I think I permanently broke my friend group by making a phone call.
By @owenyy · Friends
We've had the same group of girlfriends for almost 20 years, since college. One of them went quiet in our group chat for a few days, and I did what we always used to do: I called her to check in. It did not go over well.
The full story
Back before we all had cell phones and group chats, if you hadn't heard from someone in a while, you'd just call their house. It was the polite thing to do. So when one of my best friends wasn't responding to messages or memes in our big group chat for three days, I got worried. This is a friend I've vacationed with, whose babies I've held. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. Well. I called her, she didn't answer, so I left a cheerful 'Hey, just checking on you, we miss you in the chat!' voicemail. Apparently, this is now a cardinal sin. About an hour later I get a text from her saying 'why would you call me? you know if it was an emergency i'd say something.' I was a little taken aback, but I just said I was sorry and was just worried. Then the chat starts going off. A different friend from the group messages everyone (without me in it, I found out later) to say I was being 'overbearing and invasive' and that my friend needed 'space.' Then a third friend DMs me to tell me what the second friend said, and to say that the original friend feels 'suffocated' by my 'old-school' communication style. It's turned into this whole meta-debate about chat etiquette vs. phone calls, and I'm apparently the weird old lady who doesn't get it. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. I was just trying to be a good friend, the way I've been for decades. Now everything is just... quiet and awkward.
How people voted
- OP Is Right — 24% (4 votes)
- Both Messy — 59% (10 votes)
- OP Is Wrong — 18% (3 votes)
Readers say “Both Messy” (59%) — 17 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@finnactually — Soft.
@paigeish — Your friends are weaponizing therapy-speak to avoid a simple, caring conversation.
@nataliek — bruh
@brynnlately — I feel like the friend who went quiet has something else going on and you just walked into the middle of it.
@gusliterally — This happened in my fantasy league chat. A guy went quiet for a day and we sent the police to his house for a wellness check. He was just taking a nap.
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