everything for you.
Maybe you have an amazing friend who can give you everything you need, but even they’ll be busy sometimes. Trying to make new friends truly is so difficult, but I suspect it might be a worthwhile venture for you. Then, when other people in your life don’t have as much time for you it doesn’t sting as bad. This might not apply to your situation based on what you said about your other friends, but it could help. Maybe even finding more digital friends specifically? It’s tricky given what you said about your feelings towards online conversations generally, but maybe you’ll get lucky and find another person like Alice?
If a friendship isn’t going how you’d like it to go you either need to communicate that and try to change it, or try to redefine your expectations.
It doesn’t need to be accusatory or judgemental, but I think bottling it up leads to resentment. I’ve had rocky friendships where communicating my issues helped, but others where it did not. Stepping back from or lowering your expectations for a particular friendship that you value is really emotionally challenging (for me at least), but I think it can be a healthy way to lower resentment and protect your future sanity. Maybe that means reaching out less, checking your messages less often, I don’t know exactly. I’ve also had lots of other cases in which I didn’t feel invested enough and simply let it wither.
Friendships have seasons.
Sometimes your best friend becomes just an occasional friend because life’s circumstances make you drift. Maybe you rekindle an old friendship into a fresh one. I’ve had to really burn this one into my brain instead of desperately holding onto each friendship. Fight for what is important to you, but recognize when it might be time to just let things play out naturally. I’m currently struggling with a close friend of mine who simply isn’t making time for me anymore. Even though I know I need to follow my own advice, it’s a struggle.
Hopefully some of these maxims are helpful in some way. For me, hearing them wasn’t particularly useful initially (especially when I was in a rough period), but over time I started to internalize them more and they helped shift my thinking.
I've met a large number of people through discord and in these 7.5 years only 2 remained permanently. With most individuals the novelty runs out and I've learned to accept that. I've learned that I am more intense and more serious about relationships than the majority of people. I don't use the term friend lightly. I don't think I'll ever have a true friend, but those two are what you could call true online friends although we don't talk frequently. They reach out and I reach out back.
So, my advice is to enjoy the excitement of meeting and getting to know someone new, but be prepared to let the go sooner than later. I feel like, through years of experience, that that is the nature of online interactions. Maybe it's different in the analog world.
Contentment is a super power. It literally improves life satisfaction by several orders of magnitude. It helps us to stay realistic and to push us through negative circumstances without losing our joy.
This is something I'm aware of with myself as well. It's why I don't engage with people casually online. I'll use LFG Discord servers, or engage in the public channels. I'll have a brief conversation in DMs, but that's about it, and it's usually about something specifically. Because people are so fleeting is the reason I never entertain people, and in many cases, will just straight up ignore message requests.
My two IRL friends, on the other hand, I have known since middle school, and the three of us are literally tight as brothers. Two of us just spent all of Wednesday helping the third move back to his mom's house after he got an eviction notice and didn't tell us until the last minute out of embarrassment. I paid for the moving truck and the second friend's daily wages so he could afford to call off work for it. Once I have deemed someone a friend, they are stuck with me.
I don’t think that there is anything to be “handled” in this situation, or at least, nothing out of the ordinary.
Life in general throws us into a wide variety of circumstances that we “handle” by just accepting them, learning to live with them, pushing through them, finding contentment in them, and potentially moving on from them.
I’m not saying that it is “wrong” or “bad” for you to feel sad that she seems to be drifting way. I can relate to that feeling. It’s happened countless times to me as well. I empathize with you. It is sad, and I’m really sorry for it. I really wish that she was interested in giving you as much time and attention as you want to give to her.
Unfortunately, that just isn’t the reality. There isn’t anything that you can do about it because you can’t control her social needs or duties.
In fact, please allow me to use this opportunity to throw this tangential piece of wisdom into this conversation: We cannot control others. We can only control ourselves.
So, what part of yourself can you control?
You can control how you feel about this situation.
