irritated w/ my friends

[pisces2473]

Besides my last minute party thrower friend, I'm irritated at the others like the one who I haven't heard from since the beginning of October and haven't seen since June when I was in her wedding, another one who I haven't seen in almost a month even though she lives in my town...

I think I just expect too much from people. It's almost like I want to cut them off, since they can't give me what I want/need.

Sigh.

[MOS9904]

I have friends like this too....but everyone does get busy. Take my friend Bryan....He lives 10 minutes from me....before I moved he was 5 minutes from me....we hung out 2 times when I was 5 minutes from him....
We both just have very conflicting schedules. For 3 months now we have been trying to plan dinner....the weeks Im avail he travels to FLA.
We keep trying...and we dont talk all the time, but we IM and shoot E mails when we get a chance.

I have another friend that moved to LA....I hadnt talked to him since Jan, so the other weekend I just picked up the phone and we chatted. We might not be as close as we were, but he is coming home for the holidays and so we are going to try and hang out.

There are certain people that I see every month, and others I see very little and talk to very little, everyone has crazy schedules.
Sorry its been nagging at you lately. Hopefully it will improve.

Have you tried to plan something at your place maybe a month ahead of time on a Friday night or something? Sometimes taking the initiative helps.

And about the party-----sometimes people find that their friends are around a certain weekend and then just plan for everyone to come over....impromptu if you will.....it stinks that you already have plans......but not everyone plans very in advance.

Trust me Im on your page with this one...Im a planner, if I dont plan none of us would hang out. Ive tried planning last minute, and in advance and still everyone has conflicts in their schedule....

Hang in there.

[lorion11]

I know you mean.. I've had similar feelings before.. I just let them know I'm still around if they want to do anything... sometimes things get crazy for all of us and if they're true friends they will come back and your friendship with them will be better then ever... one of my best friends from high school and I spent a good 4 years drifting in and out of contact but now that I'm back home we talk everyday and see each other quite often...

I had a friend recently ask me why I didn't want to hang out with her anymore because I never called her... I was kinda surprised that she thought this and have been really good about keeping in contact... sometimes things just get confusing in our lives but its the friends that are still there that are the true ones!!

[SmilesSoSweet]

I was just thinking about starting a thread like this, then Jen beat me to it! :p

I have friends from back home that I'd like to not hang out with as much. My birthday is coming up and those three friends from back home want to take me out to dinner. I told them that I'll probably be working late that day (not true) and I'm not sure what I'm doing. I just getting annoyed by them when all three of them are together. One of them was an old roommate who screwed me over on a couple of bills and I haven't heard from her personally in months. Why bother hanging out with me on just my birthday? And they didn't bother contacting my roommate first to see if we already have plans. I do have other friends - work, church, college, etc. - not just friends from back home that I'd like to spend my birthday with. Hanging out with them is like being in high school all over again. But if I tell them how I really feel, they're going to obviously not be happy with that and tell me the usual stuff the always tell me - that I'm "too good" to hang out with them now that I live on my own in a different city where I grew up in, etc. So what? I'm not going feel sorry for them because of that. I worked my butt off getting where I am now. Anyway, I'm just rabbling now. On my birthday, I'm going to do what I want - not what they want because it is my birthday! It's my one day where I can be selfish and not feel guilty about it.

[pisces2473]

Once I asked my friend what was going on, like why we didn't talk very much, and she totally blew up at me that she was busy, etc etc and that I was being selfish, and so on...I was like, Whoa there...I don't know what's going on in your life since you don't tell me. She's also kinda stubborn, and even if I did tell her how I felt, I'm sure she wouldn't care. That make me very sad :( She does live 3 hrs away, but still...

One friend, who I've known since kindergarten, lives in Boston, and we email about once a week and get together every time she comes home. My friends in this area are all going back to school, are working, etc. and I don't hear from them that much.

I know everyone is busy, but seriously, is it SO hard to email your friends????? That's what really gets me.

I would LOVE to plan something at my place, but it's so small--when I did plan something awhile back w/ enough advance notice, people came. But we could go outside since it was summer.

Grrr I wish I could just cut everyone off and be happy alone.

[pisces2473]

Originally posted by SmilesSoSweet
I was just thinking about starting a thread like this, then Jen beat me to it! :p

I have friends from back home that I'd like to not hang out with as much. My birthday is coming up and those three friends from back home want to take me out to dinner. I told them that I'll probably be working late that day (not true) and I'm not sure what I'm doing. I just getting annoyed by them when all three of them are together. One of them was an old roommate who screwed me over on a couple of bills and I haven't heard from her personally in months. Why bother hanging out with me on just my birthday?
Hi Smiles! :) Long time, no see...

Yes! That's how I'm feeling about the holidays...that people will want to get together just b/c it's Christmas and then they'll have gifts...when I haven't seen you in months, I don't want your effing gift. And I don't want to buy you one, either.

