Hi, I (25F) have known this friend, "T," since we were 10 years old. I place a lot of weight in our bond since we grew up together, but I can't deny that deep down I feel like I've been far more accommodating to her as a friend than she has been for me. I don't know if I need to reassess the presence of this person in my life or if I merely need to accept that this is simply a surface-level friend now.
We were closest during the latter years of high school, but that was mainly due to a falling-out that she had with her former best friend. When we hit our college years, I began to feel suffocated by the friendship. We both went to different universities but were commuters. Since we stayed local, T had the same expectation of hanging out weekly even though I was taking a heavy course load and struggling to adjust to university. The one and only time we had a fight in our friendship was due to this. She was frustrated that we weren't seeing each other as frequently as we had been in high school and expressed that the friendship felt one-sided as she was the one always initiating plans. We were able to resolve the conflict and I began to initiate hang outs as well, but I would often feel drained after seeing her because there was an expectation for these hang outs to span the entire day from noon to past midnight.
My frustrations with her peaked during lockdown. T viewed it as an opportunity to hang out more, and because of this, she would pressure me into meeting up and downplayed the severity of the situation early on. I was firm on not wanting to go out, which I feel played a part in her looking elsewhere for companionship.
Sometime during lockdown was also when T began rampantly hooking up with various guys. Prior to lockdown, she was vehemently against hookup culture and mentioned how sick the idea of one-night stands made her feel. Her foray into hookup culture was, unfortunately, unsurprising because I saw it as her way of addressing her loneliness from the isolation of lockdown. When I couple it with the fact that she was now receiving male attention, which she had never gotten while growing up, it makes even more sense. She became increasingly male-centered and found friends whom she could frequent bars with. When we did hang out, she couldn't be bothered to ask me about how I was doing. She would launch into a detailed account of her latest hookup or romantic interest. I felt like a deep conversation about our friendship was needed, but I decided against it because it wasn't like we saw each other frequently enough to warrant having a serious conversation; I only saw her about once every 3 or 4 months at that point in time.
Fast forward to now, T has a baby conceived from a hookup. About two years ago, T was proud to announce that she had moved on from hookup culture and would now only sleep with guys that she actually liked. She downloaded a dating app and began meeting guys through the app instead of at bars, but she was still sleeping with the majority of the people she met. This ceased when she found out she was pregnant. The dad is not in the picture and there is zero contact between them. I really feel for her, but I also can't help but feel like this friendship isn't serving me. Our dynamic has remained the same; the conversation is always steered towards her and she can't be bothered to ask about my life. I don't know if I'm being unreasonable for feeling this way even though I know that her plate is beyond full as a single mom.
When we meet up now, her baby is always in tow and I feel more like a babysitter than anything; I don't mind helping a mom out but how much help is appropriate? The last time I saw her, I drove us to the beach where most of the time was understandably spent catering to the baby's needs. By the time we left the beach, the sun was going down and it quickly got dark out. The commute back to T's place would have taken a little over 10 minutes. About a quarter of the way into our commute, her baby began wailing because he hates being in a car. Now, I understand that mothers are sensitive to their babies crying, and I was concerned about his comfort too, but we were only about 8 minutes away from T's place then. Rather than tough it out for 8 minutes, T told me to pull into a random neighborhood on our route back so she could go to a park there and swing to rock her baby to sleep. She told me that she's gone there before. Perhaps I'm overly cautious, but it doesn't seem like the safest scenario to put yourself and your baby in, assuming that she has done this before by herself. It was also a dimly lit area. It ended up being a roughly 30 minute layover.
Am I not understanding enough of T or was she being inconsiderate by having me make a stop at a random neighborhood on our way back in the evening?
What is an appropriate amount of help to expect from a friend when you go out with your baby in tow?
TL;DR: I have a childhood friend who is now a single mom from a hookup. Even before she became a mom, she couldn't be bothered to ask about my life and was only invested in a conversation if it pertained to gossip or her own life. We do have good moments at times, so I need an outside perspective on this friendship and input on what an appropriate amount of help to give is as a friend.