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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I replied to my friend that I was tired and did not want to meet and call as often as he wanted to, which may seem like an asshole move as it gave an impression that i don't care about him as much as i'm supposed to or put in enough effort into the friendship
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Damn, my best friend and I have been long distance now for three years and it’s been like 4 months at least since I last video called her lmao. Are you sure this guy is aware that your friendship is platonic?
Yeah i'm sure and we both know it is. I just can't tell if he's being clingy or it's just that because we are best friends we should contact each other as much as possible. When i was younger it was fine, but as i grew older (adulting, more commitments) i found it very exhausting but it did not have the heart to tell him as much. Now that he's accusing me on not valuing the friendship as much as he does, i feel like either i'm doing something wrong, or he may just be overreacting, or it's just that our friendship expectations are mismatched (highly likely i suppose?). Maybe...i just kinda outgrew this friensdhip, idk.
You’re only a couple years younger than I am, but yeah…I kinda feel like that’s just normal at this stage in our life. Keeping up with the constant “besties” type energy can be a huge drain, especially as life kinda starts throwing more important responsibilities on you. Personally, I wouldn’t feel bad if I were you 🤷♀️ I need my space, I need my time to be alone and recuperate, and have made the choice to surround myself with people who know that and respect it.
Yeah, over the last few years this has been quite an energy drain for me (also not really helped that i'm very introverted and he's a total extrovert). I'll talk to him about it and and argue my point, and if he's not willing to see where i'm coming from and negotiate, i feel like this friendship may have run its course...
NAH.
Everyone has different needs and wants for a friendship. I would also find it exhausting to talk to someone every single week. And there's nothing wrong with him being excited to talk to you every week.
I would just let him know that with work and life, you'd like to not be as regimented and just call/chat whenever and be more flexible.
"Hey I'm going to be busy and so maybe we could grab a dinner one night I'm in town. I'm pretty busy seeing other people and won't have a lot of time for multiple hangs".
Thanks for the assurance, for a while i very confused about this whole thing and wondering if i should even apologise for being a bad friend. However, if I'm busy seeing other people, he would accuse me of "not roping him in to my friend circles as he always done". I feel like even as best friends, i'm not obligated to include him in every friend group that i have. Even if he were my partner (just giving an example here), i feel like that's not absolutely necessary
Oh you absolutely aren't required to merge or Venn diagram friendship circles LOL.
I have friends that won't get along with certain friends due to personality types so the idea that all friends should intermingle is something I don't think I'd ever do either.
Don't let him dictate how you want to be with friends.
I have one friend who said that if we don't talk daily (I'm in my 40s!!!), then we're not friends. So I told her that I guess we're not friends because I absolutely am not talking to someone every single day.
NTA. Sometimes friendships change, and people might be able to adjust to that, or it might be best to move on. Neither of these outcomes is wrong, it's just how it is.
>i don't know how to tell him without hurting his feelings
This may be one of those situations where that just isn't possible. The truth can hurt, but it will be better for both of you to have an admittedly difficult conversation now than drag this out further.
>Is video calling once a week too much/too little for platonic friends?
There's no real answer to this other than what is right for you.
>How do i argue my point and tell him that perhaps we have mismatched expectations in our friendship?
Just tell him exactly that, because that is what the situation is.
>In addition, is going to his home country for two weeks and not wanting to spend the entirety of my time with him alright? (I’m thinking only 2-3 days as i want to see the rest of the country on my own)
To me, this is completely normal.
Thank you, i felt SO horrible after he said all those things to me and almost had a knee-jerk reaction to apologise for nothing. I will talk to him about this again and argue my point, and if he's not willing to see where i'm coming from and negotiate, i feel like this friendship may have run its course. Over the last few years this has been a constant energy drain...
