Hi Anita,

I would love some advice. I don’t know why the post come up as anonymous. I have created an account earlier and posted this topic but I couldn’t sign into the account and the post comes up as anonymous.

I would really appreciate some advice on what to do, should I continue with pestering my friend with messages or should I leave her alone since clearly she does not want to communicate. The last message from her was a very short reply responding to a specific question.

thanks so much

Dear Em Xinh:

I just noticed that you replied the day before yesterday, what probably happened is that it didn’t show that you submitted a reply on the page of Topics, so I didn’t know until a moment ago.

You shared that you were friends with A for several days long distance, through “messages and infrequent calls from time to time”, and that you tried to see her once a year (I don’t know if you indeed saw her in person, or just tried to see her).

When you got a job, based on contract (not permanent), you struggled with it, experienced a lot of anxiety about it, and had restricted telephone access during the training. Because of these things, you didn’t check in with her for about three weeks. You then called her, and three weeks later she told you that “she does not want to talk on the phone”. You thought she was upset with you, so you asked her if she was, and she said that she was not.

The last message from her was “a very short reply responding to a specific person”. Following that, she didn’t reply or acknowledge your messages, including one where you apologized to her for not having been more available to her.  You know that “she’s still talking to others and still active on social media”, but chooses to not talk to you anymore.

-Reads to me that you feel guilty for having been so anxious on the job, and that as a result, you were being available to her (“I let anxiety got the best of me, instead of keeping it together and deal with it, maybe then I could have more time to care for others”)-

– I don’t think your guilt is valid, meaning, I don’t think that you did anything wrong. No one chooses anxiety, and you didn’t choose your anxiety.

What you did choose is to take on a job, and you chose to persist in that job no matter how hard it was for you. This is commendable and admirable. Other people don’t look for a job, go through training, and complete the training, all through a lot of anxiety.

Maybe your (former) friend, maybe she is not working, and so, she has time and the mental availability to communicate with others online/ on the phone. It is not fair for her to expect from you to be as available to her when you are working and she is not working, if that’s the case.

* Also, other people she communicates with, maybe they don’t work either, or have easy jobs, and that’s how they have the time and mental availability for extensive online/ phone communication.

“should I continue with pestering my friend with messages or should I leave her alone since clearly she does not want  to communicate”- definitely don’t pester her, don’t send her any more messages at all.

You referred to her in the sentence I just quoted as “my friend”- she is no longer your friend.

Regarding what I mentioned before: did your former friend have a job during the few years that you communicated regularly, and did you ever meet her in person?

anita