The Vine: September 29, 2010
I’ve had my 7-year-old kitty since she was a 3-week-old rescue kitten that had to be bottle-fed. For the most part, she is wonderfully behaved.
However, she whines.
She’s always been very vocal kitty, and that is okay. In the last year or so, though, her meow when she wants something specific has developed the same tone and amazing nerve-grating ability as a two-year-old saying, “Mommy I wannnnnnnnt it!” The sound drives me BONKERS.
I have a hard time just not responding to the whine-meow because she usually does it when she has a legit desire — fresh food or water, a litter cleaning, something that’s spooked her (often happens during thunderstorms), or when we are coming home from being out, she sits in the window overlooking our entry door and whines until we come in the house.
It gets noticeably worse when my son, who she’s especially attached to, is gone overnight. She also does it when she sees me go near the cupboard where her treats are kept, though I can usually deny her at those times. She does not do it all the time, though — she definitely has a range of other vocalizations she uses when she just wants to be friendly or playful.
Is there any way to train a cat to use her normal-voice meow to ask for things? Or do I need to train myself to not let the whine bother me?
Thought I was done with the whining when my toddler grew up
(PS She is an only kitty, but that is because she will not tolerate other felines in the house, despite our best efforts to socialize her. In the past we have had hamsters that she’s acted very protective toward, but we do not have any currently.)
Dear Done,
Hobey has a Siamesey yowl that, in 15 years, I have still not learned to ignore. It can actually elevate my heart rate at times — not even the yowl itself, but the snotty prelude to the yowl that means I have 1.3 seconds to guess what he wants and do it before rrrreh turns into HAAOOOWWW.
So, I feel you, is the “good” news. The bad news is, ain’t much you can do. When she starts giving you That Tone, make eye contact, tell her you love her, give her a scritch, and check over everything you just mentioned. Food bowl full? Litter clear? Son in the house? Thunderstorm over?
If she’s got what she needs, spend a minute petting her and speaking to her in a reassuring voice (or tossing one of her toys for her) and then go on to something else — preferably an activity with a volume control that you can turn up to drown her out. Heh.
Another thing you might try to settle her down when your son’s away: make a little nest out of a box (mine love the kind that holds a 12-pack of liter bottles of seltzer) and a t-shirt that smells like your son. Put it in a corner, drop a treat or toy into it, and give her a little safe space to retreat to.
Dear Sars,
I have a “friendships have a lifespan” question on which I could use your (and the Nation’s, of course!) advice.
The question concerns my best friend from college. She is a loving, brilliant, kind, fun, thoughtful person. She is also terrible at keeping in touch in long-distance relationships and just started the second year of her medical residency. She lives on the East Coast; I live in the Midwest.
As you can probably guess, our communication is…not so good. I try to keep in touch with her, but between the fact that she’s at the hospital 100 hours a week and the fact that she’s just not that good at responding to people, it leads to my feeling snubbed more often than not. Emails go unanswered, calls forgotten, trips to see me proposed and unfulfilled, that kind of thing. I know she still values me as a friend — I was a bridesmaid at her wedding this spring — she just doesn’t have it in her to maintain a working friendship right now.
I also don’t have it in me to take the small amount of attention she has to give. She’ll email me once every few months, I’ll respond, and never hear back. Emotionally, it’s really draining. I feel like I’m in this constant cycle: depression over the state of our friendship — being happy to hear from her — waiting excitedly for her reply — disappointment when she doesn’t get back to me — depression over the state of our friendship, etc. I know the reasonable thing would be just to stop investing so much in the relationship, and I’ve done that with other friends, but I just can’t make it happen here. (Because I am crazy? Possibly.)
I brought this up to her about six months ago, and she said basically what I already know — that she loves me and values our friendship, but barely has time to wash her hair. She said she’d try to do better, and I said I’d try to be more explicit about when I needed her support.
Since then, she has backed out on a trip to visit me (due to circumstances beyond her control, but without rescheduling), and been really unhelpful when one of my pets died and I tried to talk to her about it (again, she was at the hospital when he fell sick, so when I IMed her she was understandably busy. But she never got back to me afterward, and when I confronted her about it, she said she was so busy she had forgotten that I had even mentioned it. Which is awesome to hear when you’re sobbing over the body of an animal you loved). So — not working.
It seems pretty clear to me that our friendship is not gonna work. So here’s my question: is it reasonable of me to want to write her a note and “break up”? I’m afraid that if I don’t, the next time I hear from her, the whole cycle will start over again and I’ll end up just as miserable as I am now. I’m not looking for her to respond with some grand gesture that makes everything okay; I just want to let her know that I can’t handle things as they are and I need her to delete my phone number. I don’t want her to think I’m trying to guilt-trip her, though, or to come off as a totally insane control freak.
And the corollary question is, if I do write the letter, can I get away with telling her I’d be happy to hear from her again when she has the time to devote to a relationship? It’s the truth, but that REALLY sounds manipulative, which is not the goal.
Thanks for everything, Sars!
Hopefully Not As Crazy As I Feel
Dear Hope,
Reasonable to want to? Sure. But please don’t.
It’s hurtful that Friend is consistently putting her career ahead of your friendship, and it’s especially hurtful that an animal family member passed away and she blew it off. That emotion is real and legitimate.
With that said: “I need her to delete my phone number”? Look, she’s…a medical resident. That you hear from her at all is pretty amazing. And the thing is, she knows. She knows that her friends outside the hospital miss her and wish she could participate in their lives and friendships the way she did before. She wants to go to baby showers and dinner parties, and Skype with a glass of Malbec.
But she can’t. She’s had to make a choice between having a full, rich emotional life and having a medical career for right now, because she’s trying to become who she is. I don’t read a ton of support for that from you; it’s all about how little support she’s offering, and not much acknowledgment that 1) she’s doing the best she can under crazy-busy circumstances and 2) that set of circumstances has been pending for quite some time.
Bottom line: she’s doing her best by you, but that “best” isn’t good enough for you right now. That in itself is fine. Sending a letter that basically says, “Make a space in your already-impossible schedule to meet my unrealistic expectations, or we are through here”? I can’t speak for Friend, but my own reaction to a letter like that received during one of my 20-hour-day business-start-up periods would be brief, blue, and final.