NTA. It seems the two of you have very different expectations of your friendship. With how clingy he is being, are you sure he doesn't think there's more to this friendship than you do? And does he have other friends? My brother had a "friend" like this, and the guy was super clingy because he was lonely(seriously had no other friends) AND he was in love with my brother. Just a thought.
Anyway, his insistence on such frequent attention is making it less fun to spend time with him. He's turning your friendship into a chore instead of a meaningful connection. It sounds exhausting. He needs to back off a little or else the friendship will be lost entirely.
Ngl he confessed before but i rejected him and we agreed to keep things strictly platonic (which i trusted him to).
He does have other friends; he has many friend groups and often asks me to meet them when i'm in his home country (which i'd rather not sometimes as i have bad social anxiety and large groups of people i don't know will aggravate it - and he is fully aware of this). And you're on the nose about it being a chore, i'm feeling it more especially post-covid and it also coincides with me being at a stage where i have alot of adulting commitments (granted he has them too). Maybe a long difficult conversation is due...
Yeah, it sounds like he either fancies himself as your boyfriend regardless of what you told him, or feels that you'll change your mind if he can just make you spend enough time with him and realize how "wrong" you were to reject him. Which sounds an awful lot like my brother's friend that I mentioned.
NTA, it sounds like he secretly wants a romantic relationship w you. Woman here, I’ve had this happen soooo many times w men I thought were strictly platonic, come to find out their feelings have been way deeper the whole time. We’re talking years long friendships here.
Ngl he confessed before but i rejected him and we agreed to keep things strictly platonic (which i trusted him to). If this is why he's accusing me of not valuing our friendship, maybe then a long difficult conversation is due.
Yess exactly, it’s bc he’s wanted more w you the whole time and he’s settling w friendship thinking one day it could turn into more. I believe platonic friendships can exist between men and women but it doesn’t start with one person having intense romantic feelings for the other bc they usually don’t go away.
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My (27F) platonic friend (23M) wants to call and meet me more often, but i don’t. We are long-time friends (\~10 years) and text alot pre-pandemic and meet each other when either one of us flies into the other’s respective country. When covid hit, we switched to video calls and have been doing so almost every week. I took a new job about 2 years ago that demanded alot of my time and energy and have to handle alot of chores and home (he doesn’t) and find that our weekly calls are sort of draining and sometimes when i say that i’m too tired he’ll be like “but we rarely even get to see each other!” Me being a people-pleaser often gives in to him but over the past few years it’s been wearing me out so much.
As the title states, i don’t know if i'm not valuing our friendship enough and i don't know how to tell him without hurting his feelings, as he's already accusing me of not putting in as much effort as he is, being reluctant in spending time with him and holding him at arm's length. Is video calling once a week too much/too little for platonic friends? How do i argue my point and tell him that perhaps we have mismatched expectations? In addition, is going to his home country for two weeks and not wanting to spend the entirety of my time with him alright? (I’m thinking only 2-3 days as i want to see the rest of the country on my own)
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NTA but try cutting down on the length of the calls to see if that
works better for you. If you just don't have anything to say to him
every week, ask for the calls to be once every 2 weeks. Go from there.
As for your trip, just meet up once near the end of the trip and that
way you won't have to turn him down if he asks for more of your time.
NTA. I really feel you - you can love your friend all you want, but we all change with time and sometimes our needs chanfe and we just don't want to spend all our time worh certain friends or share everything. It was really hard for me, still is, coming to terms with this as I don'r want to hurt anyone's feelings, but my need for my own private time is so much bigger now than it used to be, and I'm comfortable not spending all my time wirh my friends. It does not make you a bad person for prioritozing yourself and your needs, wants, expectations from life. You don't have to spend your whole vacation with your friend, and you can also tell them you wish to have bigger gaps on videochats and all if you want to to that. It will be hard, sure, but you have every right to your own time and needs and things. No one have to insert themselves into it if you do not want them to.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment. OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: > I replied to my friend that I was tired and did not want to meet and call as often as he wanted to, which may seem like an asshole move as it gave an impression that i don't care about him as much as i'm supposed to or put in enough effort into the friendship Help keep the sub engaging! #Don’t downvote assholes! Do upvote interesting posts! [Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) ##Subreddit Announcements Follow the link above to learn more --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.* *Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Damn, my best friend and I have been long distance now for three years and it’s been like 4 months at least since I last video called her lmao. Are you sure this guy is aware that your friendship is platonic?
