Is it ok for me(m27) to not wanting to work "for" my friend(m28)?

Hello everyone,

first off, english is not my native language so bear with me.

I need perspective on one of my oldest but also the most stressful friendship i currently have/ever had.

First off our life circumstances:

I am not career driven, work half time, "lots" of free time i spend on my family (parents/brothers), nephew and grandparents. No interest in starting a own family. Seen from the outside im probably your typical BUM. Fell gravely sick when i finished highschool and that shifted my perspective quite a lot, but i'm ok now.

He is career driven, married and focused on making money to build his dream life. Not really that empathic (his words) and quite the opportunist.

We were really good friends in the past, sporadically hung out and talked almost every (other) night while playing videogames. That all changed about 2 years ago. He had a stressful time studying and transitioning into the workforce and i get it, its not an easy time. Building a family and buying a house causes your priorities to shift.

Well a couple different things changed as well: He stopped texting back, the groupchat we share with another friend (perpetual student; his best friend) to plan possible activities has been a dialogue between me and said third friend. He will then text/talk to the third friend in private to accept/decline and said third friend then comes back to me.

For the past 16 months we barely hung out/talked/etc. So our conversations go like this: I text him/the group proposing an activity we could do together, silence for 1 week-1 month, an answer, i answer within a day, repeat. The subtext of his massages are mostly: i dont have time/lots of stress. I know life can be packed, but is an answer within a couple of days too much expected? Am i expecting too much of this relationship, when i want an minimal amount of efford to maintain the friendship?

These were the questions i was confronted with.

So more context:

I actually have two other friend circles (lets call them A and B) i grew closer with over the last couple of years and i pretty sure he wasn't a big fan of it. On the other side we (me and his best friend) are his only friend circle and outside of that, he always had a hard time making new friends. He can be quite irritating and...well unempathic. The first time i mentioned other friends outside our friend group he acted weird and i think he was a bit jealous as i never had that much trouble making new friends. He would always talk bad about them and i soon started to avoid mentioning them alltogether.

Circle A is a friend from the past. Although we just knew each othzer back then, we grew closer over the last couple years (as mentioned). The typical guy you see once a month and just have a blast hanging out with. He lives far away but comes visit his family quite often and we always use this opportunity to go watch basketball, go for walks or some other stuff. We can talk openly about stuff and i never feel stressed out when dealing with him.

Circle B is a board game group i joined. What started with board games turned into friendship and we hang out weekly now, cook together play games or just talk.

In comparison to Circle A and B, the friend this is about feels like a toxic swamp. I dont want to call the relationship toxic because i too declined activities in the past and had periods i took too much time to text back in my early 20ies, but i wasn't acting as unapologetic as he has. The perspective A and B gave me make me seriously question the relationship.

Now to today and the reason i made this post:

Like i said there was barely any contact December and i was actually okay to let this friendship drift apart. Then completely ignoring my text from mid january, he texts me about 2 weeks ago basically saying that he needs help with the house and if i can come. No "Hello, how it's been? How are you?", no apology, nothing. I did him favors in the past and he has been very reluctant to return them. I know a friendship isnt always about equal exchange of favors but there is a limit (for me). So i told him immediately i have to see if i can make time and proposed that we could hang out if he got time aaaannndd....he went straight up to ignoring me till today.

A week ago i went to visit his best friend and we took a walk, (another activity we discussed in the group chat that he refuses to partake in only to tell said friend privately that he wont come). We talked about him moving, me being okay with a simpler lifestyle (because i dont earn much) and other life stuff.

So today i got a text in which he mentions something unrelated, that i privately talked to his best friend about and then asks if i want to make some kmoney helping him out followed up with a wall of text of him proposing i do some yard work for him (cleaning his yard from stones with his mother in law, while he is at work) for less than minimum wage because it "has to be done" and he "really needs the help" and he "doesnt know who else to ask"(because - like mentioned - his best friend moved away about 2 weeks ago and has to focus on his studies)? I dont want to assume that he talked to his best friend about my finances and tried to take advantage of that by proposing i do his shitty yard work but part of me does? What the hell? If he nurished the relationship at least a bit i would have done it together with him for free, but he didnt.

I havent answered since.

The end.

I just vomited all that out. Sorry. Maybe it's just me being frustrated with this friendship and it coming to a melting point. Maybe i am overreacting. Maybe this is what becoming an adult means. Maybe our lives are just drifting further apart and none of us knows how to handle it.

If one of you can make sense of what i wrote i would really like some outsiders perspective. Help me make sense of this. Feel free to ask if you have questions.

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TL;DR: Had a really close friend since last years of high school but over last 2 years the friendship has become more one-sided and stressful. He’s very career-/money-focused now, barely replies to texts, avoids our group chat and lately seems to only engage with me when it suits him.

Meanwhile i grew closer with two other friend circles that make me question my relationship with him. Compared to them his friendship feels draining and borderline toxic.

After long time of barely talking he reached out not to reconnect, but to ask me to help him with his house. Later even offered to pay me below minimum wage to do yard work while he is at work. No real effort to nourish the friendship.

Not sure if i am overreacting, its just teenage friendship turning into adult friendship or friendship has simply run its course.

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Throwaway for reasons.