Should I let the friendship go??
So I have a friend who I love dearly, she is a lot of fun and we’ve been there for each other through some tough times and lot of fun times too.
Over the last 12 months I’ve started to notice a lot of our phone calls end with the call cutting out. She doesn’t try to call back and if I mention it she just laughs about her battery going flat (if I call her she doesn’t answer). It happens so much it’s become really obvious that she is hanging up.
I definitely feel the conversations are mutual (and I’ve been really paranoid to make sure they aren’t one sided since I started to suspect she’s hanging up), I ask about her family, work etc and I feel the conversations are genuinely two sided. Sometimes our conversations can be long but I don’t understand if she has to go why she wouldn’t just say???
For example the other day she called as I was leaving work to pick my kids up school, she was also picking hers up, I parked at the school and was just about to say ‘I better get going the kids are coming out’ when the call disconnected.
I feel like such a loser that my friend doesn’t have the same love and respect for me to just say she needs to go. I feel embarrassed and uncomfortable confronting her, I’m such a wimp with tackling issues head on.
I don’t really know what I’m asking since I know most of you will probably just say to ask her about it but I just don’t think I can.
We share several mutual friends and have kids of similar ages and our husbands are friends, to be completely honest I feel like to much of a loser to tackle it, I mean I’m a grown woman whose friend is regularly hanging up mid phone call, I feel embarrassed that she feels the need to do this.
I always have so much fun with her, I love her sense of humour but I feel like this is saying a lot about what I will accept as a person if I continue to ignore this. Should I just let the friendship go?? As I said we have loads of mutual friends so would still be at a lot of the same things but wondering if I should just step back from her being one of my closer friends despite how much I enjoy her company if this is how she is going to treat me?
Thoughts/advice please 🙏
5 Replies
I do understand people get flat batteries it happens to me, but I also think people are just generally losing phone manners and it's really easy for someone to blame a flat battery or a bad connection on ending a phone call instead of just being a grown up and ending the call politely. If you really feel as though it's being done on purpose then I would trust your instinct and keep contact to face to face to really watch body language etc, to see if she really is interested in your conversations or would rather be somewhere else.
It could be just the phone cutting out.
I phone my mum every day, sometimes we speak twice a day.
The phone will cut out nearly every call over 30 mins.
I usually don’t call her back, just wait till the next day.
I am terrible for flat batteries
Maybe there is a lot going on, she just gets caught up.
Although I have had a few friends just drop out
My mums phone randomly cuts out. I also have had customers who ring and their phone will randomly cut out, it may not be on purpose.
I could probably give your friend the benefit of the doubt if this only happened occasionally and if she seemed apologetic about it but it seems to have become a real consistent thing, frankly I don't buy that her phone is just cutting out for no reason and I don't buy that it's constantly going flat.
I have a feeling these calls never seem to get cut off when she's halfway through talking, am I right?
If this was my friend, I think I'd probably distance myself somewhat. I'd let her call me but I wouldn't be going out of my way to call her. If and when she did call me, I'd start the convo with a friendly but direct "Do you have enough charge to talk? I'm kind of tired of being cut off" and I'd follow it up with a "let me know if/when you need to go".
I wouldn't let the friendship go. Either she's not aware that her actions are hurting you or she's just not the best friend you thought she was. Talk to her. But, fyi, if my phone drops out, I only call back if it's important.