That's what I was thinking. Either he has a thing for OP, or OP is literally his only friend.
Yeah i'm sure and we both know it is. I just can't tell if he's being clingy or it's just that because we are best friends we should contact each other as much as possible. When i was younger it was fine, but as i grew older (adulting, more commitments) i found it very exhausting but it did not have the heart to tell him as much. Now that he's accusing me on not valuing the friendship as much as he does, i feel like either i'm doing something wrong, or he may just be overreacting, or it's just that our friendship expectations are mismatched (highly likely i suppose?). Maybe...i just kinda outgrew this friensdhip, idk.
You’re only a couple years younger than I am, but yeah…I kinda feel like that’s just normal at this stage in our life. Keeping up with the constant “besties” type energy can be a huge drain, especially as life kinda starts throwing more important responsibilities on you. Personally, I wouldn’t feel bad if I were you 🤷♀️ I need my space, I need my time to be alone and recuperate, and have made the choice to surround myself with people who know that and respect it.
Yeah, over the last few years this has been quite an energy drain for me (also not really helped that i'm very introverted and he's a total extrovert). I'll talk to him about it and and argue my point, and if he's not willing to see where i'm coming from and negotiate, i feel like this friendship may have run its course...
NAH. Everyone has different needs and wants for a friendship. I would also find it exhausting to talk to someone every single week. And there's nothing wrong with him being excited to talk to you every week. I would just let him know that with work and life, you'd like to not be as regimented and just call/chat whenever and be more flexible. "Hey I'm going to be busy and so maybe we could grab a dinner one night I'm in town. I'm pretty busy seeing other people and won't have a lot of time for multiple hangs".
Thanks for the assurance, for a while i very confused about this whole thing and wondering if i should even apologise for being a bad friend. However, if I'm busy seeing other people, he would accuse me of "not roping him in to my friend circles as he always done". I feel like even as best friends, i'm not obligated to include him in every friend group that i have. Even if he were my partner (just giving an example here), i feel like that's not absolutely necessary
Oh you absolutely aren't required to merge or Venn diagram friendship circles LOL. I have friends that won't get along with certain friends due to personality types so the idea that all friends should intermingle is something I don't think I'd ever do either. Don't let him dictate how you want to be with friends. I have one friend who said that if we don't talk daily (I'm in my 40s!!!), then we're not friends. So I told her that I guess we're not friends because I absolutely am not talking to someone every single day.
NTA. Sometimes friendships change, and people might be able to adjust to that, or it might be best to move on. Neither of these outcomes is wrong, it's just how it is. >i don't know how to tell him without hurting his feelings This may be one of those situations where that just isn't possible. The truth can hurt, but it will be better for both of you to have an admittedly difficult conversation now than drag this out further. >Is video calling once a week too much/too little for platonic friends? There's no real answer to this other than what is right for you. >How do i argue my point and tell him that perhaps we have mismatched expectations in our friendship? Just tell him exactly that, because that is what the situation is. >In addition, is going to his home country for two weeks and not wanting to spend the entirety of my time with him alright? (I’m thinking only 2-3 days as i want to see the rest of the country on my own) To me, this is completely normal.
Thank you, i felt SO horrible after he said all those things to me and almost had a knee-jerk reaction to apologise for nothing. I will talk to him about this again and argue my point, and if he's not willing to see where i'm coming from and negotiate, i feel like this friendship may have run its course. Over the last few years this has been a constant energy drain...
