I [30F] have a friend [27F] who we’ll call Kim who is the definition of a clingy friend. Kim messages me all day every day, multiple times a day whether I reply to her or not. She calls me a lot as well, though I usually don’t pick up or if I do, I keep the conversation short. I make time to see Kim once a week, and it’s never enough. If I spend an afternoon with her, she tells me she wishes we could spend all day together. If I spend the whole day with her, she wants to see me again during the same week, and so on. I work a full time job and have my own life beside Kim, I’m not willing to spend every moment with her. I don’t have time to be on the phone with her for hours, I’m not willing to have her tag along to all my errands, which is something she’s started to want to do recently. If it tell Kim I’m going to run an errand, she’ll try and come with.
Being her friend has become exhausting, she doesn’t take no for an answer and if I tell her I can’t hang out with her, she becomes passive aggressive and demands to know what else is it I’m doing. I’ve started lying to her, telling her I’m doing things even when I’m not just to get her off my back. I’ve told her how exhausting I find everything and how she needs to tone it down, gently and not so gently as well and every single time Kim denies being clingy and she says that she just enjoys spending time with me. Things normally improve for a couple weeks, and then it’s back exactly how it used to be. Thing is, I have other friends beside her, and I don’t see them near as much as I see her. Yet none of them complain, sometimes I go weeks without seeing my best friend and neither of us ever had an issue with that. We’re all busy adults with full time jobs, everybody but Kim seem to understand that.
Recently Kim turned even clingier, she started to show up at my house uninvited, calling me really late at night or first thing in the morning and saying stuff like how we should live together now that her lease’s coming up, even if I told her many times I’m not looking to move or to have a flatmate. She also changed her schedule at work to have my same days off, and gets really upset if I have other plans that don’t include her. I’ve tried to cut her off as much as I can but she’s relentless to the point where if I ghost her for half a day, she’ll show up at my work place.
I’m 30 and I’m way past the point of having the inseparable best friend, I would have no problems being her friend if she respected my boundaries. I’ve told her many times that I can’t give her the friendship she wants, I believe she needs somebody as invested in her as she is in me, somebody who can give her what she needs. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in school, with the “bff” always glued to my side whom I have to do everything with.
I’m not sure what to do anymore, I’ve spoken to her many times, in many different ways. I’ve explained her how I feel and it always ends in tears and ultimately, no results. The only option seems to cut her out, I don’t want to hurt her feelings but it seems there’s no other way. I’m out of my depth, I’ve never had to deal with anybody like this before.
Any advice is welcome.
2 comments
That’s not clingy that’s obsessed tbh. Whatever you do try to have a full and blunt conversation one last time and the try your best to ignore her. She seems like to either have a crush on you or having some mental health problems. If she has a crush you need to talk cuz she’s not gonna let it go but if not she needs to go get help and leave you alone. Hope you can do something about it
Not to make excuses for her, but is she just really lonely? If she doesn’t seem to have many friends, you could always try to get her to make more and then back up a little.