Like I said, it’s hard. It’s hard that she’s not there for you and it’s hard that things change without your say-so. I feel you, I do. But what you really want here, I think, is to stop getting hurt and feeling rejected, so, first, accept that Friend’s behavior is not about you or your worth as a person and friend. Then, accept that you can’t do anything to change it right now, and that continuing to try only puts you in a position where you get blown off (even if it’s inadvertent) or feel unappreciated. Step back from the friendship as far as active participation, so that you don’t resent her.
Friendships don’t just have a lifespan; they also have a narrative arc sometimes, or a narrative sine wave. This one is in kind of a valley right now, but it doesn’t mean Friend doesn’t care, or that things won’t improve. Maybe you should write the letter, in your journal, just to get everything out on paper, but do not send it, because it comes from a place of genuine pain, but it will read as self-absorbed and melodramatic, and I don’t think that’s you — or the note you want to go out on.
Tags: cats friendships Hobey
Hope- If you can figure out a way to watch the show Boston Med, do so. It was a non-fiction mini-series on ABC this past summer which delved into the lives of patients and healthcare workers at three hospitals in Boston. The common theme, with pretty much all of them but in particular the residents, is that it’s very very hard to have a life outside the hospital. They would express frustration at not being able to spend as much time with their friends, family, and significant others as they wanted to. So your friend probably misses you as much as you miss her and finds it frustrating that she can;’t really do anything about it.
You have a right to your feelings. God knows I felt hurt and abandoned when my best friend moved 3,000 miles away and then had a kid on top of it, which reduced the amount of our communication time by about 80%. But what I realized was that the limited time I do get to spend with her (when I visit) and our occasional emails was enough for me to ride out the lean times. What you have to decide is if the friendship is important enough for you to ride it out while she has the schedule from hell. If it’s not, then that’s okay. You don’t have to remain friends with her. But if you are in any kind of a relationship with someone whose chosen profession requires an insane schedule, then you have to make peace with that.
@Hope–my best friend and I have been long-distance friends for 17 years. Since college we’ve never lived closer than 8 hours from each other. We email occasionally and call every week or two and have a GREAT time when we are able to see each other (every two years or so), but even though we don’t talk often we’re secure in knowing that the other person cares, very deeply, and we know each other well because we’ve lived through each others’ marriages and children and jobs and losses.
Your friend just got married, which means that in the tiny amount of spare time she has, she’s spending time with a husband who probably also complains that he never sees or hears from her. It’s not that you aren’t important to her, not at all–she’s just not in a phase of life right now that allows time for friendship. Be patient with her, send her the occasional “thinking of you” card or email, and it will pay off down the road with a long-term friendship that is worth more than money could every buy.
Done, our two cats (brothers from the same litter) have each perfected their own versions of the “moooooOOOHHHMMM!” cry –Harvey does a constant, gurgling “perROWLL”, especially when my husband’s in the shower or he’s climbed to the top of the kitchen cupboard and is declaring his dictatorship. Peanut’s is much higher pitched and is usually uttered over the tattered remains of his favorite toy mouse, after he’s “killed” it in a particularly impressive fashion and demands a round of “ohhh, you are such a smart kitty! Yes you are! You got that mousie, yes you did!” He usually needs this reassurance during crucial plot points of Mad Men or Sons of Anarchy.
So I feel ya. The best I can come up with is hurling the mouse down the hall for Peanut to chase, or rubbing Harvey’s belly until he’s hypnotized.
Hope – Speaking as someone who once received a letter similar to what you proposed, I’d very strongly counsel against sending your friend such a letter if you have any interest in a continuing friendship later in life. As others suggested, write it in a journal, or write it and then burn it, but don’t send it.
The friendship I had with my letter writer ended (on my end) the second I finished reading it. When that same person tried to re-start the friendship years later, she seemed shocked and hurt that I was not interested. So, think carefully about what you want. If you send it, be willing to accept the potential consequences.
I’m afraid that if I don’t, the next time I hear from her, the whole cycle will start over again and I’ll end up just as miserable as I am now.
Hope: if you’re afraid of this, you could make a plan about what you’ll do if she gets back in touch. Right now you’re in a cycle where you give more than you ultimately want to, because you hope things might be different. So after you accept that things will not change until her residency is over, if ever (busy medical residents often become busy doctors who are at the hospital 12 hours a day), don’t try to get in touch anymore yourself for a while. Grieve the friendship you used to have. Look to others for support if you need support. If you do hear from her, send a short note back saying something like “Great to hear from you, things are [good/bad/fun/exciting] here because [X happened/I’m doing Y and Z now], take care!” You’re not ignoring her, but neither are you putting in much effort.
Oh God, Done, my cat does this all the time. And she doesn’t do it when she has a legitimate complaint, she does it when I’m not paying attention to her. If I’m on the phone, if I’m reading,, if I’m plucking my eyebrows she completely loses it and starts shrieking and then bites my ankle. I try to ignore it so I’m not reinforcing the behavior, but it’s really, really hard to do when she’s whining at 3AM because I’m sleeping instead of petting her. I usually end up breaking down and yelling “WHAT? WHAT IS IT YOU WRETCHED COW?”
Needless to say, if I ever have children, they will be just awful.
Done:
You mentioned that your cat’s vocalizations have changed recently. One of our cats got much louder about a year ago also, and I thought he was just getting annoying. It turns out that it was a symptom of hyperthyroidism. I never in a million years would have thought to describe that to the vet as a symptom: she only caught it when we had their routine bloodwork done this year. (We have a brother and sister from the same litter, and they were both diagnosed at the same time.) I brought them back to the vet a few weeks after we started them on medication because I thought they weren’t tolerating it well: I said “He’s gotten a lot more quiet.” and she told me that his yowling was actually a symptom of the disease. Who knew?
So, in addition to trying to address this as a behavioral problem, I would suggest making sure your cat has had blood work done and that you rule that out as a possibilty. Other symptoms can include weight loss, excessive eating, and increased activity.
@ Hope: I think that, honestly, your expectations of the amount of free time a med student would actually have (and a recently married one at that, struggling to make time for her husband) are a bit unrealistic. (I state fully for the record that my understanding of this concept comes only from watching the early pre-shark jumping seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.) I understand why you would be frustrated by the lack of emotional support from her, but asking her to delete your phone number will accomplish nothing but make her feel bad and make you look like a drama queen. I think, too, that as we progress through our twenties, one lesson that has to be learned is that some of those crazy intense friendships from college lessen a bit… people move out of state, go to grad school, get married, have kids, and it is going to change the dynamic of the friendships. As people get spouses and kids, the “best friend from age 18” becomes less of a priority and is lower on their emotional support system hierarchy. Doesn’t make it hurt less, but it is natural that your friend is going to look to her husband as the center of her emotional support system rather than you.
