[orange]

I have a friend who I used to get along with quite well, but is now really getting on my nerves. A few months back she started using Photoshop for making graphics, and since I've been working in Photoshop for a while and know quite a bit about it, she started asking me for help when she had a problem with it. At first it was just a quick question when we were visiting at her place. Then she started calling me with a question once in a while. Then it was a few times a week. Now she calls practically every day, and if I call her just to say hi, she uses this as an opportunity to ask a question.

I've stopped calling her all together, and I dread her calls. She never asks if I'm busy, or if I want to help. The calls go something like, "Hi, how are you? That's good... I have a question... how do I do such and such in Photoshop?" A lot of the time now I tell her I'm busy and don't have time to answer her question, or I tell her to look it up in the online help. I'm pretty abrupt with her now but she doesn't seem to get the "cues" that I'm not interested in helping her anymore. I really feel used. I hate to just come out and say, "I don't want to help you anymore", but I'm not sure what else to do or how else to say it. She is a very sensitive person, so I know her feelings will be hurt. She's also quite "dense" though, about a lot of things, which is why I think she doesn't understand that she's annoying me.

So is there any nicer way to say quit bothering me with your questions? Thanks.

[nymphetamine]

That would make me feel like she was only being my friend because of what I knew. You could tell her that it makes you feel bad that everything has to turn into photoshop and you would like to talk to her about other things. Perhaps you could suggest a good place to go for all her informantion needs about photoshop.

[orange]

Thanks crankiebabie... great advice! I'm still not sure what I'm going to tell her about how I feel, but I really like the idea of giving her another photoshop resource. I think I'm going to look online now for some good tutorials. :D

I tried to give you some reputation but it wouldn't let me again.

[fredg]

Hi,
Great suggestion by crankiebabie!
The only thing I could add is to just tell your friend, every time she calls, that I can't talk now... "my soup is boiling over."
Or, keep making up stuff, or "there's someone at the door".
It would take longer using this method for her to get the idea, but eventually, it usually works.
Best of luck.

[orange]

Thanks Fred lol that's probably what I'm going to do... keep avoiding her and putting her off. Wish I could think of a better way though.

[jjeremyls]

I really hate asking people for help. When I started using photoshop I asked someone to show me the basic tools and that's what they did. After that I told the same guy who taught me to stop giving me tips. Why you ask. Because there are so many ways to do a certain thing on photoshop I would rather find the best way or the way I would understand it better off in a tutorial. I now live in Alaska and I work next to 2 photoshop guru's and I have not once ask them for help. I think your friend is just too lazy to read and do things him/herself. That is a bad thing. People need to read to understand so they will learn it and not forget it. Tell your friend about Deviantart.com I think that's how you spell it. It's a fantastic site and gives you a lot of tutorials.

[Chery]

Hi dear, here's the link to the Adobe Photoshop Tutorial Section.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorials - Tutorialized

Sen it to her via email and tell her you're just too stresed right now..

I had the same issue with PaintShopPro for quite some time with a few of my friends. When I finally told them that I will start classes and if they wanted to come, it would be one hour a week and cost 10 dollars - that stopped a few. The others actually came on time and paid - which helped me a bit.

After a few months of this, I suggested that they now knew enough to try on their own and if they still had questions, that there is probably a special forum on the distributor's site - and they did find the forums and left me alone.

When she calls, tell her you cannot help her right now because you are stressed and need some help yourself so she should check a forum out. If that does not work, then you might have to be blunt about it - some people just need longer to figure out that it's more rewarding to learn things on their own.

Good luck dear, hope it doesn't take too long for it to register.