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How do I handle these "friends"


courtneykay

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I'm in the midst of my senior year of college, and with graduation at the end of the year and knowing I'm going to be moving across the country, I have been trying to appreciate my friendships and enjoy them to their fullest. Part of this involved moving in with three girlfriends which I would never normally do. Unfortunately this seems to be a disaster.

 

I'm an introvert, I like to socialize and enjoy spending time with people, but I need my alone time to debrief and wind down on some days. So, I try to give myself at least an hour in my room to be watching Netflix or doing homework, relaxing, whatever. Two of my roommates are constantly calling me a "weirdo" for doing this. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but it does hurt my feelings when they are constantly calling me weird for needing my alone time and space in an apartment with three other people.

 

The same thing occurs if I ever lock my bedroom door. We don't keep our main apartment door locked because their is security to get into the building. I get that some people are fine with that, and I don't care that much, but there are times when I feel the need to lock my door. Like when I was out of town for a week or away for a long weekend. I come back and they ridicule me for being weird and make fun of me saying that I think my items are so much more valuable than theirs, blah blah blah. I try to let it roll off my back, but it's something they tell other people about and will openly make fun of me for it in front of our other friends.

 

Not to mention they never clean up after themselves, but that's another story.

 

I guess I am feeling hurt because these two girls were once my close friends. One I went to high school with and we roomed together our freshman year. Now I feel like this living situation is destroying our relationship. I try to be kind and make efforts to hang out with them, but it doesn't work.

 

Another example, we all planned to have a roommate dinner together the other night. They said 5:30, I told them I had class until 5:45 but would love to go then, to which they agreed to. Turns out they all went to dinner without me. I let this go too, but vented about it to my third roommate who I'm closest with who didn't know I was coming in the first place.

 

I'm realizing these two girls are not going to be part of my life upon graduation. I try my best to maintain these friendships. I was the only one willing to take one of them to the hospital at 4 in the morning when I had class and work the next day. I feel like I don't deserve to constantly be ridiculed and made fun of just for being me. Maybe I'm quirky and like to have my door locked sometimes. At the same point they don't do dishes and lounge around all day, but I don't make fun of them for that (except for right now lol.)

 

I just needed to vent. I don't know if I'm asking for advice or what, if this situation is even salvageable. I seriously want to move out but I won't because that would ruin our friendships entirely. I guess a question to ask is, how many of you are still friends with people you met in college?

 

My older sisters both made their best friends there, and I thought I did too. But now I'm not so sure.

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I have been led to believe that I'm the unusual one because I still have several dear friends from college 25+ years later. In fact next weekend, about 20 of us are getting together. 3 just got back from an international vacation to celebrate their 50th birthdays.

 

 

I / we began to recognize how special our friendships are as some of their daughters started & finished college. Those girls were so heartbroken because their experiences were more like yours -- fake friends -- then ours.

 

 

All I can suggest is if the friendship isn't working for you, jettison it. There's no point making yourself more miserable.

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I have been led to believe that I'm the unusual one because I still have several dear friends from college 25+ years later. In fact next weekend, about 20 of us are getting together. 3 just got back from an international vacation to celebrate their 50th birthdays.

 

 

I / we began to recognize how special our friendships are as some of their daughters started & finished college. Those girls were so heartbroken because their experiences were more like yours -- fake friends -- then ours.

 

 

All I can suggest is if the friendship isn't working for you, jettison it. There's no point making yourself more miserable.

 

See this is why I feel bummed out. Your college friends are supposed to last a lifetime, and I'm afraid I will probably only talk to one or two once I've graduated, but I guess I should be grateful for that.

 

Here's another piece of the puzzle. They eat all of my groceries, without asking. My one roommate I get along with and I are feeling pretty fed up with it. I end up spending a lot of money on groceries and they eat it all. For example I just got back from a weekend away and found that 75% of my orange juice is gone. I really want to say something but again I'm afraid it will ruin any ounce of friendship that is left.

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Have a house meeting about the food. Try labeling your groceries.

 

 

If you do have 1-2 true friends that is still more than many people get.

 

 

Hang in there.

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I don't see how moving out would ruin the friendships. It doesn't sound like the type of friendship I would want with anyone. But I can see why you would stay if it is easier for you financially.

 

 

Have you explained to them that you are introverted? What introversion is? Some extraverts really don't get it at all, and they take things the wrong way easily. Honestly they sound insecure to me. Maybe they are jealous that you don't need people as much as they do.

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Lack of tolerance on their part, you are not an inconvenience yet they go out of their way to incovneniece you. Its scary out there. Hope you do get new friends, be it from new work places or neighbours, or when you have kids, their parents. I miss university days but after some self reflection, i had genuine frenemies. Still trying to recover.

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See this is why I feel bummed out. Your college friends are supposed to last a lifetime, and I'm afraid I will probably only talk to one or two once I've graduated, but I guess I should be grateful for that.

