Overbearing Friend

LegacyUser

Hey guys,

I am having an ongoing issue and want to get some advice/ guidance about it.

A few years ago I started working in a company and worked in a small unit within it. I was working closely with one girl in particular. She seemed nice and we had similar interests and similar ideas about things in the world. We eventually became friends outside of work and all was fine. We'd meet the odd time and that was grand.

Recently, however, this friendship has become a bit of a chore. I hate to sound mean but she has just become so overbearing. I left the company after I was offered a promotion elsewhere. She eventually quit the company where we met and is now working on a part-time basis for me. I'm basically her manager but she works from home a lot. The thing is I don't think she respects that I have my own life and don't want to constantly text about work or things related to our field.

While it's not a huge reason to cut someone out, an example like this might show you where I'm coming from. We met for lunch a few days ago and all she did (and does constantly) is talk about her issues, her problems at work, how broke she is etc. etc. I feel that I have offered all the advice I can give her and it's the same old issues time and again... She is depressed and has other problems but I just don't see her trying to improve things. We've been friends for a lot time and I really just feel like now she's just creating most of her problems.

An example of her being overbearing would be texting. I just looked at my phone there and she sent me around five-six messages in a row and there's pages and pages of text there... Some of them are just jokes and such but it's an ongoing thing where she keeps sending me texts over and over and not waiting for me to reply. I am in a relationship and I text my OH quite a bit so it's says I'm 'Seen' in WhatsApp or whatever and I'm beginning to suspect she is becoming annoyed with me.

I just can't really deal with this girl anymore. She has a counsellor but no other friends and I'm just in an ongoing internal battle about whether on what I should do... Is it rude to text someone and say 'Can you please not send me messages of this length anymore, it's just too much?'. Last week it got so bad that I honestly couldnt' respond to all of them and just told her we'd catch up over lunch... when we met she had no news so I suspect she's lonely and in need of constant attention from me.. it's becoming draining and I am beginning to resent her. I feel bad even writing this...

StormWarrior

You've got two options. The first would be to have a sit down with her and explain that you know she is lonely and has problems but that you have a very busy life and cannot be there for her 24/7. Tell her the constant texts and other contact from her are disrupting whatever you are doing during the day and from now on she must only contact you if its an emergency.

The other option is to just completely stop responding to the texts and make excuses when she invites you out so that she gets the message. This is awkward if you work together though. How formal is the arrangement whereby she works for you. Does she have a contract? Would you prefer it if she found employment elsewhere and did not contact you again? Or do you want her to keep working for you?

santana75

That sounds tricky OP. On one hand you wanna be a decent human being and not just blank somebody with no explanation as to why, especially when she seems as vulnerable as this girl sounds. But then again youre not responsible for her and life is way too short to spend it with people who just drain your energy.
I know somebody like this girl, he's not as bad, in that I dont get lots of texts from him all the time but when I am in his company he'll just talk about himself and tell me(over and over) about his dysfunctional family and upbringing. We were in the car the other day and I began to tell him something about my own life and he cut me off fairly quickly and proceeded to ramble on about him and his issues for 15 minutes straight. I felt like I'd be assaulted afterwards and just wanted to get away from him. He has no friends or just mild acquaintances and I can clearly see why. Its all about him. So maybe your friend is the same, and if she is then thats the reason she has not so many people in her life and you it seems are the sounding board.
I think its all about boundaries and you just gotta establish some for your own sake. I think you will have to have a conversation with her and be firm, let her know that the texts have got to stop and when you do meet for lunch that its a friendly thing for both of you, not a therapy session for her. You dont have to be mean about things and I think if you were to cut her off and not explain what the situation was, then that would be cruel. But if you let her know where you stand and youre completely honest then things will work out. Honesty is always the best way to go, even in the short term you might hurt somebody feelings a bit, in the long run they'll be better off.

Shrap

I feel like it would be too difficult to say how you actually feel to her, even if it would be the more honest thing to do. You were so nervous in your OP about how to approach her delicately, and you're clearly thoughtful about how she feels (which is why she pours it all out to you?).

I reckon you should say to her that your inbox is hopelessly muddled up at the moment between your work life and your personal life, and as a favour to you, could she text about her work and what's going on for her separately. Maybe "work texts" during work hours and "personal texts" during personal time. I'd say that if she had to make the distinction a bit more, you'd get less of the personal off-loading as she'd have to save it up for later?

And maybe suggest that you meet once a month to catch up properly. That way, you'd fall so behind so quickly with her issues that she'd have to give you a summary instead of a blow-by-blow account, and it would give you the excuse to not reply to each and every text.