‘She’s using our chat as her personal emotional support hotline’: What to do when a friend is oversharing in the group chat

There are certain social media rules we can all agree on: Ghosting a conversation is impolite, and replying “k” to a text is the equivalent of a backhand slap (violent, wrong, and rude). But what about the rest of the rules? When can we really remind someone of our old Venmo request? What happens when someone tries to flirt with you on LinkedIn?

Fortunately, terminally online writers Delia Cai and Steffi Cao are here to answer all your digital quandaries, big or small. Welcome to Fast Company’s advice column, Posting Playbook. This week, Delia Cai tackles your biggest questions about oversharing in the group chat—and maybe texting too much in general.

My college friends and I have had a group chat for years—most of us live far away from each other, so it’s what keeps us close. But lately, one of the friends (who I’m not as tight with, to be honest) has been dumping these multiple paragraphs-long rants about her life in the chat, and it’s honestly killing the vibe because the rest of us don’t know what to say. I’m annoyed that she’s basically using our chat as her personal emotional support hotline. Does that make me a bad friend? Is there a way to ask her to stop oversharing there?

I feel your pain. You’re not a bad friend! You’re frustrated with her but also with the limitations of digital communication, as much of a lifeline as it is for long-distance friendships. Group chats are particularly delicate little ecosystems because they lack context clues and nonverbal cues that usually help everyone gauge the social subtext—i.e., if you were all out together at happy hour celebrating someone’s birthday, it’s less likely that your friend would suddenly start ranting out of nowhere, for example.

In general, a group chat exists in a weird suspended zone of manners, where no one can really read anyone’s moods, and the convenience of having 24/7 access to our loved ones brings with it quite a few inconveniences as well. What I’m saying is that it’s very normal to be annoyed when someone doesn’t seem to understand the “rules” of the group chat because they are so rarely, if ever, articulated; each chat has its own set of customs and expectations that can only become defined with time. It’s more of an anarchy in there than a democracy!

It sounds like your friend is terribly lonely. A group chat can be a reliable place to find emotional support, but it shouldn’t be anyone’s only source of solace, especially because the medium kind of dilutes the sense of responsibility amongst members of the group (i.e., everyone assumes someone else will respond first, which can lead to a very awkward silence). Ideally, whichever group chat member is closest to her could reach and plan either a phone call or a one-on-one hang to better offer her the support she clearly needs. But you also don’t have to personally be on bestie terms to simply text her separately and express concern. Something like, “Hey, I’ve noticed you’ve been having a tough time lately. Do you want to talk about it?” Everyone goes through a rough patch now and then, and they usually just want to feel seen and heard. You don’t have to sign yourself up to be her de facto therapist, but it is part of any friendship contract to at least check in once when someone’s clearly unhappy.

Whatever you do, do not start a separate chat to discuss this friend with everyone else. That’s the equivalent of talking behind her back, and if you are all really friends—even if you’re not personally close to her—that would be quite a betrayal. The exception to this rule is if you genuinely have cause for concern over her behavior; if she’s threatening to hurt herself, for example, you absolutely want all hands on deck to figure out how to best help your friend.

Listen, I love my partner. I really do. But she’s been getting on my nerves lately because she’s constantly texting me when I’m at work. Sometimes she gets mad if I haven’t responded within the hour. I think her job is just less demanding than mine, but I simply can’t be on my phone all day, nor do I really want to! I genuinely like my job, and I can’t always focus when I have to keep an eye out for her texts. How do I get her to stop doing this?

Honestly, this sounds very addressable. You and your partner just need to have a discussion about boundaries by way of texting preferences. She might be the kind of person who simply likes to express her affection through a steady supply of memes and links and chitchat, and you just have to tell her that you can’t give her your full attention when you’re at work.

There’s definitely a compromise to be made here: maybe you can carve out a 15-minute window during lunch where you can tell each other about your day so far. Or you might even say that you’d rather catch up properly at the end of the day—perhaps even with a phone call, because you’d prefer to hear her voice. Just make sure you frame the discussion as a question of “What do we both need in terms of space and validation during the day, and how do we come up with a solution that makes us both happy?” versus “Can you stop texting me?” The wondrous instantaneity of iMessage and group chats make us feel like we should always be constantly available to one another, but that isn’t true, not even for the happiest of couples. If she can’t respect that there are going to be vast stretches of the day when you can’t text back, you may need to have a bigger discussion about the relationship and your expectations.