Oh man I wish there was a way to train a cat not to whine! I have one vocal cat who just follows me around the house meowing in the morning. I know it’s becuase he knows I’m about to leave and it makes him sad, so I just spend my whole more routine feeling guilty.
Here’s another question for kitty experts: anyone know how to get one cat to stop tackling the other one? My cats fight ALL the time. It’s not “real” fighting in that I don’t think they use their claws and no one ever gets scratched (I check them over all the time to be sure).
But I just feel so bad for my older cat. The younger (1 year old) kitty is VERY playful. He’s constantly chasing his toys and galloping through the house for no real reason, shadow boxing (I’m convinced we’re haunted, the way he carries on chasing after things that aren’t there).
My older kitty (4 y/o) is clam and quiet and keeps to herself, likes to sit on laps and head-butts/snuggles, but isn’t really a “playful” cat. She ignores toys.
And young kitty jumps on her, tackles her, and tries to wrestle her alllll the time. She responds with hissing and yowling that raises my hair. She is PISSED. Ears back, hissing, tail-slashing pissed.
I don’t want to separate them because no one is getting hurt and the apartment is already pretty small, I’d feel bad isolating them in one room.
But it’s driving me crazy and I feel really bad for the annoyance the older cat must feel. Ugh!
@Done – Our male cat has the same “Pay attention to meeeeeee” meow. “BOWWWWWR! BOWWWWWR! BOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWR!” It usually only surfaces at 5am, when he’s sitting on the counter of our ensuite bathroom in desperate need of a life-sustaining drink of water from the tap before he spontaneously dehydrates and shrivels up into a pile of fur and claws. Even though he’s got one of those running water fountains downstairs that I keep fresh and clean. And even though it’s only been five hours since he had a drink while I was brushing my teeth.
The only other times I’ve heard it are when he’s particularly proud of a hard-fought battle with his fuzzy mousie and needs to brag.
So…no advice. Just sympathy. My husband and I laugh at him and pull the pillows over our heads.
Done: I read this article (linked in website field) and it really hit home with me – my cats don’t have a whiny purr, but they have absolutely perfected various whiny/demanding vocalizations that are IMPOSSIBLE to ignore. In our house we have the Very Sad Meow and the Insistent Yowl (and then we move on to biting anything sticking out from under the covers in the case of early-morning breakfast demands). Not very helpful from a solution standpoint, but at least you know you’re not alone!
@Done: Oh dear, you have ALL my sympathy about this. My husband and I have a ten-year-old cat who acts like a kitten, and who talks. All. The time. It sounds like he’s constantly complaining: not enough attention, not enough food, no one is lying stretched out on the floor so he can nibble on their scalp (not kidding here). Occasionally he will leave the room, wander into a totally dark part of the house, and then start yowling in a way that can only be translated as “I’M SO LONELY!”
I read a news article about a study where scientists were able to demonstrate that cats deliberately tailor their meows to their owners. It makes sense; I’m sure at least part of our cat’s vocalization comes from the fact that we talk BACK to him when he complains. (Usually a “Now you stop that!” or a drawn-out “Whaaaaaaaat?”) You could try cutting back on your own verbal responses to him and see if he eventually picks up on the fact that non-verbal communication is the way to go. Or you could release stress by talking to him MORE. Just imagine the funny looks you’d get from the neighbors. Crazy Cat Ladies unite!
Hope, as the coordinator for surgical subspecialty program, I want to make a plea on behalf of all residents to their loved ones: please don’t give up on them. If it helps, try to think of her residency as if your friend were suffering from a serious and prolonged illness. She will value your relationship all the more once she recovers because you stood by her and cheered for her and didn’t drop her when she couldn’t focus on your friendship during this trying time. In the past few years, two of my residents divorced their wives and a third broke off an engagement. I know of one residency program that for many years saw all of its residents go through divorces. One of the attending surgeons on our faculty still attributes a feeling of not having bonded as much with his second child (born at the end of medical school as he headed into a six-year residency/fellowship) as he did with his first, who was born during college. I know that it hurts for your relationship to be so one-sided so if you explain your feelings and tell her you are hanging in there nonetheless, I’m sure you will be gratified by her response and how your friendship will deepen in time because of your sacrifice now. Good luck!
Well that reminds me that I need to call my best friend.
In any friendship of length there will be slumps, as Sars says. It’s incredibly unfortunate that this is happening for her at a time when it’s not happening for you, but it’s not really your best friend’s fault, as I hope you realize.
It doesn’t sound like you need her to delete your number– like you say you would be happy to hear from her again when she has more time in her life. In that case I think you need to make the unilateral decision to move on right now, but leave the option to reconnect in her hands by not forcing a confrontation over it. If her emails make you sad, just respond minimally until such time as they don’t hurt, or she has more time to devote to you.
If she asks what’s up, feel free to be honest about your hurt feelings, but I don’t think a confrontation will get you what you want. You can also air this grievance later when you’ve reconnected.
The bottom line is that I don’t believe you actually want to break up, I think you want best friend to acknowledge doing something wrong and change. Which… she can’t change without dropping out of her field after 10 years of school, and from her perspective, she’s not doing anything wrong.
I have an elderly cat (16 yrs) who is going through hyperthyroid issues. The over-active thyroid increases metabolism and heart rate, and among the common symptoms are increased anxiety and yowling. 7 years seems a little young for thyroid issues, but it might be worth it to do some bloodwork and check her thyroid level. Good luck!
Done, how long does she usually keep at the crying? I’m wondering if you could try gritting your teeth suffering through, and completely ignoring her when she makes that particular cry. When she finally stops (this is assuming that she eventually stops, which if not this advice won’t work) *then* you can give her what she is looking for, plus a “good kitty” petting session. The reason she does it is because she knows that it is the most effective means of getting what she wants. If she stops associating getting what she wants with that particular cry, she might eventually stop.