There is a misconception that feelings are completely out of our control. This isn’t true. While misfortune might trigger emotions such as sadness, anger, or fear in us, it is up to our conscious selves to decide whether or not to indulge in any of them. In other words, you “can choose to be happy”, so to speak, in spite of your circumstances. Or in this particular case, you can choose to be content with the amount of time and attention that she is willing to give to you.
Developing a better control over one’s emotions is no different than developing any other habit. The more you practice, the better you get at it, and the easier it gets. With time, you’ll learn to properly process your emotions (you shouldn’t completely neglect them), to give yourself space to feel them, but then also to quickly snap back to your “base line contentment”, which is what will help you to get through most of the normal difficulties that we can expect to face in this life. This, of course, includes friendships that slowly fade out.
I think that I’m actually preaching to the choir here. You seem to know and understand these principles. After all, you said this:
You are aware that she has a social circle, that she likes and needs to dedicate some time to her other friends and her girlfriend as well, and that you can only have as much of her time and attention as she is willing to give to you.
So, the best that you can do here, is to rejoice. Rejoice that you have made a new friend. Rejoice that she gives you any time and attention. Enjoy every moment that you have together. Be content.
And if she ever drifts away, then allow her to, because true friendship allows people the freedom to leave.
Also, don’t have to worry about her “leaving”. She might not, but even if she did, you would be more than capable of living with that.
I think that the most likely scenario is that your interactions will plateau at a certain base line, and that’s OK. That’s a good thing. She’ll always be your friend in that case.
If you stop worrying about how little time and attention she gives you, and learn to be content, then your whole attitude will change. It will be subtle, but she will pick up on it. She will feel that your interactions will have become more positive, more interesting, and with time, she might even want to talk to you more frequently. It’s not something that you should expect, and you shouldn’t fake a positive attitude, but changing your mindset around this situation could improve the friendship.
I think that a lot of people will disagree with me here, but for many years, I have adopted the principle of “being interested, not interesting” in my social interactions (especially with my friends). I avoid “wasting their time” with my problems, my needs, my wants, and even my interests. I often approach them to ask them how they are doing. I show an interest in the things that matter to them. I ask them deep and meaningful questions about themselves or their interests. I do my best to keep our conversations centered around them, and when it is my turn to say something, I keep it short and sweet.
Since I adopted this mantra, the quality of my friendships has vastly improved. Ironically, people now want to know more about me than they ever did. They want to give me more of their time and attention than ever before. They want to her about my opinions, my interests, my needs, my wants, etc. I continue to keep that at a minimum, of course, but now I know that people are actually interested in me. And why is that? It is because I am actually, genuinely, interested in them.
Sure, not everyone has the energy or the skill to act this way. I still think that a lot of it can be learned, but anyway.
Maybe adopting this principle would improve your interactions with her as well, since you would forget about your fear that she’s drifting away, and instead be focused on being a really good friend to her. And that could (I can’t guarantee it, and you shouldn’t make that a goal) make her want to interact with you more often.
This has happened to me too a handful of times. It sucks every time and makes me feel like shit about myself. Only talking about themselves and their own interests and not asking about you or yours.. that is the point I usually start to realize that the person just isn't that interested in me anymore. Not saying that that is what is happening to you, but it does sound like it's fizzling out to become more of an acquaintance than on track for a true friendship. I would probably try to force myself to balance things. Instead of being the one to always or almost always initiate, try to match their energy and message a little less too.
Just want to make clear that it's not on you though. It takes two to tango. And also, friends just weave in and out of our lives in no particular pattern or sometimes even no reasons. Hard to accept when you're really into someone.
It's very rare for two peoples' energies to match up. But people are not parallel lines - we are on our own trajectory and sometimes we find someone where our trajectories happens to cross at that perfect moment. But sometimes it only is a moment.
There is already so much good advice here. I only wanted to present one possibility that I haven't seen. I may be way off base but it's hard to tell without more details but the relationship you describe could sound like an avoidant-anxious attachment.