[kimmer23]

i am going through the same thing. luckily we just met a new couple through a single friend. she met this couple at a wedding recently.

but anyways, my one friend was supposed to come to my friend rick's annual halloween party and she was supposed to meet us all downtown the next day on halloween. well i never heard from her. she didnt call or anything. didnt make it to either event. and i havent called or emailed her either to find out why. i am just like "SCREW IT." my bday is in a few weeks, so i'll see if she calls or emails me for that.

why is it so hard to meet good friends these days??

[pisces2473]

I don't know...people are just so weird!

I'm thinking about writing an update email and sending it to all my friends in the context of "haven't heard from you in awhile, here's what's new with me..." but part of me thinks, Why bother? Will anyone really write back?

[kimmer23]

well people only seem to write (as in email) when you email them first. i guess people dont think about me :O(

[pisces2473]

That's what happens to me too, Kimmer. God, this is making me so sad today! :(

[pisces2473]

Okay I just sent my friends an email update and at the end, I was like, "Life is pretty dull sometimes, but I still thought you'd like to hear from me. I know life is busy for all of us, ladies, but I'd like to hear from you all too."

Hopefully that got the point across w/out being too snarky. But whatever.

[SmilesSoSweet]

I don't even bother with the effort to email "friends" on how I've been doing and stuff. Communication is a two-way street. Those friends know how to contact me - email, cell phone, work phone, home phone, home address, parents' address and phone, etc. - and if I don't hear from them so be it. I'm not trying to sound bitter, but I'm just tired of being the one that communicates first. I understand that we're all busy with our own lives and stuff, but still. I moved back home one summer and that entire summer I didn't get one phone call, email or visit from any of those friends, yet I would go out of my way to see them or call. Mind you these are the friends that bitched to me about not spending time with them while I was home for the weekend or a holiday break while in college. A true friendship is a relationship that both parties need to put in effort.

[pisces2473]

Oh definitely true! But, what do you do when a person might see the term "friendship" differently than you? Do you ditch them? I'd like to hear from my "friends" a few times a month, not every 6 weeks or so...other people think that's enough...

[PTSteve2760]

Gee I know that feeling. My friends here at home are great, but they are all borderline alcoholics. They spend their whole weekend getting drunk and going to the same shady dive bars every weekend, which is completely no longer my scene. I would do anything for my best friend, but he always gets drunk, argumentative, and does stupid things. The worst part is that he realizes that he does these stupid things, but yet still continues to do so.

[pisces2473]

Thanks--at least my friends aren't like that, but I understand where you're coming from too.

And welcome to the boards, btw. I'm one of the moderators. Nice to have you here :)

[flyogagrl]

My really good friends all still live in the northeast (Philly, DC, VA and NJ) and its easier for me to go up there then for all of them to fly down to FL. But when I am up there, I get pulled in so many directions, I don't really get to spend any quality time with them, or they get to see each other more often so sometimes I feel a little left out.

They always say they are going to come visit me in FL, and two of them have tried and the hurricanes got in their way, but it still totally sucks. They all say they are going to come down when it gets really cold up there, but what they dont realize is that the airlines jack up all the prices to FL in the winter so it's doubtful they will get a cheap enough flight.

This totally blows, but luckily I will see them all during Thanksgiving weekend!

[hopeless]

Originally posted by pisces2473
Besides my last minute party thrower friend, I'm irritated at the others like the one who I haven't heard from since the beginning of October and haven't seen since June when I was in her wedding, another one who I haven't seen in almost a month even though she lives in my town...

I think I just expect too much from people. It's almost like I want to cut them off, since they can't give me what I want/need.

Sigh.

Like you I think I have high expectations from people. I've known one of my friends who lives out in California since junior high school. I briefly talked to her in July & haven't heard from her since. She said she was going to call via text message on my cell phone & never did. I've basically have been the one who puts in the effort of keeping in touch & she says keeping in contact is her weak point, but I feel that's just an excuse. I figure she can reach me when she wants to since she knows my e-mail & phone #, plus she can't give me what I need as a friend.

[pisces2473]

Yeah...I mean, people can stay friends for years even with distance and busy lives, if both people put in the effort. And I'm tired of putting in the effort for one particular friend, which is sad, because by the end of college we were so close...and now it feels like everything's been forgotten.

[hopeless]

I feel exactly the same way you do pisces2473 like the friendship is forgotten. My friend & I use to have great times during our high school yrs. despite being in different schools. & when I visited her last yr. out in California it somehow wasn't the same. I don't know maybe she changed or I have. In a way it sucks that I lost out being a friend to her.

[pisces2473]

Yeah...it's like, who really changed? Me or her? I don't know...I was in her wedding in June and the night before the wedding, her, her sister and I are all in her hotel room and it was just so awkward, like I didn't know what to say. Even her thank you note seemed so "unoriginal." Like you'd think you'd have more to say your so-called best friend and former roommate of 3 years.

I always imagined her in my wedding...and now that I probably won't be getting married for another 2 years or more, I don't see her in it...maybe not even there at all.

And it's not like she has other friends to hang out with--she stopped talking to her HS friends in college b/c they got really weird and by the end of college she didn't like most of our friends and just put up with them. She is married, but what does that matter when it comes to emailing a friend? That's what I don't understand...