One of my cats is very vocal and we occasionally get into a cycle of needy crying, where I’ve been overly responsive to his noises and then he realizes “hey, that works great!” and starts doing it ALL. THE. TIME. When I realize that happens I will very pointedly ignore the crying (which isn’t easy) and then after a couple of times when he’s realized it’s not working anymore, he’ll cut it out.
Hope—I’d try and realize that it’s not you, it’s her. It doesn’t seem to me that she doesn’t value your friendship or that she is purposely hurting you. She’s crazy busy and she is trying her best.
If I were you, I would enjoy the times I do get to talk to her and not worry about the times I don’t. Be her friend now and when she is a little less busy, she’ll be there for you. No friendship is perfect.
Hope —
Here’s the thing. Your friend is not unaware of what’s going on, or how you feel. And she probably feels as bad about it as you do.
How am I sure of that? I’m a Ph.D. student in the physical sciences. I live in a city where precisely zero of my close college friends live. Between making a pittance that makes it financially impossible to travel regularly and constantly being subject to the whims of my advisor and the vagaries of experimental equipment… I just do not interact much anymore with anyone who doesn’t work in my building. And it sucks. The only thing that makes it bearable is that on the rare occasions I *do* get together with my friends with Real Jobs, they understand what a pain in the ass my whole situation is.
So yeah. If you feel you’re putting all the effort into the friendship, you probably aren’t wrong. If you feel like it’s not worth continuing to put out all the effort… you probably still aren’t wrong; nobody can make that call for you. But please don’t ascribe what’s happened to malice on your friend’s part. It’s really, really, Not About You. I promise.
Hope,
I am your friend, but switch out medical residency for law school w/ a crazy-intensive 3rd year program. I’ve been married just over a year and my best friend from college lives halfway across the country from me.
I’ve never been great about staying in touch, but right this minute, at this time in my life I can’t take the time. (I should actually be working on case-prep instead of typing this!)
I barely have time to speak to my husband, much less anyone else. I also have nothing to talk about. Maybe this is part of what is going on with your friend. The only things I have to talk about are hearsay and the proper form for motions for summary judgment and probative value of evidence versus the…. see, bored you didn’t I?
I know I’m dull right now, and incredibly stressed and no fun to be around or talk to. Maybe your friend just doesn’t have anything to talk about that she thinks you would be interested in, or that she wants to talk about when she doesn’t have to.
Please, please be patient with her, and also be aware of who she is. If she is not a good stay-in-touch friend, but is a good friend, know that and manage expectations.
Another vote against writing the letter. I’ve gotten the friendship-breakup letter in my time, and the writer made two incorrect assumptions: 1. I’d grovel at her feet for forgiveness if she cut me dead in print instead of just telling me off and asking me to respond; 2. A few years later when she apologized, I’d be waiting with a big forgiving hug and a plate of warm Rice Krispie treats. No and no.
I don’t think you really want rid of her forever. I think you want her to see the error of her ways and do penance. I don’t think there’s really a situationally-appropriate catalyst for that, but in any case, it’s definitely not ink and paper.
On the other matter, the hub and I have (among others) two senior male cats who deliver operatic duets at all hours. My parents had another such cat who lived to be 20, and only got yowlier with time. When he died, we all found the silence weird and uncomfortable. Some cats are just belters. The best I can recommend is giving yourself permission to tune it out sometimes.
Hope,
I’ve been through similar situations and one thing you’ll need to do to retain any chance of a friendship in the future is evaluate/adjust your emotional reaction to your friend. You associate her with certain feelings (maybe security, validation, fun, etc) that she doesn’t match anymore. If you can unpack that baggage, you might be able to clearly see and appreciate what she has to offer you right now. It will be different from before though and will probably never be what it was. Bluntly, you’re not just in different places, you hold uneven places-of-priority in eachother’s lives.
It’s painful, but it is kind of like dating, in time you’ll feel better and you might make new friends that can spend time with you.
Done, don’t ever get a bird. I love it when my cockatiel chirps and sings (even when it’s really loud), but he also has the most annoying and impossible to ignore squawk (the worst is when I’ve had to travel with him in the backseat). Sometimes he just decides he’s upset and ignoring OR paying attention to him does nothing so then I leave the apartment for a while. I completely understand the trying to ignore and then just can’t anymore. So, just sympathy here no solutions. (I don’t think I have to patience to be a parent.)
Hope, the “official” break-up sounds like an awful idea. Just try to let it go for now, it’s nothing personal against you. Be happy when you hear from your friend, but don’t berate her for how long it’s been, that makes for a tedious relationship and might deter her more from wanting to communicate with you. I’m not super busy by any means, but I don’t keep in constant contact with two of my best friends. One thing I love about my relationship with these two friends in particular (one from high school, one from college) is that we just pick up where we left off. We’re happy to see each other, but also confident in our friendship that a couple months can go by and we don’t think we’re slighting the other. So, just take a step back, remember the “old” friendship fondly and learn to love the “new” one. Good luck.
@Hope–
Please take Sars’ advice and put down the pen (or laptop). I know exactly how you feel. I am ten years out of college and frequently feel like I’m the only one making an effort to stay in touch with many of my school friends. They went to law school/med school, got married, bought houses, have demanding careers and had kids. All of which sucks up the majority of their time. And meanwhile I have had two 9-5 jobs, two boyfriends, no house, and no kids. Can I ask what else is going on in your life? Are you lonely in other ways, and is your irritation at your best friend coming from some root dissatisfaction in your life? I’m just asking, because my frustration with friends with no time for me anymore came from feeling like my life was comparatively empty and meaningless.
There’s an advice columnist I read regularly (Carolyn Hax), and she gets variations on your question a lot. Her bottom line response is you either accept that your friend doesn’t have the time(and many never have time again) to be as close as you used to be, or you move on and limit contact with her. You can’t change her, so you have to decide if you can accept the friendship she can provide now, or not. You don’t have to cut her dead, but reduce the frequency of contact from your end, since you know it leads to disappointment.
Hope —
First of all, I agree with everyone who said that you shouldn’t write the letter for all of the reasons they mentioned.
Second, your friend’s inadequate response to the death of your pet may be a result of the difficult emotional work that goes into becoming a doctor. Speaking from experience, it is difficult for beginning clinicians to be appropriately self-protective at work and appropriately vulnerable in their personal lives. If one cannot establish an emotional distance from all of the terrible things one sees in a hospital the weight of the sadness would be crushing. I think most people get better at switching back and forth as time goes on, but for now I would avoid counting on the support of your friend while she is at work.