The initial level of communication that you describe as initiated by her, with all the "good mornings" and "good nights," could sound like classic love bombing. An avoidant person in this situation usually expresses intense and excessive attention on someone but at some point, will pull back and either drastically cut communication or disappear entirely. If the person on the receiving end of this likewise pulls away, this may trigger an avoidant to return at some point - usually months later.
On the other side of this is usually the anxious person. They respond well to the love bombing and early attention but when attention is decreased, they may begin to become anxious, fearful that they are losing the avoidant person. An anxious person's actions at this time may sadly further create distance between the pair if they act on that anxiousness by trying to pull the avoidant back in or cling to the relationship.
Avoidants may act for a variety of reasons but it's usually, and ironically, most tied to a fear of losing people themselves. They subconsciously crave closeness and will connect with and become enamored with someone who they are attracted to (on a basic level, we're not necessarily talking about sexually or romantically). They're subconscious fears will eventually trigger them to create distance in the relationship as they fear that the other person will at some point abandon them or that the other person needs too much for them and they aren't capable to provide for the needs of the other person. When the anxious person disappears, the avoidant's nervous system will eventually regulate and it's when they feel "safe" that they might return.
This has the potential to create a very sad and vicious cycle where the avoidant gives attention to the anxious before eventually pulling back, the anxious becomes anxious and tries to pull the avoidant back in and restore what they previously had, this pushes away the avoidant and usually emotionally damages the anxious, the anxious then eventually pulls away which then ends up triggering the avoidant, the avoidant's emotions now being damaged may try to reach back out to the anxious, and repeat. The saddest part of this cycle is that both avoidant and anxious are scared of the same thing, losing the other, but subconsciously act on it in complete opposite ways.
If this does actually sound what your relationship might be like, it might be best to disengage now before any lasting damage sets in. People who are neither avoidant or anxious are known as securely attached but love bombing and proximity-distance dynamics exhibited by avoidants can trigger anxiousness even in them. Avoidant-anxious relationships can become healthy and functional but only when both people are committed to change but your relationship sounds too new for that to be a possibility, I could be wrong. It's also possible for someone to recognize their anxiousness and work to function as a more securely-attached person in the relationship but the avoidants actions make avoiding anxiousness difficult if one is prone to it.
People usually talk about this dynamic in the context of romantic relationships but these dynamics can also exist in friendships as well. Both avoidants and anxious usually have deep wounds from childhood that make them feel that they either need to be alone to be safe or, conversely, that they need to bid for attention to be safe. Tragically, these types of relationships can become very deep and intense but usually end up leaving a trail of hurt feelings in their wake.
Again, from your limited description I can't tell if any of this applies to you but the dynamic is reminiscent of it for me.
During covid I was on some discord role play servers to pass the time and your experience you described is extremely normal from my experience.
It's definitely a unique kind of realtionship at some level, I not sure if it's a discord thing or a rp thing or maybe just a more modern thing, but it's the way almost everyone seems to communicate on those servers.
From my experience (obviously this is purely subjective) these relationships are a lot more seasonal than others. I made various friends after various games together and we'd talk a lot right after, but the conversation would always die out at some point, not matter how much one or the other tried to keep it going (yes sometime I was the one who didn't reply as much!).
But the people I kept as freinds always came back couple of weeks or months later. Suddenly a DM would popup and you'd get chatting again. Never the same as the initial conversation, but you'd keep in touch.
There's some positives and negatives here. The positives are it's not all doom and gloom, if you temper your expectations she'll be back. You also don't know her that well, even though you spoke intensely, you haven't known her for years, you don't know her habits or the depths of her personal life, just what she's told you. So you don't really know what's going on with her, her dad might have just died or something.
