I didn’t know what emotional manipulation was but I think I might be doing this to one of my close friends.

There are times where we talk often over the course of a few days and have a great conversation, but then often she’ll take like 3 days to text back and it does hurt I’ll be honest. When this happens I feel myself just shut down emotionally out of sadness and I end up giving responses to her texts that are civil but a little bit cold /-: I’m pretty sure she picks up on this though she doesn’t say anything - it either ends up that she replies quickly the next time we text which makes me feel crap like I’ve pressured and manipulated her, or we don’t speak for a while. I think this is usually because of awkwardness, caused by my behaviour. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just be appreciative of the times she does reply and we converse, rather than fixating on when she takes days? Maybe it hurts more because we haven’t seen each other in a year because of COVID.

We’ve never argued and we can usually discuss our issues and work them out (we haven’t had many issues though). Both of us will end up feeling guilty and we both apologize.

I once brought up how I felt distant from her but it wasn’t entirely addressed in my opinion. Like, now if she takes a few days to text back she will sometimes apologize and say she was busy whereas before she would just text back as if nothing happened which is why I think it hurt /: (especially because other friends did this to her and she would vent to me about it) but she never really offered her perspective on the situation so I left it. I know I’m not entitled to anything from her though, I need to just get over it and stop being so clingy.

I think I’m also still holding onto hurt from when she bailed on hangout plans a few months ago and didn’t offer to reschedule, so I didn’t either. I know that’s stupid and petty and I need to get over that as well.

I’m sure this is stemming from deeper insecurities and I want to stop being like this because I’m pretty sure I’m pushing my friend away. Please be honest in the replies about whether or not I am being emotionally manipulative because I want to fix my behaviour.