As everyone else said: Hyperthyroidism. My 15 year old cat is going through it, and yowls all the time. As someone already said, 7 seems kind of young for thyroid problems, but I suppose nothing is impossible.
Also: Deafness. Cats become more vocal as they start to lose their hearing. Something like an elderly human saying “WHAAAAT DID YOU SAY?!?” over and over again.
So, a trip to the vet might be in order, just in case.
@ Hope: I agree with others that you don’t want her out of your life (and thus the letter is a bad, bad idea); you want her to act the way you want her to act.
That just isn’t going to happen. She isn’t doing anything wrong by having to devote her time and energy to her work. In any friendship, you give what time and energy you can to each other for support and companionship. That’s still the case, except that through no fault of her own, she now has WAY less time and energy for you, and you still have the same amount for her and you’re miffed about that. That’s no one’s fault, and, as stated by others, there is no need for you to take it so personally. She doesn’t love you any less just because she doesn’t have as much time for you as you would like her to have. Just because you don’t talk to someone for a few months doesn’t make them not your friend any more. It just makes them your friend that you haven’t talked to in a few months and with whom you need to have a good catch-up session. Frequency of contact makes a good maid or assistant, but it isn’t automatically what makes a good friend.
Friendships wax and wane, and it’s okay to let one cool for a while and then pick it back up at a more appropriate time. That doesn’t require a massive dramatic break-up; it can just … happen. You really have to just expect less from her while she has so little to give you. She doesn’t have time to call as often as you’d like, and she can’t make firm plans to visit. Those are the facts. Now, start operating within those parameters instead hanging your entire happiness on the expectation that those parameters will change.
I also, as pointed out by Sars, hear a lot of self-absorption in your letter. You’re very focused on what you need from your friend, and how you aren’t getting it, and thus in your estimation she is being a bad friend. Have you given any consideration to what she may need from you? Anyone I consider a good friend isn’t someone from whom I need guilt trips about my job and new husband. You say you don’t want to give her any such thing, but what else is a letter saying, “You don’t have time for me, even though I used to be so important to you and you still are to me, and so I don’t even want to go about thinking that you still have my number in your phone and hoping you’ll someday use it. Obviously you don’t appreciate having me in your life, and I love you too much to keep hoping that you love me, too. So, just don’t think about me any more, and I’ll just sit over here and pout while the cold cruel world passes me by. Maybe someday if you ever have a millisecond for me again, please toss me a crumb”? Indeed, I’m not sure I could make time either for someone with that kind of neediness.
I think you need to make some other friends, so you feel the change in this relationship less acutely. I’m not sure why you’re so focused on this particular friend such that not hearing from her sends you spiraling into depression, but maybe some other companionship would put your relationship with her into better perspective.
(Wow, that was long.)
I suspect Hope is feeling super-lonely right now, guys, so cut her a little slack.
My suggestion would be well, similar with what I’ve done with others who are making me feel as you do: STOP CONTACTING THEM. Seriously. If you’re butthurt when she doesn’t respond or can’t keep responding, then don’t write her at all. Consider the friendship “on hiatus” until she’s out of school (how much longer does she have, anyway?) and don’t contact her until she’s done. Yes, it’ll mean that you feel like you’re “losing your connection” and it might never come back, but that’s how things are going right now anyway. She literally can’t do anything for you now, and well… the only thing you can manage is you and your butthurt feelings when she doesn’t respond. So stop writing until she’s done.
And then, well, find replacement friends. There’s nothing much else you can do anyway at this point with this girl.
Hope, you need more friends. Seriously. Relying on one, and only one, person to Be There for all your emotional needs is an exercise in rejection, because NO ONE can do that for you all the time. People aren’t available, things happen. Have some backups so you aren’t alone when bad stuff goes down. There’s probably already people in your life that would have been with you during your loss… but they can’t control who you IM when the chips are down.
If you value this friendship and want to keep it for the long haul: give to her consistently with no agenda for what she gives back right now. She’s in residency! No one needs a kind word or a funny picture *without strings attached* more than a person who is investing that much time into starting their medical career. This is a phase in her life, and it’s “hard” on a level you probably can’t even imagine.
Try it… send cards or emails regularly, make it clear that you don’t expect an answer but just wanted her to know someone’s thinking of her, and keep that up while her life is nothing but a blur of charts and hospital-cafeteria coffee. She won’t forget who was there for her when SHE needed support. You have to wait for the payoff, but I predict that when it comes, it will be richer and fuller than any amount of attention you could pester out of her now. While you’re waiting, call other friends when you have needs.
If that idea’s not for you, fine… no judgment. Not everyone is in a place to do that. But if you’re not, then skip the letter, stop contacting her, and just move on. You sound like you expect her to somehow officialize the end the friendship. If ending it is your choice, then it’s your job to make it happen –  do it yourself.
@Hope
I think I’ll be retreading what a couple of other people have said, but things like med school are brutal. I don’t know your friend, but I would consider this friendship on hiatus. Make small gestures so she knows, “Hey, I’m here. Hope you’re making it.” But don’t obsess. Its not worth your energy. Its not worth trying to wrangle your friend. If you feel up to it, an occassional note, or “hey” may be the one social contact that keeps her going. Even if it seems she doesn’t appreciate it. It sucks for everyone. I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel bad, just saying I know that it happens. Its happened to me too (and a mixed bag of outcomes).
Then when she emerges out the other side…see what happens. Good friendship can absolutely hibernate and blossom again. Sometimes they go stale and you move on. I would just give this friendship more time before you make a decision.
In the meantime…new friend action.
Also, I’m sorry about your pet.
Done: My cat’s always been a screamer, and for someone so tiny, she is loud and piercing. I started making noises back at her. You know that machine gun noise they make? That one:
Her: YOOOOOWWWWWWWWWLLLLL!
Me: Ack ack ack ack ack!
Her: . . . YOOOOOOWWWWW
Me: Ack ack ack ack ack!
Her: . . .YOOOOOW
me: Ack ack ack ack ack!
Her: mew?
If I’m asleep and I know that she’s just messing with me at 4 a.m. I do the mad mommy kitty growl/moan. It’s done wonders.
