You are a good friend lol
I’m moreso used to only opening up by the point where a situation is so bad that there’s no nuance left, and the “friend” still responding like “Well, what were you wearing? Maybe it was just a bad day, don’t judge them for one terrible mistake! Where’s your tolerant empathy?”
So now I don’t talk about any of my personal problems lol
Sounds like you are enabling their behaviour.
yeah but it’s funny when it’s someone else who is suffering from my friend’s poor actions and behaviors!
Thats not being a friend though.
That’s why we dumped one of our friends.
Everything was about her. She’d complain about wanting to change, and if you mentioned it when she was doing the destructive thing she’d get pissed. If you needed something from her you were taking advantage or putting to much on her.
She had some fancy therapy bully words for it, it’s too early for me to remember.
Anyways, removing her from life removed like 90% of all drama.
She could be very fun, but in hindsight awful fucking person.
ETA: probably the worst was she was trying to save money to propose to her partner, but took uber everywhere. We bought a new car. Instead of selling the old one we gave it to her. For free. She would constantly complain about that fucking car all the time. There was a mechanic who wanted to buy it because it was in such good shape for its age.
I’ve got some fancy therapy words for her: “External locus of control.” For her, everything she experiences is being done to her by others. Even if she’s blatantly the one who did something, her brain just cannot accept fault and projects it all onto others. Her childhood was probably a hot mess, and she should go to therapy.
people like this are in therapy, demand others should go to therapy, and tell everyone it’s a lifelong process and if you aren’t in therapy, it’s YOU who is the bad/wrong/immature person.
meanwhile their therapist is basically someone they pay to complain to, and doesn’t actually confront them or help them.
incredibly common to meet people like this where i live. therapy is just a status sorting mechanism for them to glorify themselves they are only it it to feel like they are superior and better than anyone who can’t afford to drop $100s per week in therapy sessions that go no where.
and everyone else ‘not living up to their standards’ is the issue. it’s never that their ‘standards’ are completely insane and often counter-productive to becoming a happier person.
removing her from life
Sounds like you killed her
That would be removing her from her life
sounds like a lot of single women I meet… they were given so much but they are utterly miserable and resentful it wasn’t more/better.
I dated a girl a few years ago, who complained her parents were selfish jerks, because they ONLY gave her 50K in cash a a gift, and not the Porsche Macan she wanted. And when I pointed out she could easily buy one herself, she told me I was a jerk taking their side… she shouldn’t have to go through AGONY of going to a car dealership and doing all that icky paper work, daddy should have done it for her!
Bad driving is a hard one, because from my experience about 75% of people have at least one unacceptable bad habit when they drive, and not one person on the planet believes that they are a bad driver. Giving gentle advice has never resulted in more than them getting very defensive time and time again. I hear stories from someone I know to be a menace on the road about how some guy cut them off or whatever, and I can’t help but disbelieve their version of events. I truly believe we should have to redo a driving test every few years so people have to confront the illegality of their habits.
I was talking to a work acquaintance last week, and as a conversation starter when I was walking into work I made the statement “Man, aggressive drivers drive me nuts.” He instantly prickled up and got defensive. He started in on a rant about how his girlfriend is afraid of his driving because her reaction speed didn’t match up to his. I’m just standing there thinking “Man, I don’t know if I have the energy or ability to fix this dude.”
i can do you better. i have had people harass me for driving too well, too safely, and too responsibility. like get pissed at me for leaving space between cars, signalling to pass, staying in the right lane, not doing 60 in a 30, etc.
because makes them feel bad about how they aren’t good drivers, and that makes me an asshole. because i should be a worse driver to protect and validate their feelings and their bad driving habits.
they don’t want to be better, they want to tear down everyone else to their petty miserable level.
That’s brutal. Definitely experienced something similar back in high school.
Being supportive can also mean helping them see the problem.
Have you considered trying to be sometime else?
I’m not sure if you meant something or some place, but I love the idea of aspiring to will yourself into an entirely different time period lmao
Nope, I said what I meant lol
My wife’s friend was visiting for the weekend and is the poster girl for this meme. If my wife tried to point out anything being her fault, the friend shut down any criticism/feedback.
