About 3 years ago, my husband and I moved to a new area for my husband's job. In our previous town, we had lots of friends with lots of different family situations, and I always felt quite popular. We didn't have a lot of parties or that sort of thing, but I always had a friend I could call for dinner or a movie. Moving here, I have been able to befriend a couple of other mothers with kids with similar ages in the area (although not in my neighborhood), but not many. Each friend has been very precious to me. One SAHM I met two summers ago in passing, and then reconnected with last summer, and I really enjoy her company. We don't have much in common besides our kids and our volunteer work, but I felt that we had really hit it off. For a while (I would say several months through the late fall and winter), we were meeting to go out to lunch weekly, and I always really looked forward to it. We would often sit and talk for hours, and lunch would run over until almost dinner time. She made me feel like I had a social life!
Then I noticed that I had invited her for the last 4-5 lunches. When we chat, it's because I call. She always seems happy to talk or to meet with me, but she never reciprocates. She will respond if I write on her Facebook wall, but doesn't write on mine. I don't know if this is new behavior or if I just never noticed before.
Since her schedule is busier than mine, she also often has to change the times or days that I invite her out. It would be a lot easier if she would occasionally call me, as I would be available almost any time she could suggest. So I invited her to lunch one more time, and then I thought I would wait until she invited me.
It's now been 5 weeks and I haven't heard from her. A couple of weeks ago, she posted something on her Facebook page about being super busy, but it wasn't even directed at me, it was just in general. With a closer friend, I might ask her about it, but having known her less than a year, I feel like it would be too awkward.
My husband thinks I should just bite the bullet, call her and invite her out again. He says my ideas of give and take in a friendship are outdated, and if I stick to them, I won't have a social life. But I can't get over the feeling that if she wanted to see me, she would reach out. Other friends that I am not so close to have. I certainly don't want to push myself on her like a needy girlfriend. Is it possible that she is so busy that she doesn't even realize that our weekly meeting hasn't happened in over a month??? Still, if she doesn't like me or feel the connection, why would she have continued to accept invitations every time I issued them?
Should I call her, or assume that she'll call me if she wants to continue the friendship?
Thank you to everyone for your advice! I think I will go ahead and post the more vague request on Facebook that several people suggested and see what happens. I hope that she will respond in kind, which will give me some signal that at least she wants the relationship to continue.
I do want to clear up that I'm not the sort of person who always keeps track in relationships, although I was taught that it was good manners to reciprocate invitations (and I believe that). I have many dear friends from high school and college that I often don't hear from for months without thinking anything of it, and I couldn't tell you who invited whom the last 5-6 times we got together. Our relationship has surpassed the sort of thing where one worries about that, because I know they treasure me as I treasure them, and they know I feel the same, and it really doesn't matter who does the actual act of reaching out.
This one friend, though, is completely different, because I don't yet know her very well and we are still feeling our way. While this is a friend that I enjoy spending time with, she is not (as some people seemed to believe) a close friend that I would rely on to bring soup when I'm sick, watch my kids, or provide really anything more than stimulating conversation at this point in our relationship. And at this point, I'm not comfortable always initiating, and so I hope that she will respond at some point.
I apologize for being so long-winded, and thank you again for your advice.
You could be writing about me because I'm a terrible person when it comes to inviting. I'm juggling work, family, pets, etc and it's hard to remember to take time for myself to spend with friends.
If you enjoy spending time with her then continue to call and invite her out.
I have a friend like that. She NEVER calls, she never invites me out but when we do meet it's like we never stopped. We've known each other since 7th grade.
I've just resigned myself to the fact that she's super busy and just forgets. But she's always happy to get together!
Give her a call and invite her out. Some friendships are more one-sided, but if you're her friend then you will forgive her shortcomings...even if that shortcoming is not calling to invite you out. I'll bet when you do get together it will be like no time has passed at all!
I felt I should respond as I am the person who never calls.
I just don't think anyone would want to spend any time with me, I don't value myself much and am often in a depressed state.
If you have never been like me, I guess you would not understand, but I would always be happy to do anything I could for you and I would value your friendship greatly. Nevertheless, when I am in that "hole" I just cannot reach up.
