You can stop the madness, LW.

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

One of my oldest friends has lost several friends to cross-country moves, and the friends who remain don’t treat her well. She’s leaned on me a lot as a result. The problem: She only ever wants to hang out in person, I live 90 minutes away, and she expects me to be the only one who travels. She has a car, I don’t, but she makes excuses not to visit (“Parking is hard!”). I take trains to get to her, but she refuses to do the same (“I’ll get lost!”). We don’t talk much outside of visits; she only ever messages me to say “We should hang out more,” without offering to make plans, so I wind up organizing everything. Is it wrong to resent this? I’ve tried bringing this up, but she still expects me to visit her even more than I already do without making any effort herself.

— Train Rides Can Get Expensive

charlotte989875

Tell her you’d love to hang out, at your place. 

I can see how she lost friends in cross-country moves- if you’re never willing to make an effort with friends, it gets old for them real quick. 

Visit if you want, LW, but trains run both ways and it’s not that hard to find the station on GoogleMaps. 

banana468

charlotte989875 said:

Tell her you’d love to hang out, at your place. 

I can see how she lost friends in cross-country moves- if you’re never willing to make an effort with friends, it gets old for them real quick. 

Visit if you want, LW, but trains run both ways and it’s not that hard to find the station on GoogleMaps. 

This.  

And should it get worse then there's the CTJ friend chat.  Tell her that you feel like things are one-sided regarding the effort. 

short+sassy

I don't have much tolerance for this kind of thing.  It sounds like it would be easier for the friend to visit the LW, because they have a car.  Yet they never do.

I'd visit the friend when I feel like it and, when I don't, respond with an equally general, "Yeah, we should."

With that said, I had a friend who got severe anxiety traveling outside of her normal routine.  It reminded me of agoraphobia, except she could at least leave her house.  But would only drive within a few miles of it and only on main roads she was very familiar with.  I'm wondering if the LW's friend has the same issue.

It got a lot worse as she got older and it hurt my feelings.  When I would go home to visit CA, I had particular restaurants/places I wanted to hit.  But, if she had never been there before, she was "too nervous" to drive there.  It even got to a point where, if I didn't have a rental car, she would have someone else drive her to my mom's house because "she's never in San Clemente (SC) anymore and is worried she'll get lost".  SC is only 20 minutes from where she lives.  Which, by Southern CA mileage, is nothing, lol.  Plus she'd been there many times, back in the day when I lived there.

She's been married now for a long time and that improved things.  Because her H drives her everywhere.  Though she still seems nervous to be in unfamiliar places.

She's always lived in such a small, sheltered world.  I've always wondered if she likes it that way (she seems to) because she has to.  Or if she'd like a bigger, fuller life better, if only fear didn't hold her back.

MyNameIsNot

I'm going to guess that when she talks to her other friends, she tells them that you don't treat her well. 

She's making you feel sorry for her so that you'll bend over backwards for her. 

STARMOON44

Drop the rope. Don’t go to her. Don’t organize. “Would love to see you let me know a good day for you to come here.” And never follow up. 

banana468

This is my issue with my mom - but she's old and the fear set in recently.

I watched the similar thing hit with a friendship 20 years ago and it broke up never to recover.  No one wants to be the person always offering to travel.

That said, you also need to be the person who offers to host.  Don't complain to me that I'm not heading to see you if you aren't inviting me to your place.