Is this friendship toxic?

gardenstategal
Fri, 03 May 2019 10:46:35 +0000

She may be feeling ambivalent about coming back to school. Or she may just feel excited about the plans and then feel like it’s going to take too much energy to drive to you and do them. (I know lots of people whose energy and enthusiasm for plans doesn’t match the idea of actually executing those plans. A few of them suffer from depression or anxiety. I would not rule that out with her history.)

But none of that should impact you any more. If she wants to visit, let her know what you’ll be doing and offer to let her join you. If she wants a place to sleep and you have a sofa to offer, great. It sounds like you should not charge your plans to accommodate the possibility that she’ll show up. That seems like a reasonable boundary since you seem fine seeing her, just not planning around her.

You can tell her you are doing this by saying “I’ve noticed that it’s been hard for you to keep the plans we make earlier in the week, so let’s plan things that can be flexible. We’re going to xyz on Friday, and we can meet you there if you come out.” That way, your plans aren’t disrupted.

If the friendship matters to you much more, you can try to have a conversation about it, explaining that you feel really hurt/used when you reorganize around her and she bails. While I am usually an advocate of this, it sounds like this friend has enough issues right now, especially around the fact that you and your other friends have stayed in school and she has not, that “to keep the door open”, you may want to see what the passage of time brings while you protect yourself with boundaries.