On the flip side, I had to leave all those role play servers and stop talking to (almost) all the people I met along the way because they started to take a huge amount of time of my day for answering messages about play by posts and people in DMs. Especially the people in DMs was kinda a dopimine hit of "wow a person to talk to!" in a badddd kinda way, it started to feel like an addiction to getting to get people to make friends with me so I could talk to them, like I enjoyed the idea they liked me so much they added me after a game and wanted to keep talking to me.
So I quit that, and since covid was over I started white water rafting instead which was way fun.
Anyway, I hope you find peace with your problem, just remember that if you're not enjoying the relationship it's not a good relationship. Always take a step back and look at yourself for a moment.
Wow, a lot of very detailed and thoughtful replies here. As someone whose best friends include online gaming friends of 20+ years, I just want to share some simple tips as people grow and change.
Start scheduling hang out times if they're open to it. Usually it's to play something but it can be just to chill and watch YouTube. Busy people often need time blocked in advance.
Establish what your own boundaries are. Think about how hard you want to attempt to make the friendship work and leave it at that. It can be tough at first but it's a lot less anxiety inducing once you've said to yourself "I'm going to message them once a day for a while with an update from my day + try to schedule a regular hangout, and if the conversations dry up, so be it."
Similar to the above, stop yourself from catastrophizing by reminding yourself it isn't just about you other than you need to find other ways to use your time if she's not free.
This was a huge learning point for me. I have some great friends, but I felt really lonely until I scheduled a couple weekly online gaming sessions. We just play board games or something simple like Stardew Valley, and it has made a massive difference for me to have those little events to look forward to every week.
Sometimes we cancel, but there's no stress because I know we'll be online next week. Having some shared, social commitments can make a big difference for busy, working adults.
I think you've gotten a lot of good advice here, and I hope you are able to sift through it and take what you need and leave what you don't.
Some other observations that may not have been mentioned yet, and give you some direct advice(?):
Have you asked or talked to this person directly, and clearly, like, "hey, I have been feeling like I want more of your attention/to talk to you more, but I don't know how to ask for that" - or something, I can't speak for you, but asking directly, while extremely vulnerable, can be the most...effective way to figure out whatever is bothering you/get what you want.
You are not responsible for entertaining people/making sure people have a good time(unless you are a professional entertainer, or agreed to be the entertainer). I know this sounds blunt, but it seems like, from your analysis of your past chats, that you do feel responsible for "holding up your end of the chat". You are wondering, "did I do something wrong/not do something enough" to maintain the energy. This is not your responsibility. If I had to guess, this comes from your natural generosity and awareness/in-tuneness with other people, regardless of how shallow your relationships are with people. There's actually an author who talks about how exhausting he finds it to be around people because when you are kind of a "highly sensitive person" or otherwise, the sheepdog of the conversation, always rounding people up and keeping people on task, it is EXHAUSTING, so he too decided, "I just don't like people", but it was kind of the opposite, he loved people, but couldn't commit all of this energy to it all of the time.
It sounds like you have two extremes of friends/people in your life. 100% hardcore like your two besties, and then everyone else. I'm in no place to judge that, but as another user said (emphasis, mine):
If you are used to basically those two types of relationships, you don't have a ton of practice with these greyzone relationships. Greyzones are further difficult to practice for you since you get glimpses of the "hardcore" kind, that you do, seem to like. You could use this current relationship to learn/practice being in the greyzone, and what that means to you. It's a low-stakes (I think) situation for you to play with the idea of having relationships in between those two states.
Lastly, if I could echo some of the advice here that I think most pertains to you, it would be, "realizing that no one person can fulfill all of your needs all the time(or rather, at the time you want them to)". And that things are "seasonal" or otherwise...unpredictable at times(?), but it's not like the winter being cold means anything about the summer being dry (that's probably a terrible analogy, tbh, meteorologists and such...). The seasonal thing has never made sense to me in a way I can explain, because I can't tell if it's just meant to discuss temporariness or arbitrariness or both.
Anyhow, I hope you find some relief from these conversations.