Hope: I’m in the last year of a Ph.D. program in physical sciences that requires me to be in the lab insane hours 7 days a week. I live across the street from one of my best friends from high school and see her about once a month. I live 6 blocks from my retired mother with health problems and talk to her maybe once a week for 15 minutes and see her even less.It’s the nature of the beast. I’m emotionally, physically, and mentally unable to give anything to everyone else. I just want to sleep, but I cry instead, splash water on my face, and grab another cup of coffee. This is my life, and I’m not making life and death decisions for other people. I can’t even imagine the level of stress and emotional trauma that she’s going through daily, and that thought is what kept me out of med school. Piling more stress on with a letter would be a very cruel thing to do right now. Just step back from the whole thing, and it might well pick up once she’s getting more than 4 hours of sleep on average and has actual weekends.
Hello, friends! Hope here.
I absolutely agree with everyone that the correct solution is “back off and chill out”. The part I have been struggling with is making that happen. At the time I wrote to Sars, the only way seemed to be by confronting the issue directly with my friend to make a clean break…but I agree with everyone that that is going to be taken poorly, even if my intentions are good. So, you are all right: that option is definitely out.
You are also right that since I moved to the Midwest, I have made a lot of friends of the “drinking beer, watching football, and making dirty jokes” variety and none of the “talk about how my mom is sick and might lose her house” variety. I have wanted to use my friend as that outlet, since I have no other…but that’s not reasonable, either. Any suggestions for this one, short of magically converting another friend into my dumping ground? Do diaries help with this? (I am a student, so I can’t really afford a therapist.)
And now, on your advice, I am going to email her a happy picture from the last vacation we took together and then think about something else. Luckily, my chemistry exam tomorrow is happy to oblige me there.
Thanks, everyone!
@Hope
I’m from New Zealand but went to grad school for six years in Scotland. It’s a bit of a different situation, but I know all about never hearing from good friends (and I’m not even going to talk about my doctor friends who are working full time in the hospital while studying for consultant medical exams. They might live in the same city, but we all know not to expect much contact!)
I was fortunate enough to be able to go home a couple of times in those six years, but for many New Zealanders being overseas means staying overseas until such time as you decide to go back home. And everyone in the country just kind of understands – actually understands too much. Whereas a lot of my North American friends would receive care packages, and constant calls, and visits from family, and guilt-trips from mothers to come home for Christmas, no one in my family and none of my friends would even dream of expecting such things – 12,000 miles is a long way, and a 12 hour time difference makes organising phone calls difficult, and flights are expensive and you need to have a good few weeks to make any trip home worthwhile. Obviously email makes communication much easier, but some people aren’t that great at email. It doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about you. Consequently, communication naturally becomes intermittent and as needs require. It’s like your friends and family wave goodbye and just expect that when you get back things will pretty much be as they were.
And you know what? They usually are. While I was in Scotland, my best friend at home was having babies and busy and I was writing a PhD, and sometimes we’d go several months without so much as an email. But every time we did catch up, it was just as if we’d seen each other only the other day.
Anyway, you can go months without so much as a boo from a friend who lives just down the road, because life gets busy, but if your friend is important to you, it doesn’t need to change your friendship in the long run – it just changes the day-to-day function of the friendship. Also, talk to older friends and family – I bet they have friends who dropped off the face of the earth for decades and when they finally caught up, it was as if they’d never been apart.
Oh, PS on the therapist thing: I should mention that my university’s free mental health services are atrociously limited in scope, so there’s no help from that front.
Hope: Many therapists will work on a sliding scale if you ask them about it, they just don’t necessarily advertise that way. Get a recommendation from an acquaintance you feel comfortable knowing you are seeking therapy (that way you know the person doesn’t completely suck). Ask if she can work for a reduced fee. If she says no, she will be happy to recommend someone who does, if she’s like any other therapist I’ve ever encountered.
I think some of the responses in this thread are a little harsh. You’re lonely, and that’s totally understandable. You knew enough to write to someone to get talked out of the letter. Cut yourself some slack too, it sounds like a rough time.
Are you part of any largish internet communities? They might do meetups, which could be a fun way to make friends.
@Hope: I have a friend who, although we went through the same stressful thing together (law school), always withdraws in times of stress instead of wanting to hang out and do fun things or eat junk to get through it, like I do. She’s also intensely private and wants lots of alone time with her husband. All this translated to me, looking for a law school best friend, feeling very hurt, and continuing to feel hurt when we moved to the same town after graduation and were both unemployed, yet hardly ever saw each other because her time was taken up with her new husband and her family/in-laws. I kept having that same awful gnawing feeling you do, of reaching out and getting rebuffed, and while I was tempted to break off the friendship I instead finally acknowledged the issue with her to some degree (“I want to get together a lot more but it always seems like you’re unavailable, which makes me sad”) and put the impetus on her to make the connection (“So just know that I’m pretty much always available for a phonecall or get-together whenever you ask.”) I knew that either she would stop calling entirely, which would let me know the friendship’s lifespan was ended, or that it would make her realize that if she wanted to see me, she’d need to bridge the gap — but that she only had to do it on her own time. Luckily for me it was the latter, and while we’re still not as close as I’d like to be, I’ve gotten rid of that hurt feeling because I just wait to hear from her but don’t expect to, so it’s always a nice surprise.
In the meantime, yes, I do have a husband and a few other close friends for society (though not nearly as many as in my early twenties, and I expect I won’t have that many again), so I have other people to talk to. Since you’re in school you obviously have lots of social avenues open to you (classes, organizations, religious groups, the gym, etc. etc.), but if you want to have friends beyond the beer-drinking type I would suggest maybe trying to do more one-on-one things? When I was making new friends in law school it was tough when everyone was always in a crowd. Other than that I am no help, since I always just make accidental friends.
If the cat gets taken to the vet and nothing shows, perhaps try a natural Bach remedy such as Rescue Remedy which you can give to the cat directly in a eye dropper or put it in their water supply. It chills out my four cats when things start wigging them out.
Also, try the Feliway pheremone wall plug-in. It’s like hemp for cats with no paranoia side-effects. Very good for cats when you’re in the middle of moving, or they won’t stop fighting (down side is the four sets of eyes watching closely when I crack open a bag of Doritos). Good luck!!
I don’t think people are being harsh about Hope’s situation, but just, they’ve been there before and know it does work itself out.
It’s really hard to be in an entirely different place from your nearest and dearest, and the drinking buddies don’t always cut the mustard. Eventually though, you meet someone who fills that friend void. You magically have the right conversation with the right person.