Please keep calling your friend and be her friend.
I know lots of people think like you do, and ideally, a social relationship has a two-way balance. But I must confess, I am not much of an initiator. I'm terrible at making plans, and feel stressed about checking my social calendar regularly so I don't stand someone up or miss an appointment.
I do think about certain friends with some regularity, but I myself find it odd that I seldom think of them during the hours that I could call them. I've wondered about this, struggled with this, felt guilty about it, and yet my friends seem to think I'm worth contacting when it works out for them, and I am grateful.
I would send her an email or write on her facebook wall. Say something like, "Hi, have not heard from you in a while. Let me know if you want to do lunch some time." If she really wants to get together, she can respond with a specific date to do lunch. If she really is to busy to make any plans, she can just let you know that right now she does not have any free time. You are not really initiating setting a date, but letting her know you would like to hang out again.
I'm not very good at extending invites myself but love to go out if someone initiates it. I don't think it's anything personal. I think you should give her a call.
I know a lot of the time, I tend to be like your friend. I really appreciate all the friends that I connect well with, but I am not the one that usually reaches out or initiates contact. I just feel like I am bugging people if I contact them. It doesn't even occur to me that I can call people most of the time. (unlike my husband) It sounds to me like it is truly not personal. Give her a call. If she didn't want to be around you she wouldn't accept your invitations. :) I bet if you asked her why she never calls you she would say something like what I have said.
Maybe it would help to start with not assuming it's about you.
Maybe she hates the phone, or has ADHD and thus sucks at initiating and managing her schedule, or she's just completely unaware of the expectation.
If you're not going to tell her your rules that she call you half the time or whatever, she's probably not going to live up to them.
l
Hi A.C.
After reading your post, I realized that I could be described exactly as you are describing your friend. I am terrible about calling people, but love to go out when I am invited. I too am busy, but honestly I am just a shy person that needs to be "pushed" (in a good way) to get out there and enjoy life and and other people's company. I, too enjoy having lunches with girlfriends and I have decided that I am going to call one of my long time girlfriends tonight to set up a "date". Thanks for pointing this out to me and I would say yes you should keep calling your friend. I believe that she would stop coming if she did not want to spent time with you especially since you said she is super busy and usually has to adjust the time. Obviously, she wants to see you or she wouldn't go through all of the hassle. If it bothers you, you should mention it to her. You could start off by saying that since you haven't heard from her in a while, are the weekly meetings too often for her schedule because you feel like you are being too needy. Then see where it goes from there. I am going to bet, like myself, she did not even realize she was hurting your feelings.
Call her and express how you feel one more time- something like "I wanted us to get together and be friends, but if you don't think that is possible because of your schedule, let me know and I won't put you on the spot and invite you out - but I will keep your number and send email to keep in touch" See how she responds to that and then determine. I have reached out to people before and I got the message they were not interested but afraid to tell me so because they would hurt my feelings, so not being interested is also an option especially if you recently met her and 5 weeks she hasn't responded. I am like you, I don't like pushing myself on people. You are busy too and you take the effort. People make time for what they really want to do, and in my opinion, if she wanted the same friendship, she would reciprocate. After couple tries, I would give it up and find a new friend.
Send her a F/B message (not a wall post) and say "It's been awhile. Let me know if you want to have lunch!
I had the same situation but with a friend from high school. I had the same feelings as you and now I don't have a friend. Something to think about. Are you willing to be the one always calling or willing to lose a friend?
I am a single mom and work full time. I am horrible at being the first to call. It's not that I don't want to go out, I am just so busy that most phone calls slip by without me thinking. I would say call her. Maybe she doesn't like to make phone calls...I'm like that and one of my friends are like that. I simply don't like to sit and talk on the phone for hours. My friend actually has had anxiety attacks over it because she is worried she will inturrupt or bother you and if she does then she feels down right horrible.
It sounds like your friend has been pretty honest about having a busy life. That's not to say that you don't, but I don't think you should read too much into things.
