I have a friend (M30) who will message me (M32) on Messenger, and if I don't reply within an hour or 2 he will send me Snapchat.
Also when I take time to answer, he will send me memes and ask me how it's going, and then another message "hope we can hang out soon". And then another meme. If I haven't watched my phone for a few hours he have already messaged me 5-6 times.
I have a newborn son and don't have time to focus on my phone like I used to. I also deleted the Facebook and Instagram app because I scrolled too much on it. My friend took it personally and asked me if I deleted them because of him. Yes he constantly sent memes and reels there, but I deleted it because I was scrolling and scrolling and it took too much of my free time.
He still lives with his parents and have no job, using most of his free time to play video games. Maybe we have grown from each other. Still, he is a really good friend but it's exhausting he think I'm mad if I take hours to reply. I have told him I wanna use my phone less and focus more on my newborn, and he seemed fine with that. But I can still sense when he overthinks and starts sending several memes in a few hours.
I don't want to come out as rude, I just need him to understand I don't have the time I used to. I have friends who I can message once every week, doesn't mean I don't like them. I just don't message people just to message them. So how can I say it to him so he will understand and not take it personally?