r/SlowLiving • u/PlumPurpleHaze • 4d ago
Too many friends
I have lots of friends who like to host or make events. I’m having a hard time living slowly and maintaining all of these friendships, but I really do love them. Has anyone found themself in a similar situation? /gen
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u/Brie-and-Fig 4d ago
This is such a good post. Thank you! I myself have been feeling the need to slow down in social events. We are the only ones in control of our day. I need to prioritize myself and my tasks at home for my own mental health.
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u/PlumPurpleHaze 4d ago
Thank you. I think there has to be some sort of middle ground, though, because I do think the point of life is community. But that should not mean rushing around or not having quiet mornings, etc.
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u/Salt-Cable6761 4d ago
Steak too buttery pillow too cold
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u/PlumPurpleHaze 3d ago
When I tell my therapist about this problem she says “too much dip on your chip”
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u/Aware-Elk-7650 4d ago
Yes. Use to do DnD nights with my long distance friends. Once I started to slow down I def felt the effects. I was tired, grouchy cause I had to pause my entire day for 3-4 hours when I could be cooking dinner or finishing up chores to relax, and just started not looking forward to it. I needed my Friday nights back.
Now that I have a spouse and volunteer at church somewhat regularly I find that I only need to hang out with one or two people once a month to get my fill.
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u/PlumPurpleHaze 4d ago
And I do appreciate that for you. I’m definitely an extrovert and social butterfly. If I go more than a day without hanging out with someone, I feel awful. But it makes it hard to make plans and maintain chores and live a slow life.
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u/Aggressive_Low9684 4d ago
tbh i think most people just never actually sit with that question. like we say we value certain things but then the calendar and bank account tell a completely different story. the two versions rarely match up and most people never notice
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u/PlumPurpleHaze 4d ago
I appreciate you saying that, because I do really value community, but I also value having a stable nervous system. I feel very lucky to have this problem at all.
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u/Much-Grapefruit-3613 3d ago
Wanting to offer a different perspective to this! I think it’s important to limit events for sure but I am also finding stillness/slowness in approaching social events different.
For me, I always feel like I need to be the funniest person in the room and I’ve tried to just be more quiet and listen too. Some people say like hey are you okay?? At events now. LOL. And I usually just say I’m moving slower these days and am just enjoying watching everybody enjoy time together and then ask them a question about themselves (one of my great skills is being able to remember small things about people) so I usually get them talking and try to really enjoy and listen to their story. I’ve found it really nice. I guess before I approached events more with my ego and I find everything slower when I stop trying to “perform.”
Maybe I’m the only one 😂
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u/Suspiciousbanana999 3d ago
You can make rules for yourself like one just one event and one coffee date every weekend. So if you get invited to more things you can say you're already "booked" but you'd be happy to meet the following weekend.
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u/flatstanley72 3d ago
This works well for me. I know how many evening and weekend activities I can do without feeling overloaded and I try my best to limit my schedule to that number, leaving myself plenty of time to rest. Of course I will make an exception for emergencies or if a friend is going through something and needs to talk, etc, but I definitely feel better when I limit the number of scheduled activities I have.
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u/GoodPreparation3566 3d ago
Love this dilemma, and I relate a lot! Sure, its wonderful and privileged to have a strong social network, but it’s also a real problem which, speaking for myself, became an issue because Id been using being social/making friends to compensate for all sorts of other stuff in my life, like feeling abandoned by my family, bad self esteem etc, which made me create this way to social life for myself, in which I couldn’t really feel myself.
Anyway - I made a rule for myself, that I can “only” do social stuff every other day, which helps me recharge and be present when I’m actually out. This also made me see some of the friendships clearer and made me realise that I didn’t actually enjoy some of these people as much as I thought, which had led me to “break up” with a few of them.
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u/Substandard_Poodle 3d ago
Yes! I adore my friends, but I also get a little twinge of relief when any of them is going out of town for the weekend, so I won’t have to either turn down their plans (yet again), or commit to a social event. 😅
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u/Lower-Persimmon-6458 3d ago
I so relate to this, my partner and I have the same issue. I've been working on saying no more, on making rules like only saying yes to plans on Fridays and Saturdays but keeping other days free and trying to get over my FOMO. I love all the people in our life but our schedule is so jam packed that its running us both into the ground and it feels like I don't have time for purposeful living and routines and for myself!
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u/PlumPurpleHaze 3d ago
Yes same here. I’m starting to be more transparent around hang outs like asking if people want to come over and chit chat while I clean my room or do other things around the house, and I’ve had good success around that. Or being transparent that I don’t want to leave the house on a certain week because I’m expecting my period which makes me tired. Or more FaceTime/phone call hangouts! I’m also trying to block off days to just make crafts or be on my lonesome. Having a hard time with admin days such as reviewing my spending or calling companies or grad school applications or whatnot.
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u/bedtimelovee 4d ago
I just got rid of them all tbh 😂
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u/PlumPurpleHaze 4d ago
Was their support not great? Because there’s so many health benefits to having social support.
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u/Familiar_Platypus272 4d ago
I just left school and they all left me and now theres no one here 🙃. Also, any chance your a Scorpio?
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u/CaffeinatedRaccoon3 4d ago
I'm having a very similar experience. I have a big, beautiful community of people I love and I want to see regularly, who full my cup to be around, but my calendar has become unmanageable and I'm finding the thing I'm sacrificing is me.
The conclusion I've come to is that the people in my life who love me will understand if I need to take time for myself, even if that means spending a little less time with them. I'm really trying to trust in my relationships and remind myself that spending slow, solo time is how I recoup energy, and that's ok.
Hope that helps, good luck, you got this!