Compulsively Contacting Friends

Anyone who knows me can attest to this part of my personality: I compulsively contact people I'm close to. It's annoying, I'm sure, to the people I'm doing it to. It's my way of showing the people that I love that I care about them. Not only do I want them to know that I love them, but I don't want them to forget about me.

You might be wondering how this plays out. If I feel close to you, I may text message you periodically throughout the day. It won't be about important life things. It will mostly be silly things that pop into my brain that I just cannot wait to tell you, because I love you and I think you'll appreciate them.

Thankfully, I have enough sense to do this to people who get me. If I did this to people who I wasn't close to they would undoubtedly think I was crazy.

I've wondered if my compulsive contacting of friends is related to ADHD. I think it might be. It certainly seems to be behavioral in nature.

Thank goodness for modern technology though. In the late 1990's and early 2000s this quality of mine was extremely embarrassing because I would call my friends at insanely early hours because I just had to tell them something. The friend in question receiving the 8am phone call would be tired but amused. They would also remind me that it was 8am and they weren't up yet, because at that time none of my friends had children.

Now with the advent of social media, it's much easier to send my friends random shit and the chances of them getting pissed off is lessened. The reason is that they can check their messages at their leisure.

The other thing that's happened is that I've found other people who do the same thing! I don't feel crazy anymore. Jess, you know you do this too. We periodically send cat stickers to each other on Facebook at random intervals during the day.

Still, it does make me feel uncomfortable when I'm compelled to contact a friend for no apparent reason. I worry about the person getting annoyed from too much contact. I worry about what they're thinking about me in their mind.

The truth is, if they love me they'll understand that this is just my way of showing them that I love them.

Do you compulsively contact your friends?