One-sided friendship? What to do when you’re always the one reaching out

A one-sided friendship is one where one person does nearly all the reaching out, planning or caring, and it has started to feel lopsided. But always being the one who texts first doesn’t make a friendship one-sided on its own. The better test is warmth: are they glad to hear from you, and do they show up for you?

You’re not the only one wondering. Type “why am I always the one” into Google in Australia and “reaching out to friends” turns up in the same list as “getting bit by mosquitoes”. Only one of those comes with a spray.

If it’s usually you, you already know the job: unpaid social secretary, events coordinator and, when someone goes quiet for a month, search-and-rescue. Below: a kind quiz, why friends don’t text first and what to say.

(Worried you’re the friend who never texts first? That’s a different guide: am I a bad friend?)

Is my friendship one-sided, or do they just never text first?

If they’re glad to hear from you and turn up when it counts, it probably isn’t one-sided: they just don’t text first. Researchers call a truly one-sided friendship a “unilateral” tie, where only one person counts the other as a friend. The surprising part is how bad we are at spotting one.

In a 2016 study of how people read their friendships, 84 adult students rated every classmate from 0 (“I do not know this person”) to 5 (“One of my best friends”), then guessed how each had rated them. When they named someone as a friend, they expected to be named back 94 per cent of the time. Only about half of the class’s friendships (53 per cent) actually ran both ways.

The authors found people “typically poor at perceiving the directionality of their friendship ties”. Those figures come from one small class, but the same paper found similar results in five other friendship surveys, where only 34 to 53 per cent of friendships ran both ways.

Co-author Erez Shmueli summed it up plainly: “we’re very bad at judging who our friends are”. Rating everyone in the room, then guessing how they rated you, is also a fair description of Year 9. The useful bit: that study measured feelings, not texts, so who texts first is an even flimsier clue.

So judge the welcome instead. The friend who never texts first but always replies is a golden retriever who can’t open doors: overjoyed when you arrive, with no working theory of handles. That isn’t a one-sided friendship, just one with a single door-opener.

Judge a friendship by the welcome, not by who knocked.

Signs of a one-sided friendship (a kind quiz)

A friendship is genuinely one-sided when the care runs one way, not just the texts. The clearest signs:

• They only get in touch when they need something. A lift, a favour, someone to feed the cat.
• Your news gets a sentence. Theirs gets the evening.
• Plans only happen if you make them. Then they’re the first thing moved.
• They miss the big things. The new job, the move, the results you were waiting on.
• You come home tired. Catch-ups feel like a shift, not a night off.

Notice what isn’t there: who texts first. Each quiz result comes with words to copy.

Why do my friends never reach out to me?

Often, a friend who never texts first isn’t losing interest at all. For a start, lopsided contact is ordinary.

It was one phone company, and not all the pairs were friends. Still, it took 350 million calls to confirm what every group chat already knew.

In Shakespeare’s time, the authors note, measuring this “would have meant counting the number of poems passed and sonnets sung”. Be glad a photo of a pelican counts now.

The usual reasons are just as ordinary:

• They’re answerers, not callers. The same researchers found “people with many contacts tend to be active in keeping up those contacts, as opposed to simply waiting for the others to call them.” Some people start; others wait to be started.
• It didn’t cross their mind. Research on invitations published in 2025 found people left out of plans overestimate the chance they were deliberately not asked. Often nobody had thought of it: less flattering than a snub, and much easier to fix (here’s how to ask a friend to hang out).
• It’s a busy season. A baby, a new job or a parent who needs them can shrink anyone’s world to the next 48 hours (see friendship after having a baby).

Sometimes they’re struggling. Low mood and stress can switch off reaching out in people who still care: the NHS lists “avoiding contact with friends and taking part in fewer social activities” among the symptoms of depression, and “avoiding certain places or people” among the signs of stress.

You can’t diagnose anyone from a text thread, and don’t need to: a warm, low-pressure message is always fair. If you’re worried about them (or yourself), Beyond Blue’s counsellors are on 1300 22 4636 around the clock in Australia, and in the US you can call or text 988. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans answer 116 123, free, day or night.