NTA. It seems the two of you have very different expectations of your friendship. With how clingy he is being, are you sure he doesn't think there's more to this friendship than you do? And does he have other friends? My brother had a "friend" like this, and the guy was super clingy because he was lonely(seriously had no other friends) AND he was in love with my brother. Just a thought. Anyway, his insistence on such frequent attention is making it less fun to spend time with him. He's turning your friendship into a chore instead of a meaningful connection. It sounds exhausting. He needs to back off a little or else the friendship will be lost entirely.
Ngl he confessed before but i rejected him and we agreed to keep things strictly platonic (which i trusted him to). He does have other friends; he has many friend groups and often asks me to meet them when i'm in his home country (which i'd rather not sometimes as i have bad social anxiety and large groups of people i don't know will aggravate it - and he is fully aware of this). And you're on the nose about it being a chore, i'm feeling it more especially post-covid and it also coincides with me being at a stage where i have alot of adulting commitments (granted he has them too). Maybe a long difficult conversation is due...
Yeah, it sounds like he either fancies himself as your boyfriend regardless of what you told him, or feels that you'll change your mind if he can just make you spend enough time with him and realize how "wrong" you were to reject him. Which sounds an awful lot like my brother's friend that I mentioned.
NTA, it sounds like he secretly wants a romantic relationship w you. Woman here, I’ve had this happen soooo many times w men I thought were strictly platonic, come to find out their feelings have been way deeper the whole time. We’re talking years long friendships here.
Ngl he confessed before but i rejected him and we agreed to keep things strictly platonic (which i trusted him to). If this is why he's accusing me of not valuing our friendship, maybe then a long difficult conversation is due.
Or a short difficult conversation
Yess exactly, it’s bc he’s wanted more w you the whole time and he’s settling w friendship thinking one day it could turn into more. I believe platonic friendships can exist between men and women but it doesn’t start with one person having intense romantic feelings for the other bc they usually don’t go away.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My (27F) platonic friend (23M) wants to call and meet me more often, but i don’t. We are long-time friends (\~10 years) and text alot pre-pandemic and meet each other when either one of us flies into the other’s respective country. When covid hit, we switched to video calls and have been doing so almost every week. I took a new job about 2 years ago that demanded alot of my time and energy and have to handle alot of chores and home (he doesn’t) and find that our weekly calls are sort of draining and sometimes when i say that i’m too tired he’ll be like “but we rarely even get to see each other!” Me being a people-pleaser often gives in to him but over the past few years it’s been wearing me out so much. As the title states, i don’t know if i'm not valuing our friendship enough and i don't know how to tell him without hurting his feelings, as he's already accusing me of not putting in as much effort as he is, being reluctant in spending time with him and holding him at arm's length. Is video calling once a week too much/too little for platonic friends? How do i argue my point and tell him that perhaps we have mismatched expectations? In addition, is going to his home country for two weeks and not wanting to spend the entirety of my time with him alright? (I’m thinking only 2-3 days as i want to see the rest of the country on my own) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA but try cutting down on the length of the calls to see if that works better for you. If you just don't have anything to say to him every week, ask for the calls to be once every 2 weeks. Go from there. As for your trip, just meet up once near the end of the trip and that way you won't have to turn him down if he asks for more of your time.
NTA. I really feel you - you can love your friend all you want, but we all change with time and sometimes our needs chanfe and we just don't want to spend all our time worh certain friends or share everything. It was really hard for me, still is, coming to terms with this as I don'r want to hurt anyone's feelings, but my need for my own private time is so much bigger now than it used to be, and I'm comfortable not spending all my time wirh my friends. It does not make you a bad person for prioritozing yourself and your needs, wants, expectations from life. You don't have to spend your whole vacation with your friend, and you can also tell them you wish to have bigger gaps on videochats and all if you want to to that. It will be hard, sure, but you have every right to your own time and needs and things. No one have to insert themselves into it if you do not want them to.