But if we’ve all been there before, hopefully there’s some hope in that. Though I concede that it’s not the most helpful of advice!
Anyway, I think all everyone is trying to say, is that this situation doesn’t mean a friendship is over.
And Hope, best of luck with that exam.
@Done: Seven seems young for a cat to go deaf, but I was also going to chime in about possible hearing loss, which @Only This beat me to. :) My parents had a cat who lived to the ripe old age of nearly 20, and she was stone deaf for about the last five years or so. She’d always been kind of whiny, but when her hearing started to go, it just took on this…edge. It was completely monotone, and she would increase in volume. “Maaow. Maaaaaaaaaaaaow. MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOW.” I sometimes thought it was as if she could feel herself meowing, but she couldn’t hear it, so she just meowing harder and harder.
It was really annoying, but it also meant that I got to watch my dad, who is usually gruff and insists that he does not care for cats, be a total softie. The cat hated everyone but him, and he developed this whole system of gestures so that he could communicate with her. Then he’d carry her around when she got old and slow, and he’d stop whatever he was doing to pick her up if she wanted to sit on his recliner after she could no longer make the jump up there. Aw.
c8h10n4o2 – do you have the mad mommy kitty sound recorded or know of somewhere I can find a recording so I can practice it? I’d like to train my cat to not mess with me (or make a racket) in my bedroom while I’m sleeping, because I feel really bad shutting her out. Well, it’s her and my sister’s cat too, but he’s so neurotic he flips his shit just from me turning over.
@Erin: I have never heard the term “butthurt” employed when it wasn’t meant to make the recipient feel bad. That’s harsh.
Let me offer another perspective on Hope’s situation. Several years ago I did basically what you were considering doing. I felt like my best college friend was retreating from me–she kept canceling plans with me and being generally unavailable. She was writing her thesis at the time, BUT I was obsessed with my own problems (job stress, health stress, feeling lonely) and I probably came off as very needy. On my end, I felt like, she does NOT understand how important to me it is to get together this one night of the week, how much I look forward to it, how little I have to look forward to. I was angry. So, when she emailed to cancel something (AGAIN), I responded really rudely and dismissively. She did not write back.
Now I can take a wider view of things and understand that it was my problem, my expectations that were making me feel bad–and that MY response was the only part of the situation that was actually in my control. We recently reconnected on Facebook (sort of–things are still kind of chilly) and so now I know that I missed being there for both her graduation and her wedding. And she missed being there for me during the major life changes I’ve experienced in that time. Nothing was improved.
As for the other letter, I don’t have a cat, but I do have a dog that can whine like nobody’s business–and Sars is totally right about it raising the blood pressure. My dog whines in the mornings when she can see that I’m getting ready for work (the brushing of the teeth, the putting on of the shoes, these are all death knells). It’s a super stressful way to start the day, but short of closing her into the spare bedroom, I’m out of ideas.
@Done
I currently own my first-ever cat, so I don’t have a ton of experience, especially with different cats. Also, all my life I have been a dog owner (we still have dogs, too), so my take on cat training may be a bit different. But we’ve had great success training our cat by ignoring him. Sounds awful, I know, but I decided from the start I wasn’t going to be bossed around by a cat (just like I’m not by my dogs). The same as whining kids or dogs, mostly all they want is attention. Deny them the attention when they’re behaving badly (whining, fussing, whatever) and give it to them when they’re behaving well (calm, quiet, etc.). At the beginning our cat tried to demand his food. He’d demand, demand, demand; we’d ignore, ignore, ignore. And by ignore I mean don’t even look at him or speak; turn your back. Of course you can only do this if you know nothing’s actually wrong and that he’s just being demanding.
For a couple of weeks it nearly wrecked my nerves to do the ignoring – it could take half an hour to feed him – but then he learnt and he’s very good now. He’s a very vocal cat in general and I don’t mind that he communicates with me: I just won’t have the bossing around.
So just try ignoring your cat. Five minutes (or half an hour, tops, probably) later she’ll be quiet: empty the litter box or feed her then. It won’t kill her to wait. It’s what you’d do with a child, isn’t it?
Hope, I think your idea to send your friend a photo from the last vacation together is a good one. Maybe with a little “Just thinking about the fun time we had!” type of message.
Because it sounds to me like she’s trying the best she can to maintain a relationship with you during this insane time in her life. The fact that she’s contacting you at all, and at least attempting to plan visits, tells me that she also wishes you guys were in touch more. She’s not blowing you off–you’re probably getting a lot more of her than most other people in her life.
I say this as someone who has three close friends and a close relative who are physicians, and went through the 100-hour+ weeks that your friend is working now. The fact is, we didn’t hear from them that much during that time, but we took what little they were able to give, and sent occasional emails to see how things were going. Because of that, once they were finished with residencies it was very easy to reconnect because we’d never really lost touch, and as others have pointed out, they were appreciative of those of us who tried to be understanding and supportive.
It all depends on her specialty, but there’s a good chance that once the residency is over, she will have a lot more control over her schedule–and a lot more money to spend. So keep in touch as much as she is able, encourage her to vent to you when she needs to, and plan another little vacation for the two of you after she’s finished.
Hope – I kind of went through the whole back and forth like that with, of all people, my sister. And it was really the same thing as everyone said above – I was fairly needy because I had no other friends at the time and she had other things going on. My other theory on it was that she had a husband, so when she needed to talk things out or just tell someone about her day, she went to him (of course), so she didn’t really “need” me like I needed her. It sucked and it took me a long time to come to terms with, but there wasn’t anything I could do except change my expectations and my actions. I swear the key to happiness is to lower your expectations (I’m only kind of kidding).
As for the cat – I tried a little experiment last night regarding this. This weekend (before the Vine letter) I was playing with my cat (tickling her belly) and she went into crazy cat mode where she suddenly starts sinking her claws into me and biting a little too hard. At that point I usually just let my hand go limp, but she was super nutty this time and so to make her let go, I made just a slightly loud noise of “Ack” or “Ah”. Essentially I’ve seen it on “It’s Me or the Dog” and wondered if it would work for the cat. It’s not loud enough to scare her, and it’s not yelling at her, it’s just enough to distract her and catch her attention. It worked, so last night I tried it when she was yowling at me for food. Just interrupted her meows with that sound and it made her stop. So, I can’t vouch for it beyond 2 instances, but it’s worth a try. When she starts whining, just make a slightly loud, sharp sound of any kind and see if you can distract her from what she’s doing. I hope that made sense :)
I agree with just about everything everyone else has said, Hope, but I’d also add this:
Leave things completely open-ended for right now. Don’t make plans, good or bad. Tell her (if *your* situation allows for it) that if she’s in town and wants to meet up, you can be ready in 20 minutes so all she’s got to do is call, but don’t make plans for anything further out than that, because you know they might very well fall through and you’ll feel hurt. You can’t control her life or what she does or doesn’t do, but you *can* control what level of involvement you invest in all this.