Always the one making plans? Sharing the load

If you’re always the one making plans with friends, you’ve probably become your group’s organiser. It doesn’t mean they don’t care. It means the group found its planner and stopped looking.

Canadian sociologist Carolyn Rosenthal described the family version in 1985: the kinkeeper, “someone who works at keeping family members in touch with one another.” More than half the adults aged 40 and older she surveyed in Hamilton, Ontario, said their extended family had one, and families with one had more contact all round.

The role was mostly held by women and “frequently passed from mother to daughter”. These days, presumably, along with admin rights to the family group chat. If it’s your family you’re always ringing round, that’s the original job.

Her study was about families; the friend-group version is our comparison. Either way, the planner isn’t the pushover in the arrangement. They’re the reason there’s still an arrangement.

You don’t have to resign. Spread the job around:

• Give it a name and a day. Schnitzel Monday, the 7am Saturday ocean-pool dip, the terrible-film club. Once it’s a fixture, nobody has to organise it. It just arrives, like Monday does.
• Split the jobs. You choose the date, they book the table.
• Ask for a turn, out loud. Plenty of non-planners assume you love organising. Some of them are right.

If you’ll keep going first, keep track of the times they don’t. In Howdy Mate! you can add your own check-in type (Settings, then Groups & Lists, then Check-in types & moods) called something like “They reached out”: logging it counts as a catch-up like any other, so their turns get remembered too. Handy on the days you’d swear it’s always you.

How to tell a friend it feels one-sided

Raise it once, face to face or on a call, as one small ask, not a three-year performance review. It’s worth it, because effort from both sides matters.

A 2004 study of friendship maintenance grouped the upkeep into four kinds (positivity, supportiveness, openness and interaction) and found both friends’ efforts predicted how satisfied and committed the pair were. Who starts the text is one small slice of that, roughly the size of the garnish.

Leave the scorecard at the cricket.

Then believe their answer. “I’m hopeless at starting, but I love it when you do” is a real answer, and quite a sweet one.

Should you stop reaching out to friends? A kinder experiment

You can, but not as a secret test. Silence is hard to read from both ends: they don’t know it’s a test, and you can’t tell whether they’re busy, struggling or just an answerer.

It’s an old move, too. Researchers who study relationships call these indirect checks “secret tests”, and a 1984 study of 181 people found 14 basic kinds. If you’ve ever gone quiet to see who notices, you were running a research protocol from 1984 with a sample of one.

Here’s a kinder version:

1. Say something first. One honest sentence, so they know what you’re hoping for.
2. Let one of your usual gaps pass. You’re making room, not setting a trap. (Not sure what your gap is? Here’s how often to talk to friends.)
3. Stay warm when they get in touch. No “well, look who it is”.
4. Watch the warmth, not the speed. A slow “wait, did you get the flat?” is warmer than a fast “haha”.
5. Then choose on purpose. Keep going first, see them a little less or let it rest.

Seeing someone less isn’t the end: plenty of friendships go from weekly dinners to birthday texts and stay real (more on why friendships drift apart). Some of the sturdiest run on one lunch a year, booked by whoever remembers first and finished around dinnertime. If plans keep falling over, see what to do when a friend keeps cancelling plans.

And if the effort only ever flows one way, you’re allowed to put less in. That isn’t cutting anyone off. It’s matching what comes back, with the door left open.

The short version

• Who texts first isn’t the test. Plenty of warm friendships have one starter and one answerer.
• Judge the welcome. Are they glad to hear from you, and do they turn up?
• Assume busy before bored. Babies, jobs and low mood can all switch off reaching out.
• Share the planning. Hand over the next one, with a window.
• Raise it once, then make room. One specific ask, then let a usual gap pass.

Some friends will never be the ones to knock. If they’re overjoyed every time you do, that friendship is working; it just has one of you on door duty.

Going first isn’t losing. Quite often, it’s the whole reason there’s still a friendship to go first in.