I have a friend that lives right around the corner from me. We've been close like sisters for years. I've taken care of her when she got home from the hospital, she's taken me to the hospital at 2am if I needed it.
We remember each other's birthdays, watch after each other's kids...
if I don't speak to her every day or even every week, we don't assume we're mad at each other. Finding time to have social engagements is really tough for both of us, but we always stay connected and are always there for each other.
If she invites me to lunch or to go to town with her on a given day and I don't reciprocate by doing the same for her the next week, she doesn't stew and think that I'm not a friend to her. And vice versa.
I make home make soup and share it with her family.
If she gives me back my clean pot, without something in it in return for me, I don't think anything of it.
She's the kind of friend who will come weed eat my yard if I'm sick and I'm the kind of friend who will make her homemade jelly and give her wonderful things to soak her feet in.
We never keep tabs on who does what for the other.
We can go for a month without really talking or just seeing each other in passing by and there's kind of a safety that goes along with that kind of solid friendship.
She has a husband with two kids and I'm single with two kids. The things we juggle are not equal. We don't expect them to be.
Friendship isn't about keeping score.
I can just about bet that your friend isn't thinking in terms of hurting your feelings. I know with my friends, if they didn't invite me to lunch, I wouldn't schedule time for it. If I didn't ask them, they wouldn't schedule time for it.
Days get away from us and if you value this friend, just call her.
I think your husband is right.
If there was an argument and you were really concerned about your friendship, that might be one thing.
Your friend might be wondering why you haven't called to give her a chance to escape. You never know.
I have many, many friends that I'm not in constant touch with and we have an understanding that it's nothing personal.
Doesn't mean we don't adore each other.
I think you are worrying too much.
That's just my opinion.
As for facebook, I never write anything on there so my own family could interpret that as not caring, but it wouldn't be true.
Call her if you enjoy spending time with her and don't read to much into things.
Best wishes.
Ditto everything Megan C says. I swear, I could be your friend. And it is not because I don't care, it is just because I am a terrible initiator. I'm not even that busy. But like Linda, it is hard for me to reach out sometimes. I am not shy, but have a hard time being the lead in a friendship until we have been friends for a while, because of my insecurities. I dread the idea of being the needy friend. That is all my own fault, and if you are uncomfortable "carrying" the friendship, then it is your right to stop being the one who always invites. But you might very well lose this friend because she doesn't want to be the agressive one. I am always thrilled to get an invitation, and love the friends I have, but even though I assume they feel the same way, I still can't bring myself to call them constantly or whatever. Part of that is just that I am a terrible phone person. I actually have one needy friend (she knows she is) and I have just told her that I am bad on the phone and bad at inviting, but that it isn't personal. I have to remind myself to make an effort with her every once in a while so that she doesn't start thinking I am mad at her and get upset. But when I do make the effort, I make sure to tell her it isn't her, just my own issues. It's actually proving to be good for her to realize that she doesn't have to freak out when people don't call her everyday.
I also have a horrible schedule. I don't think to call people until late at night. That is when I am up because I never sleep, but I realize that other people go to bed at a normal hour. So I don't let myself call people, because I will never assume my hours are the same as someone else's.
I think being upfront is the best idea. Just ask if you are being too needy or if her schedule is too busy right now. That would totally make me realize that I was doing my usual thing of sitting back and waiting for friends to come to me. I'm afraid that if you send a too-vague message to her to test how she will respond, she will also respond vaguely and you will think she isn't interested. I realize that it sounds stupid to say someone is afraid to respond too enthusiastically to a point-blank invitation, but it happens. Common sense says that if they are inviting, they are interested in being friends. But inside my brain common sense doesn't always prevail with things like this. I think if she was not interested she would not answer your calls. Or like the other poster said, if she was the type who just can't say no, you would see it in her behavior. No one spends hours talking over lunch with someone they don't get along with. Now, if you don't want to deal with an insecure friend and always have to take the lead, that is totally understandable. But if you like her, I wouldn't write her off just yet. And now that I have written all this out and realized how silly my behavior is sometimes, I think I will call my friend and invite her to lunch tomorrow. I need to work on doing that...
