Friend is Addicted to Texting

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I recently starting having a problem. My friend got a new smartphone, and got HEAVILY into texting. Now she texts me non-stop, up to every hour, and gets miffed when I don't respond to texts right away. She also wants to have these 20-minute back-and-forth text conversations. IT'S SO AGGRAVATING. Every time I text with her, I have to punch a couch cushion, smoke a cigarette, drink a beer, and occasionally punch myself in the chest wrestler-style (it's not as painful as it sounds) out of sheer frustration. There were times where I could barely restrain myself from snapping my phone into two.

Now, I have an old-style phone, with 12 keys and a small screen, instead of a smartphone with a big screen and a virtual QWERTY keyboard. (Reason being that I don't want my boss to force me to set up company e-mail on my personal phone; he's done it to my colleagues who have smartphones.) So texting on it is extremely frustrating. My phone keeps auto-correcting things when using T9, and typing words using the standard ABC function is way slow. Oftentimes, she sends me the second text while I'm still typing a response to the first one. She's overfilled my inbox time and time again, and I have to delete old messages to free up space. This is problematic, as I save all text messages that are even remotely hostile, in case a friend turns against me. She doesn't know that many people, so I bear the brunt of her texting addiction. Also, since my phone keeps beeping from incoming texts at random moments at most hours of the day, I can never fully relax, and it's causing me to have things like high blood pressure, nightmares, and pervasive angry, depressed mood.

I fully understand that texting has its place. Even I use it sometimes. But only for short, one-time information transfers, like giving someone an address. Or quick confirmations like "hey, are we still on for tonight?" / "yes". But this friend texts me almost every hour with the most trivial things, like "I saw this bag of chips on sale". And she expects me to have long text-only conversations with her, even when a voice call will accomplish the task more efficiently in under 5 minutes.

I tried to talk to her about it, of course. I tried politely asking her not to text me so much; heck, I even did it via text. She responded with: "it's just how I talk, get over it :p". I tried telling to her face that she has a texting addition. She brushed off my concerns. I can understand why she's into texting so much: she's as NT as a girl gets. She dresses in latest fashions, owns the latest smartphone, listens to latest music, knows the latest Hollywood gossip, and works as an administrative assistant (secretary) for a large company. I don't know if she's indeed addicted to texting, or does it only because the NT society says we're supposed to text a lot.

Now, she's been my friend for a very long time, and she's a good friend in many ways. (This counteracts the theory that all NTs are mean or unloyal.) But this texting thing is driving a massive wedge into the friendship. I'm starting to contemplate the possibility of cutting her out of my life for good if she doesn't stop texting me so much. I can also go to my phone carrier and disable texting. But this'll affect other people who send me texts. Sure, they do it a few times a month maximum, but when they need to, they need to. And I find it helpful too. Wouldn't be fair to myself, let alone them.

So, on with my question: how do I get it across to her that her texting is bother me. Clearly, she told me to get over it! And I guess ending a long-time friendship over something like texting is kind of unfair. Are there any ways you can suggest getting the point across to her? Like, from you past experiences when something worked. While we're at it, are there any ways I can convince her to do something about her texting addiction? My addiction is smoking, but I do it mostly when alone or with other smokers. I never smoke around children, and try to stand at least 10 feet downwind from non-smoking adults. Her addiction, on the other hand, is affecting other people in her life. So is there anything you can suggest? Or is this a lost cause, and should I just resign myself to being bombarded with texts?

First make it very clear that you are not going to respond immediately to each of her many texts, and that you can't have her monopolizing your inbox by over filling it with non essential info. Then try one or more of the items below.

1. Block her calls, and just call her when it's a good time for you.

2. Get a second phone for chattier people to call you on, but keep the ring/beep shut off until it's a good time for you.

3. Tell her that her constant texting is interfering with work, so she should email you instead.

Hope this helps, but be aware that any attempts on your part to cut down her aggressive texting are likely to sour the relationship.

Don't reply. Let her get miffed. Noone ever died of being annoyed.

Tell her "I don't like to text. Stop texting me or I'm going to block your number. Text me for something important or call me, but if it's something that isn't urgent just email me. I'm glad you like your new phone so much but I don't like mine that much and it's driving me crazy going off all the time." Then go on to a different subject without sounding angry. She probably doesn't realize that she's being really annoying. If she keeps texting you for silly stuff answer back once with "Stop texting, I'm not answering " and then just delete all subsequent texts. Answer back once like that for trivial stuff once a day only and then just delete the rest. You can even tell her that you are going to delete them unread. (While I understand that you want to save the text to possibly prove a point later on if you need to, it's usually not something that anybody really cares about having shown to them so unless it's something that could cause serious problems, I'd just delete them. If somebody doesn't take your word about old texts then you have no obligation to try and prove some hostility to them)

She's just enjoying her phone a lot and the new will wear off it soon and she won't text as much. She will probably stop if you just ignore all her texts anyway unless its something that really needs to be answered. I've done that with people who send me instant messages online or texts on the phone a lot. Eventually they get the message or they get blocked.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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I think its related to establishing personnal boundries. You have already tried to explain it to them and I think its your perogative to not text constantly. So I would turn the phone off when you don't feel like being bothered, and only respond to texts you feel like reponding to. They will get that message. Otherwise treat them as you always have.

Someone once told me that unrewarded behavior will eventually extinguish itself. So last time I put my black-belt skills in avoidance to work for me by not replying. Ever. Otherwise I maintain contact with that person by means we both enjoy. At first there was a bit of anger, then whining, then eventually it just became a non-issue. There is only one person with whom I text, and I intend to keep it that way. Otherwise I find it the most dreadful way of attempting a conversation, and the intrusiveness of that message beep ranks with a ringing telephone in being disturbing.

Hey, just a quick update. I'm no longer friends with the text addict girl. The end of friendship had very little to do with her texting. I stopped being friends with her because she kept bringing up stuff from my dark past, when my AS symptoms were exponentially more severe than they are now. I tried to tell her to stop, but angrily reacted that she was only telling the truth, and I need to accept it. Needless to say, I threw her out of my life, changed my phone number, and never looked back since; I feel ethereally relaxed. I now text five times a month maximum, and that's mainly for dry information sharing, like an giving an address to a street festival where I invited my friend to meet me. All my remaining friends share my view 100%. And when they do text, they never bombard, or do things like send a second text before I get a chance to respond to the first one.

So there you have it. Old-school technology (voice) and new-fangled technology (text) got into a head-to-head conflict, and the old-school won.