I have a friend who called me last night and asked me why I am ignoring her.

Uh. I’m not. I’ve just been busy.

I went on to explain to her that my friend Myrna had a tummy tuck and I spent quite a few hours at her house yesterday helping her out and doing some errands for her. Over the holiday weekend, we had plans with other friends, I’ve been planning my son’s birthday party, trying to find health insurance before COBRA runs out, managing some issues with a property we own, riding my husband to get a job, and suffering complete shock and awe over a friend of mine who found out she was pregnant and gave birth 3 freaking hours later.

My friend wasn’t impressed I guess… cause she still went on to tell me how hurt she is by my neglect of our special friendship. (insert cute little rolling eyes smiley here)

Uh. I don’t have time to nurture anyone more then the primary four needy souls in my life. (That would be John and the kids, not the kids and the dog in case you were wondering.) They are my priority and all extra time and nurturing goes to them.

I do care about this person, but our communication is really relegated to the phone. I don’t really like to talk on the phone much to begin with and this friend doesn’t live close by. So… that leaves email and she feels that is impersonal. I guess we could explore IM, but seriously, I don’t do that much either.

So I was put in this awkward position of having to defend myself. I had to convince her that I was so “busy” that justified not picking up the phone. She needed to know that I was thinking of her and she was important to me I guess. And then, now that she called me, I felt like I had to talk to her for at least 30 minutes. It sucked. It wasn’t warm and fuzzy. It felt like a chore.

So… now I feel like a loser. This person feels bad because I’m not meeting her expectations for friendship. I’m feeling bad cause she’s feeling bad and because I don’t want to meet her lofty expectations. Somewhat selfish of me I guess. Time is just so valuable to me. I think of it like a currency. My life is very full and very busy. I guess I need to get better at setting friends expectations that I am not a “daily contact” kinda girl and I really need people in my life who can “slip in out” without being needy. Surely this is an issue for other people? How do normal folks handle this issue?

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