I (32F) feel bombarded by texts and DMs from acquaintances, coworkers, friends I haven’t seen in years, and random extended family members. It seems people I don’t want or need to hear from want to interact regularly, and I don’t know how to change this.
For context I am an introverted person who presents as an extravert. My friendships are meaningful to me and I take being a good friend seriously. I feel I barely have time to maintain the friendships/relationships I have, let alone doing the emotional labour of responding to pointless conversational messages every day. On average I have 3-5 messages a day from people that I wouldn’t like to follow up with. If someone has a clear stated purpose for messaging (eg. a shift swap) then of course that’s different, it’s the small talk or unfunny memes I find draining. I’ve tried to stretch out the time it takes me to respond, or have even stopped replying in some instances, but it makes me incredibly uncomfortable when people can’t take the hint, and later ask me directly why I didn’t answer them. This has happened more times than I can count. I struggle to be honest about this in the moment. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, I just don’t want to interact beyond what we do in person.
I work as a nurse and find my shifts to be incredibly draining, and I often feel sensory overload with the constant beeping, screens, emails, voceras, phones, yelling, etc. I have a positive attitude at work, but by the time I make it to my car I feel like I’m emotionally limping. It’s a relief to get home and decompress. I work in a large building and our care teams aren’t consistent, meaning I have hundreds of coworkers I interact with regularly, many of whom I barely know. I feel irritated when coworkers want to message outside of work when our time between shifts seems so brief and precious. I usually don’t respond, or give an excuse as to why I’m busy, but they don’t seem to get the hint, or they get passive aggressive.
Until recently I attended a gym with a strong community. I became close with a few people, and was friendly to new faces, but tried to keep it to brief conversations and “great work!” kind of interactions. I get that making friends as an adult is difficult, and the gym and sports are a great place to forge friendships. I simply do not have the desire or capacity to make new friendships right now. I want to be a positive presence and then I’d like to go back to my life away from the gym, without feeling obligated to maintain pointless conversations via messages in between. I’m hoping to be back at the gym soon, but I dread the possibility of future acquaintance messages.
I have a private Instagram without my last name, and don’t have Facebook. My activity status is switched to off on Instagram. Co-workers can access my email through work, and there is a culture of sharing phone numbers so that people can connect if they are looking for shift swaps. I have deleted my Instagram for extended periods of time previously, and that helped with unwanted contact, but I do like keeping up with close friends and I love memes.
I wish that people would consider that friendly doesn’t equal friendship. I have a caring personality, and a jokey demeanour, but that doesn’t mean I have infinite emotional energy. I struggle with major depression, though aside from my partner that isn’t something people know, or something I’d like to share. I also like alone time and resent having an overly full schedule.
How do I prevent unwanted small talk messages with kindness?
1 comment
I fully relate to this! I’ve turned off my text notifications and that’s really helped to cut down on my guilt for not instantly replying. I’ve also begun to insert little jokes in conversation about being terrible at getting back to people and being like a cat in my alone time even though I present as more bubbly and extroverted. Over time, people have for the most part finally started to get the hint. There are a select few though who just seem to be exceptionally needy for constant social contact and I’m using those people as an opportunity to work on my boundary setting (it’s not something I’m naturally good at). I’ve also found it’s pushing me to work on prioritizing my needs and to let go of the guilt of not coddling others’ social needs at the expense of my own. I’d imagine since you’re in the nursing field you’re a naturally caring and nurturing person which I am, too. I think that’s why it’s such a struggle for us to be ok with turning off and away from others to reset and care for ourselves. I wish you the best and just wanted to let you know you aren’t alone in the struggle!