AITA Friend?
I feel like my friendship has reached a point where my patience is being completely misread as indifference, and I genuinely want outside perspective on whether I’m being a bad friend or communicating poorly.
Since early this year, I intentionally haven’t asked to hang out much because my friend is in school and has talked a lot about how stressed and busy she is. She also gets distracted easily, so I’ve been trying to give her space to focus. During that time, we’ve both talked about things we want to do once she has more free time, and I’ve genuinely been looking forward to it. I’ve even set aside money and held off on movies so we can experience them together later.
I also make a very intentional effort to stay calm and careful with my wording because I feel like she is more emotionally reactive than I am, so I try hard not to escalate situations.
Recently, she mentioned maybe coming over to my apartment to hang out and practice her martial arts forms because her mom’s house gets crowded. I live on the top floor, so I responded with, “as long as the footwork isn’t too loud.” To me, that was just a practical concern about neighbors, not me rejecting spending time with her.
But she interpreted it as me not being excited to see her, which honestly confused me because I am excited to spend time with her. I ended up getting defensive and attempted (she kept cutting me off) to list all the ways I’ve patiently been waiting to spend time together despite knowing she’s “too busy,” while also watching her make time for other activities and distractions instead of studying.
I wasn’t trying to guilt her or keep score. I was trying to explain that my patience and willingness to wait is me caring and being excited to see her. I think what hurt most is that I put a lot of effort into being soft and calm with my responses, and somehow it still turned into me feeling like I was being treated harshly or misunderstood on purpose as she would not let me actually finish my initial response to her saying I'm never excited to spend time with her.
She also says things like, “I never argue with anyone else the way I argue with you,” which really hurts because from my perspective I’m trying very hard to communicate carefully and respectfully. I was having a good day all around, I simply wanted to talk to my friend that I have missed and who swears they love and care about me deeply. It's always in moments when I actively try my best to show affection (something people say I'm not good at), I always end up feeling like shit. I do not know what I am doing wrong.
Am I handling this badly? Does my way of showing care come across as detached without me realizing it? Should I not have made the comment about the possible noise?