Hi A.C.,
We moved a lot in our marriage, up until 12 years ago when we moved here, so I was always the "new kid on the block" (never moved in childhood, oddly enough). I don't mind making the first move......or the second...or even the third.....but after awhile it does get tiresome and it is tempting to overanalyse.
I have no advice for you, actually, just wanted you to know I feel your pain. Been there done that; sometimes "am there, doing that".
Good luck, and hugs to you!
K. Z.
This is not third grade. The woman is busy. If she continues to say "Yes" to your invitations she wants to be friends. Pick up the phone, put away your "if she likes me, she'll prove it by inviting me to lunch" idea, and enjoy yourself. It doesn't matter if you've known her less than a year; she is your friend so treat her as such. She is likely worried that you are upset with her, which is why you have not called her for so long. Do not play silly games with your friends.
People make time for what they want to do and for what's important to them. You are the planner & the initiator in your friendship, and I think that's perfectly ok as long as it's ok with you. If you want to do something, it doesn't make you needy. I'm not suggesting that you are, but don't overanalyze it. If you have a nice time when you get together, and if she keeps making time for your invitations, she probably is having a nice time, too. I think that if she's very busy and didn't feel like accepting your invitation, she wouldn't make the time to go out to lunch with you. In my life, I call these friends "great acquaintances." I'm the initiator in some and in others I'm the acceptor. Every time I go out with these great acquaintances, I have a great time. We might even have a rush of regular lunch or breakfast meetings or park picnics with the kids and then we don't talk for months. I don't take it personally, nor do I think that they do. I know that I get busy or I'm doing things with my family or my closer friends more regularly and I just assume that they are doing the same when I stop to consider it. Now, that said, several years ago I did have a friend who accepted my lunch invitations and started to be pretty negative and behave passive aggressively towards me. I started to realize that she was just not ok with saying no. I also realized that after a couple of invitations, she must've been avoiding me. No harm, no foul, we just aren't friends. Go with your gut. If you have things to talk about and enjoy spending time together, keep doing it and accept your role as the initiator! If you think she's not enjoying your time together but not willing to say no, then don't ask her to lunch. By the way, my husband used to say the same thing. I struggled a lot with the negative friend initially and then I realized it just wasn't about me. Her not wanting to tell me no or not wanting to hang out with me had nothing at all to do with me, so I just let it go. Relax. Have fun.
If you enjoy her company, go ahead and call her.
One thing I have learned in my life is to cultivate and nurture friendships and
don't count invites and calls and so on.
I have many friends that I seldom see or talk to, but when we do get together it is always like we have never been apart.
And we would probably do anything for one another.
So, stop counting and start enjoying one another's company.
If she didn't want to remain friends she would decline your invitations. I know I am soooo busy that I have neglected many friends. Sometimes there are not enough hours in a day and a person can't do it all. I really wouldn't dwell on it and if she says she's busy she more than likely is. You may need to find some other interests and make new friends in doing so. There are a lot of volunteer opportunities you can check out. Good luck and have a happy summer.......M. B.
One way you could get around this is to set up your next meeting at the end of your time together. Then you can both input into how much time between meetings you want to have and what your schedule would be like in the near future.
I also want to add that maybe she is like me and many of the others who've replied to your post - valuing time with friends but poor at prioritizing our time to match our values. Therefore, we forget to call because we were cleaning the fishtank [or whatever]. Not that we value a clean fishtank over our friends, but just because it's right there in front of our faces. We're easily distracted and end up wasting our free time on things that don't really matter.
So maybe try giving her a call and getting together, then setting up the next meeting before you head home.
Speculation is a dangerous game. Just be tactful and find out the truth rather than over-analyzing. Your imagination may have you believing something that is not true. Not everyone was raised the same way you were.
All the best,
J.
ps - why are you putting her to the test on facebook? she doesn't realize that her response will determine whether your friendship continues or not. it's a bit unfair.
Honestly I felt the same way and yes I am busy with my two kids and my daycare etc. but I would drop anything or make time if they would call me for once to do something so you know what I don't worry about it anymore and I am going on with my life if they want to see me they will call me otherwise oh well there loss!!
