Auntie SparkNotes: My Friend Won’t Talk To Me When He’s Sad

Auntie SparkNotes,

One of my best friends, let’s call him Z, has a very rocky relationship with his father and brother. His parents have been separated for years now, and his brother and father live together, while Z lives with his mother. He has a pretty good relationship with his mother, and a very good relationship with his sister. Typically when he lives with them he’s his regular, switched-on, hilarious self.

But I can always tell when he’s spent time with his father and/or brother. He gets quiet. And when something that really affects him happens, he gets absolutely silent. He won’t answer any messages—he won’t even look at them. Even if I tell him that he’s welcome to come over to just watch TV or a movie anything at all to distract himself and get a change of scenery, even if I tell him that I won’t ask questions and I won’t judge him for anything he wants to say, he won’t send any reply at all. This usually lasts five or so days, and the last time it happened my friends and I created a care package for him to find. He loved it and was so grateful.

I’m an introvert, so I’m never going to criticize someone for needing space, and I was also a full-time carer for my sister who underwent cancer treatment, so I’ve definitely had my own moments where talking to anyone is the last thing I want. But this time I’m really really worried, Auntie. He’s been absolutely silent for two weeks. I sent him a message saying that he didn’t have to explain or talk or anything—just could he let me know if he was, at the very least, physically okay? That didn’t get a response.

Two days ago I left a note on his door saying essentially the same thing. I was worried that I’d be intruding on his space and afraid it’d seem like I was guilt-tripping him into responding, but my worry for his wellbeing took over because the only way I knew he was even alive was that he’d been ‘active’ (without engaging anyone) on social media in the days that had passed. My note prompted a text – it said thanks and he wasn’t willing to return to talking to anyone yet.

I feel useless, Auntie. And I know that it doesn’t matter how I feel—it’s not about me at all. But I’m worried about him; I keep worrying about him, every time this happens. Truthfully, it’s getting tiring. Truthfully, I was a little hurt that I had to go to the effort of driving to his house and putting a note on his door to receive a two-line message that I’d been asking for this whole time.

But then I remember that if I feel tired, he probably feels exhausted to the core. If I’m a little hurt, he’s hurting way more about things that aren’t my business. And so I end up feeling guilty as well as worried, but I don’t do anything.

I miss him. I want to help him. But it feels like he doesn’t want to be helped. Is there really nothing I can do?

Let’s start with the good news, Sparkler: There is, indeed, something you can do.

The bad news, alas, is that it seems to be the one thing on earth that you struggle with most. Namely: The best and one and only thing you can do to help your friend is to respect his obvious and clearly-articulated boundaries and let him cope the way he wants to.

And darling, I know that’s difficult, I know you care about your friend, and that you’d like to be able to help him. But as you yourself pointed out, what you’d like is completely irrelevant here. Your friend’s hard time is not an opportunity for you to feel proud about what a good and helpful friend you are—and I’m sorry to tell you that you’re crossing some serious lines in your attempts to make it one. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I got to the part where you drove to your friend’s house to emotionally blackmail him in writing because he wasn’t adequately involving you in his unhappiness. (And when your next move was to complain about how exhausting and hurtful said emotional blackmailing was for you, my jaw not only hit the floor, but straight-up detached from my body, crawled down the hall, got in an elevator, and rode six stories down to hit against another, lower floor for good measure.)

Every person has their own way of coping with hard times. For your friend, it takes the form of a full-on disappearing act. And that might not be what you do, it might not be what you’d prefer, it might seem unreasonable—hell, it might even be unreasonable—and it might be perfectly understandable that you find it upsetting and frustrating to have to sit on your hands while he does god-knows-what for days on end in his Sad Crying Fortress of Infinite Solitude. But honey, this is who he is. I cannot urge you enough to stop taking it personally, to stop making it about you, and especially to stop making his hard times harder by piling on demands that he answer your messages just so, and cater to your needs just so, at the time when he’s least equipped to do that. If you’re going to reach out to him when he’s in isolation mode, you need to do it with the understanding that you won’t be getting a response until he’s out of his funk.

And look: If you find that too exhausting and frustrating, and you just can’t do it, it’s okay. Not everyone has the temperament to handle a friend who goes incommunicado when things get tough. It’s just if that’s the case, then the thing that needs to change is your approach to the friendship, and your expectations thereof. You cannot make this guy give you the precise role that you want to play in his life; you can only accept or decline the one available. And nobody else can make that choice for you.

But Sparkler, if I can make a gentle suggestion: You know from experience that this guy not only appreciates your efforts to let him know you’re there (see: the care package incident), but that he can be counted upon to make with the gratitude as soon as he’s up for resuming human contact—which doesn’t even take that long. Dealing with the occasional tiresome five days (or very occasional two weeks) of radio silence, for the sake of a kind, caring, switched-on, hilarious friend who you love deeply… I don’t know, dude. That seems fair enough to me, but you are your own master.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
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