How to deal with a friend who doesn't text back
This advice column is a public service by me, Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. I’m a certified connection coach and have been facilitating community groups for almost twenty years. I regularly speak and lead workshops on the topics of adult friendship and cultivating healthy work teams. If you’d like to work with me, reach out on my booking contact form. If you have a question that you’d like answered in a future blog post or newsletter, instructions are at the bottom of this post.
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My Friend Is Ignoring Me
Q: I have a friend who isn’t very good at communicating with me when I try to make plans to hang out with her and see each other. I’ll send her multiple texts and try calling her but she’ll just ignore me over and over again by not answering back to set something up. I have had my feelings hurt over and over again by her lack of communication and not following through when I try to make plans with her. I know that she is busy and preoccupied with her two jobs and her two boys so I do try to show her understanding and try not to take things too personally but still it hurts me when she doesn’t try to make the effort to see me and doesn’t take the time to answer my texts and calls. I did make plans to get together with her this week and I’m kind of worried that she won’t follow through on our plans because there have been many times in the past where she would make promises to see me but she would be flaky and not follow through. Any thoughts about what I should do or how to handle situations with this friend in the future?
A: Wow, she has two jobs and two kids? I feel exhausted just reading that. I have one job and no kids and I'm already tired. You didn't mention how many jobs or kids you have, but it sounds like your friend has a lot on her hands and she might be overwhelmed. Sometimes when people feel overwhelmed, they'll ignore a task even if it might be pleasant (i.e. following up with you to set up a friend date) because taking on that task feels like a lot of effort and they're already running on empty.
Try to empathize with how challenging her life might be and how many things she's trying to juggle. It's also possible that she's struggling with something else that she hasn't opened up about — a compassionate check-in text asking if she's ok could go a long way if there's something else going on.
It sounds like you've already been very patient — but it doesn't sound like you've adapted your approach. If what you're trying isn't working, it might be time to try something else. Try inviting your friend to connect in a format that also fits into the very limited amount of time she has. Here are two examples:
FAM JAM DIN DIN
Offer to bring over dinner one night for her and the kids. You all eat together, then you and her get some time to chat together while you help do the dishes afterwards. The goal of this strategy that I learned from my colleague Danielle Bayard Jackson is to send a modifiable plan that invokes a clear image in the reader's mind — it can help the other person say yes quicker. For example: “Hey homie! Picture it: Saturday at 6pm, I come over with two hot steaming pizzas for a Fam Jam Din Din with the kiddos. You don't have to do anything except tell me what toppings you want, then open the door LOL. Whaddaya say?” One way I suggest making this idea even better is to send your message as a voice memo since it's more real-feeling than a text message, and it's faster than a phone call. For more inspiration, check out my tweet guide, How to Make A Request of a Busy Person.
PICKUP PAL TIME
If she has to pick up her kids from school by car, offer to bring her coffee, laughter, and commiseration during one of parenthood's most profanity-inducing errands. See if you can squeeze in some quality time while she's trapped in an endless purgatory of SUVs. Did you know that some caregivers sit in their cars in the school pickup line for an hour or more? That's a lot of time to catch up. I guarantee that after a visit to the hellscape known as school pickup, you'll leave with a new appreciation for life and more understanding for why your friend might be too fried to hit you up for margaritas on the regular. (Even if she probably really needs one.)
If you offer to lighten the load with a task that she usually experiences as a burden, your requests to hangout might get a more enthusiastic Yes. This doesn't mean you need to permanently maintain this role of SuperGiver, but by making a bold move like this, you'll A) maybe get some of that friend time you want and B) suss out if she really would want to see you if existing barriers were removed or lessened. If it works and you get a chance to have a heart to heart conversation, you can talk to her about how you feel and your hopes for greater closeness and more balance in your friendship.
Something to keep in mind: You didn't say in your letter whether you have kids or not, but it sounds like not, and if that's true, try remember that anyone with kids has way less time than us childfree folks do. With my friends who have kids, I've found the most success when I can slide into their life at natural breakpoints i.e. super early in the morning (like an hour so ungodly early that us childfree peeps want to sob but that parents are consciously functioning at every day), right after preschool drop-off in the morning, during their commute, or weirdly late at night. Other times, I've simply accepted that there will be an imbalance in how much attention we're able to offer each other — as in, they have less attention for me because they're chasing miniature humans who can't feed, clothe, or bathe themselves. Try not to interpret your friend's busyness and flakyness as a personal rejection of you as a human.
BUT! Don't turn yourself into a doormat. If you try some new and very generous connection offerings and they flop, or your friend truly never ever ever responds or replies to your overtures, you'll reach a day when you need to make a choice about how much more energy you want to pour into this friendship. If that day comes, I encourage you to consider a crop rotation on your friendship farm. You don't need to explode in a huge friend breakup. Just quietly let that field go fallow, knowing it can be revived at a later date if you so choose. My blog post about doing crop rotations in friendship may prove helpful here. Then turn your energy and attention towards other friends who will have as much time, energy, and enthusiasm for connection as you do.
You deserve to have friendships that are mutually fulfilling, and I guarantee you there is another person out there with the exact same complaint as you right now who wishes they had a friend as patient, attentive, and motivated to connect as you are. Chances are, you already know them.
❤️ Additional Advice I’ve Shared Online
Elite Daily: 4 Healthy Ways to Deal With a Friend Who Keeps Ignoring You
Shondaland: Why Making New Friends Is Harder as We Get Older, and How to Do It Well
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