They kept asking why I wasn’t hanging out with them beyond short bursts. After hearing about her detailed story of her moving out of the house on the break from her husband and son, cheating for months with a married coworker who had months old new baby at home, then moving on to “forcing herself” upon a religious friend till he caved in for a friends-with-benefits situation, seducing her cousin’s husband into an emotional relationship (and then playing dumb when he said he loved her) and idolising another married man they know (for accepting his wife having cheated on him for years and declared undying love for her anyway). I couldn’t really carry on sitting there holding my tongue, especially when these stories drag on for hours…and she figures she’s the victim in all this and deserves a break. This doesnt even cover the drinking and drug taking. My wife had to forbid her from vaping in front of our children or in our home.
your need to forbid your wife from associating with this person. she’s going to try to fuck you and destroy your marriage at some point in the future. and when you reject her she’s probably going to say you assaulted her or some other heinous lie.
Jaysus. That’s a lot.
I had a friend from high school that I then went to college with similar to this, would constantly complain that she didn’t have a boyfriend, but any guy who tried to strike up a conversation with her was instantly stalking her, and the worst type of guy.
No girl, you dont have 8 stalkers. That guy was just in your class which is why you keep seeing him. Eventually dropped the relationship because it was too much drama.
An acquaintance from highschool kept going on about some guy stalking her. Always following her in the halls at school, following her home, and following her downtown sometimes…
He lived on the same street as her, and they both took the same computer class and had band/lunch block together.
I pointed out I recognize him, he finally hit a growth spurt and now he’s much taller and noticeable.
She insisted he convinced his parents to move closer so he could stalk her better.
I never saw him outside one day we were at Walmart and he was clearly there with his parents and little sister. Nope, stalking. She screamed at him and called him names. I left her there.
I also told him if she tried to call the cops or get lawyers involved, here’s my email and I will tell them an outside perspective.
I had a real stalker in high school. Left me weird notes, threatened my girlfriends, would call my house and hang up or pretend to cold calling to try and get me on the phone… would corner me sometimes at night after school activities and cry and scream why i won’t go out with her , she loves me so much and we’re destined to be together. she claimed to have cast ‘love spells’ on me and didn’t understand why they didn’t work… when i graduated she started mailing me love poetry and other weird shit in the mail.
but it was a girl and I was a boy, so everyone thought it was ‘cute’. ‘she just has a crush’. ‘you should give her a chance.’ etc. not a single person took thought it was bad or wrong that she did this, and my discomfort with it made me ‘gay’. everyone knew, friends, teachers, family, coaches, etc. they all laughed it off as harmless silly girl with a crush on a popular boy. i was terrified of her.
this went on for two years. she eventually gave up after she found a new target and i went to college. thank god.
So when I met my wife she had these friends, like her circle. I fit right in with them.
One of them, the (at the time) husband of her (at the time) bestie, got me started on my career. Both of them were in our wedding.
I knew they were swingers, but when we got back from our honeymoon (cruise, so quite disconnected), we had found that they switched partners with another couple in the group, who was also in the wedding.
Well…there was chemistry. A lot. Fast forward a bit the partner swaps ended up being semi-permanent. Both original couples split…my wife’s bestie married the guy (who had since become my bestie), and his ex-girlfriend ran off with her husband.
Fast forward a bit more and she starts (at the “advice of her therapist”, and unbeknownst to the husband) an affair. Gets caught.
Meanwhile she isn’t working due to injury and trying to collect. He’s the sole provider and barely coping with caregiver fatigue as it is.
Last I heard she lost all the friends in the divorce. Serves her right. She spread all sorts of lies about him, most of them verifiable falsehoods and the rest completely out of character.
She was absolutely 100% the biggest source of drama in our life.
Anyways I’m glad we cut her out. I got their dachshund…at least “temporarily” (2 years later) while he got back on his feet. Unfortunately it seems he may have lost those in the divorce, too.
Stop being their friend. Save yourself the drama.
IME people with friends like this are clinging onto the past memories of how they were besties in college or something like that, without ever realizing the person now is nothing like they were 10-20 years ago, and their life is a product of their choices, not anyone else’s.
I have had some friends the past few years I had to let go because instead of taking responsibility for themselves and their unhappiness they have created in their life due to their repeated poor choices, they went off the deep end into anti-vax conspiracy nonsense, or otherwise totally delusional about themselves. It is sad, but once you are older you realize people only change when they take responsibility for their choices and actions and their consequences. Healthy people avoid drama and own up to mistakes, they don’t seek it out and revel in victim hood.
That’s not a friend, that’s a spineless enabler. You are the equivalent of those stereotypical dudes that float around a bully in movies and repeat everything they say.
A real friend would call them out on their shit so they stop hurting other people, otherwise they’ll never learn their lesson because they feel they got someone backing them up on their bullshit.
Wait, you guys have real friends?
I’d expect my real friends to call out my bullshit