Another way to look at it is that you are protecting your friend from inadvertently hurting you. You seem pretty clear that she is not acting out of malice or disregard, and it’s got to upset her when plans fall through, too – I personally spend way too much time in my friendships feeling guilt-ridden and ashamed because I didn’t reply to an email or phone call promptly, or I had to back out of a planned activity, even if it WAS something completely out of my control. It’s a terrible feeling to know, or believe, that you’ve disappointed your friends, and by protecting yourself you can spare her from that too.
Let her dictate the pace of the friendship for right now. When she’s out of residency and things slow down a bit, the door will still be open for reconnecting, and who knows? Maybe somewhere down the line it’ll be *your* life that’s crazy hectic, and you feeling grateful to *her* for not writing you off.
You’re doing most of the work in the friendship right now; it makes you feel resentful and might well be making her feel indebted or guilty, and that’s not good for either of you OR the friendship. No matter how hard you work, the friendship cannot function at its previous level – so step back, don’t work so hard, simply take what she can offer and wait to see what the future holds. Worst case scenario: The friendship dies a natural death, which puts you right where you were prepared to go with the letter anyway.
Last but not least, I do sympathize with the rebuff you felt in regards to your pet’s death (my condolences), but I would really cut her a lot of slack on that, especially if she was working when you first contacted her. I’ve had way too many conversations with people while I was stressed out and sleep-deprived that I had absolutely NO memory of the following day; not a clue.
I don’t know what her specialty is or what phase of her residency she’s in, but it also could be that she had in-her-face human life-or-death crises going on which eclipsed the at-a-distance pet-of-a-friend crisis. I truly don’t mean to minimize your loss, but I also have to consider that if I’m going to be treated by a doctor, I want someone who can AND DOES focus on me and my medical situation to the exclusion of all else, not someone who’s preoccupied with a personal situation. If she acted all “Yeah, so what,” when you brought it up, then that’s a different story, but if it was more like, “OMG I’m so sorry, I was so swamped that I completely forgot, are you okay?” – sure, it’s too little too late, but I’d still give her some leeway.
@c8h10n4o2: is the mad-mama-cat growl the same as the young-cat-being-held-uncomfortably-upside-down-and-squeezed-by-her-equally-young-owner growl of put-me-down-NOW?
Because I know that one really, really, well. (Sorry, Callie.)
Hope, I wish all the best for you, and hope that you’ll find the right person for a closer friendship. They don’t grow on trees, unfortunately.
I learned the mad cat growl as the “the dog has me trapped under the bed and slobbered on my favorite mouse” growl or, alternately, as part of the “stare at the other cat for 3 hours and make noises at each other as a prelude to 15 seconds of fighting followed by A) a repeat of the above, or B) both cats getting shot with a supersoaker” game. Your experiences and the sheer hostility level of your cat towards other living organisms may vary your experience of this wondrous noise.
My pretty little 5 to 6 pounder is obviously very hostile to everything except me, and always has been. I’m pretty sure that she’s fueled by rage more than Iams at this point.
@Hope: I am out of the country for 1-3 months at a time for work. This year I will be gone for 9 out of 12 months. When I am away, I work about 80 hours a week and also often have limited internet and phone access. Most of my friends have accepted that the friendship I am providing is all that I can provide now. A few have not, and I regret that.
I definitely don’t think you are being unreasonable here, and maybe you can come up with a compromise. Maybe you can try to plan a long phone session for her weekend off (at least my resident friends get a weekend off every now and then). Try not to write off the friendship if you don’t have to for your own sanity. It really sounds like your friend is trying.
@ Hope,
I mean this very nicely, but: please grow up. You know why she’s acting like she’s blowing you off. You know what it does to you, and you know that you can’t change her circumstances. So change your perspective, and change your behavior. Do you have to respond to her e-mails and then wait by your e-mail inbox? No. Do you have to expect that she be attentive when she hardly gets any sleep? No. Is it on her never to call you or e-mail you again to prevent you from doing these things? No. Take ownership of the problem, as it should be.
Next time she calls, if you feel like you’re not up for a half-hearted conversation rather than a heart to heart, just let it go to voicemail. Next time she e-mails, send her a brief “Oh hey, nice hearing from you” and move on to something else.
She’s really not the problem here, it’s your attitude towards her that is the real problem “But I…” No. “But she was my BFF” No. You no doubt have other friends and things to do, so devote your time to them for now, and tell yourself that when she has more time for everyone in your life, then you can carve some space out for her in your schedule. Trust me, it’ll make you a better friend for it.
@Hope
I have a good friend who’s a consultant in the NHS (roughly equivalent to an attending in your system I think). We’ve somehow sustained our friendship from university days through years of her working crazy hours — and unfortunately it doesn’t seem to let up at more senior grades. She doesn’t have to do the endless on-calls now, but she is responsible for a team, so worries about them instead. I think the key for our friendship has been that we haven’t expected too much of each other, just enjoyed each other’s company as and when it can be managed. We like each other’s husbands, too, which helps.
Anyway, my point is that medics and non-medics can be friends but it’s hopeless (sorry!) picking a medic friend as the go-to person for emotional crises. They just don’t have the hours in the day, and as other posters have pointed out, they get enough emotional angst at work and generally would like their highly limited free time to provide a constrast to that.
So where does that leave you? I can sympathise very much with your situation. It is difficult when you feel you need new close friends yet it’s not obvious where they’re going to come from. All I can suggest from my own experience is that trying to meet and make friends with people older than yourself can be useful for some perspective.
Friendships can go dormant and still be revived. My Mum’s best friend from college days recently got back in touch with her, after many years in which their lives had diverged completely. Now both retired and living in London, they’re getting on like a house on fire. There is hope!