So, I've had this friend for about 2 years now and always have a great time talking to them. Recently, she moved to the other side of the city, about an hour drive, and it's made seeing her difficult as we don't share days off work.
We still message every day and organise to hang out whenever we take time off work or if she's down to visit her grandparents, I'll sometimes get invited to come over and play games with them.
When she lived close by we messeged constantly and got to see each other all the time, but since the move, she's gotten a boyfriend and barely manages to message me at all, with a full day being the longest I've gone without a reply. I know it could be longer, but it just feels like ages. To give an example of how it goes I'll message at 7am, she'll message back at 9pm that same day, then I'll respond a few minutes after and won't hear from her again until, like, 5pm the next day.
I've spoken to her about how long it takes to reply and that It feels like I'm being forgotten and that she never has time to message back, despite being active on social media. She responded, saying that she knows she's gotten pretty bad at responding and is sorry that it keeps happening and does value our friendship, while also saying she'll work on it and try to respond more often.
This lated for about a week, then she goes right back to messaging me days later. Now, I totally understand that she can be busy at work or might have something going on at home or is going through something she doesn't want to talk about. Those are totally valid reasons for taking a long time to respond. I just wanna know, what should I do?
I've thought about not messaging back for a full day to see if she'll notice or telling her again how I'm feeling, but I also feel that she'll tell me she'll work on it and it only lasting for another week.
I just feel like I'm a bad person who's pushing their friend to talk to them because they're lonely and impatient. She's a good friend and I genuinely do care about her, but I also understand that I have to respect whenever she chooses to messsage me back.
