how to tell friend to stop calling me so much???

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I get very worried when I see needy or lonely or awkward people automatically painted as being "a creep". Some people are just not good at understanding social cues. Others may understand them but may just be lonely and clingy. I'm not saying anyone has to put up with being clung to, but blaming and faulting a person for their insecurities, loneliness and emotional pain just seems cruel.

And cutting someone off completely is a terrible thing that needs to be reserved for only the most extreme cases, in which someone is actively harming you. It's hard and it takes effort to make room for other people's flaws and foibles, but that's our responsibility as humans, to try to apply compassion first, whenever we can. And people are not disposable, not even when they are annoying.

Since you started this thread, that’s the first time you asked him to be considerate and limit his frequency of calls?

That's about my view on it. Certainly a lack of social skills doesn't mean a person can't simply be a sh***y person, but I don't think that's the case with my friend here. I have a hard time being firm and clear with boundaries due to my manifestation of autism and especially my trauma history, and this friend needs clear extremely clear communication due to his manifestation of autism.

My friend also has a trauma history due to his autism, clearly a worse one than mine from what he's communicated with me. For him, this means he's afraid of making people he loves mad at him. And since he has no social grace and can't tell when people are upset until it's blaringly in-your-face obvious, that tends to happen a lot.

Our talk included a lot of prompted reassurance that I'll still remain his friend.

Last edited by colliegrace on 27 May 2023, 3:20 pm, edited 3 times in total.

The first time I was successful in explaining my needs, at least.

I see. 5+ weeks is a long time to have let this go on until you firmly communicated what you wanted to, IMO.