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  • Have you guys ever feel pressured to spend time with your friends? I need to dedicate time to my personal projects, so that doesn't leave me with a lot of time for games and fun. I recently returned to Valorant, and while I don't have time for aim training, I am totally fine with that(I used to play the game quite seriously).

    But things are different when I have to spend time with some of my friends. They basically don't have any other hobby, so they only do one kind of activity in their free time. They also don't have a specific someone who can always spend that time with them too, so I ended up being 'that person'. I also got slightly tilted when I heard the line 'I don't like to wait' from one of these friends when she was complaining another friend of mine doesn't respond to messages and isn't active(but another friend and I are kinda okay and we usually just played until he comes?) , and that makes her look selfish because everyone has their own activities, right?

    I understand that my friends are stressed from work and they feel lonely, but it's not like I don't experience the same thing... If anything, I have been fighting off my negative thoughts for more than half a year, and it took me that long to finally find a way to flip my mindset whenever it goes bad(and that still doesn't solve all of my problems). Drawing boundaries is one way to solve the problem, but I have lost friends in the past before precisely because I didn't spend enough time(sometimes almost the whole day except my classes) with them, and I don't want the same thing to happen again.

    • Sometimes I just feel too tired to talk to some of my friends, but I feel too bad saying it to them, so I just take my time replying. I try not to wait for too long, but as I'm now really struggling with a chronic illness, it might take days to get back some days. I've been honest about this with my friends tho, so they'll know and are understanding.

      We all need some time for ourselves, doesn't matter if one has an illness, something going on in their lives, introvert, or whatever. It is completely normal and acceptable to just not want to hang out or talk with someone.

      Although I understand your friend not wanting to wait for a reply (especially if she's feeling lonely, maybe even depressed, or just needs someone to talk to for any reason or none at all), it is unreasonable to expect people to just drop everything and be there for her.

      Having boundaries is definitely healthy, and I don't think you're in the wrong here (not that your friends are either, tho again, her line about not liking to wait does make her sound selfish). I don't know if you've talked with your friends about this, how you need a bit more time for yourself sometimes. If you haven't, maybe that could be a start...

      • My friends are aware I have a lot of other things to do. I used to mentioned a lot that I'm busy working on my project aka Monyet.cc's Blahaj Bot back when I was spending almost all of my free time on coding. My friends understand if I say I'm busy, but I'm afraid if I say no too many times I'll end up upsetting them. The friend who made the complaint used to spend time with her ex, but her family kept trying to separate them because they didn't like him and they barely talk to each other anymore. Combined with the fact that controlling family also chased away any 'non-educated' friends(?) that she had, she doesn't have a lot of other friends she can play games with. I understand her distress since my family is also quite controlling(albeit to a much lesser extent), although I live in a different state so they couldn't monitor me. (My parents became super upset whenever I talked about my online-turned-IRL friends until they met them. )

    • Have the same problem, except i'm the one that tend to drift away from everyone(like a hermit, but crab, hermit crab? 🦀), and have to force myself to spend time with others to prevent that(or to delay the inevitable 💀). Have been drifted away from secondary school friend and college friend before, both due to distance and difference in socmed platform, i think it's happening again and i can't stop it 💀

      • *pat

        I drifted away from most friends from school since they aren't the type who are active on socmed(or they all have their own group chats in Whatsapp or somewhere, because I wasn't the most liked person in school), but fortunately I'm still good with my uni mates and some online friends circles. I did get kicked out of one circle for being too inactive, but I don't play the same games with them anymore and don't share common interests with them(other than the game we used to play) so it was hard to catch up. In my case, it's more of a time issue because I have a lot of personal activities.

        I think friends that stay the longest are those who you can just share anything with, even the lamest shit ever and they won't care that much.

    • in some ways yes, i do see the value in catching up with friends but to a certain extent i do feel the pressure to catch up with them. for me becoming an adult, I noticed that it's harder and harder to make friends, and it's even more difficult to maintain genuine relationships.

      if they're the type of friends that will unfriend you BECAUSE you are busy or are at full capacity they do not deserve you anyway.. try to find people that have the same hobby as you that helps as well. i've noticed those relationships are less of a chore and easier to manage lol.

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