Is She an Energy Vampire?
Papi, I think I need to cut someone off
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¡Hola Papi!
I’m a grad school student. Naturally, I’ve been introduced to some new people through classes and such. One of these people, let’s call her Nancy, has some things in common with me. We work in overlapping areas, and while we’ve never spent time together outside college, we got lunch together for a while and we’d message regularly. Friendly, but not deep. But now I’ve gotten myself into a situation with her that I don’t know how to handle without being an asshole.
The end of my first semester, during exams, Nancy sent me this long message about how she was thinking she should drop out along with all kinds of details about everything wrong in her life. I found it a bit too personal considering how we'd talked before that. But I felt for her. I wanted to be nice. I’d had similar thoughts myself, so I put loads of emotional energy into writing a big message back to her being supportive, and I spent an evening talking her out of the spiral. Right after that was a break, and I didn't hear any more about it. I didn't actually know what she'd decided to do. It weighed on me, emotionally. I felt terrible about it.
Start of the next semester, I got a bad infection that turned into pneumonia. Really bad. I got a message after a few weeks from Nancy saying, “hey, haven't seen you around.” I explained I wasn't well. I was miserable, obviously, and very stressed about all the work I was missing (we're both doing a taught masters). But then, within a few days, I got another message with all the same stuff as the last time. This was just over a month later! And while I can barely manage breathing! I went into "Bad Vibes" mode and ignored it. When I did get back on campus I didn't run into her again. I'd kind of been waiting to see her in person and try to gently say she was putting too much on me emotionally, if there was an opening. I thought doing so in person would be the best option, but I was kind of relieved to just not see her again.
Until today! We exchanged big smiley waves in passing, and I thought that was nice of her. I of course had it in mind that it could have been very hurtful to not hear back from me last time. Then, this evening I got another message, "haven't seen you in months, didn't know if you were still here. I'm really struggling this semester.”
What to do, Papi?
Signed,
Sick and Tired
Hey there, ST!
I’m sorry, but there’s something darkly comedic about telling someone you have pneumonia and them responding with complaints about school. Read the hospital room, Nancy!