 

Here's another piece of the puzzle. They eat all of my groceries, without asking. My one roommate I get along with and I are feeling pretty fed up with it. I end up spending a lot of money on groceries and they eat it all. For example I just got back from a weekend away and found that 75% of my orange juice is gone. I really want to say something but again I'm afraid it will ruin any ounce of friendship that is left.

 

Many people part ways with roommates/classmates after they graduate college. There is no rule or law. Are you really afraid you will never make anymore friends? You will meet many people over the course of your life …some you will form friendships with, some not. I think you need to take a look at your definition of what a friendship is. PEOPLE WHO RIDICULE YOU AND EAT FOOD YOU HAVE BOUGHT ARE NOT FRIENDS! I don’t know of any friendship that require one person to provide food for others. There is no “puzzle” ~~> you are being USED by moochers and yet you’re “afraid” they won’t remain in your life. HUH?? Something VERY wrong with that picture. You have many options: stop buying food, ask them to chip in, lock your food up. And give serious thought as to whether you want moochers as friends. If you continue to put up with them you have only yourself to blame.

Edited by applej4
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See this is why I feel bummed out. Your college friends are supposed to last a lifetime, and I'm afraid I will probably only talk to one or two once I've graduated, but I guess I should be grateful for that.

 

Here's another piece of the puzzle. They eat all of my groceries, without asking. My one roommate I get along with and I are feeling pretty fed up with it. I end up spending a lot of money on groceries and they eat it all. For example I just got back from a weekend away and found that 75% of my orange juice is gone. I really want to say something but again I'm afraid it will ruin any ounce of friendship that is left.

 

I graduated college this past may, lived with two of my best friends from this group of friends, and you were literally me. I can link you to the countless posts on here about how my friends were mistreating me, pretty much exactly to the T as you described your friends were treating you. Like one of the points where I was like enough is enough is when it got to the point where me and my roommate were in the same club and I started to realize she didn't even bother walking with me to our meetings unless I knocked on her door and asked (it always had to be me) and if I didn't she would just go on her own even if she saw me getting ready for that same meeting and we lived together. lol like I look back and I am like wtf that is so ****ed up we were best friends for 3 years we rushed the fraternity together and went to every event together when we weren't living together and now you decide to act like a bitch? But at the time I was so afraid of graduating with no friends I was so hurt by it I clung as long as I could to that sinking friendship. Guess what? It still sunk, I prolonged it, but it still sunk and my worst fear came true I graduated alone. I cried so hard on the night of my graduation because my best friends for all four years all took graduation pictures together and no one bothered to invite me including my own roommate but they invited a girl one of the girls only one of the girls was even friends with and got close to the last month of school.

 

Four months later, I only talk to about four-five people I met in college, only one of those is from that group who also doesn't talk to any of those people (she was the other roommate who was acting weird, but we were able to mend our friendship after we graduated especially since we both left the same group of friends), and only two of those I am still friends with I consider to be close friends. I deleted that one roommate from facebook and I left that entire group of friends. I moped around for a bit of that summer, was trying to blame myself even though it honestly wasn't my fault, I really tried to make the friendship work.

 

But you know what? It turned out to be okay. Four months later, I look at how it forced me to really grow as a person and how it made the transition to adulthood so much easier for me. I was always way too into friends, always sacrificing study time to listen to them cry about breakups only to realize they wouldn't do the same for me and then get yelled at by the professor for not turning in an assignment or cry over them saying some snarky offhanded comment right before a presentation and mess it up. Now I know in the adult world your work comes first, your career comes first, and the only friends worth keeping are those that add value to your already valued life and with or without them your life has meaning. And the most important lesson is that anyone can let you down at anytime. I don't think I have ever felt this confident ever in my life before because I conquered my worst fear -- being alone -- for a while and realized its not even that bad. And then all of a sudden, I found myself with new friends that respect me and I stopped encoutering those friendship problems I used to "tolerate" like being put down in front of other friends (exactly like how yours call you weird).

Edited by La Trese
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If you have the funds, I think you would be better off moving out and starting afresh on your own. It will give you a new sense of identity, which it seems you need ie: you will no longer have to play the role of victim. Unfortunately, the social dynamics of your sharing environment will not change until one or more of you leave(s) and a new person(s) moves in, or you leave.

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Sometimes when we leave college and/or highschool we find that the friendships there were predominately based purely on the common experience of being in that context together at the same time. That's it and all it really ever was!

 

I remember my first catchup with my college friends after grad and being struck by how little we had in common. If the universe hadn't thrown us together at that moment in time we probably would never have connected. And we drifted apart other than the very few I really did connect with.

 

There's a whole amazing, wonderful world out there filled with amazing, wonderful people. And you're on the precipice of that adventure. Put what you're going through now down to growing pains; as in, you've outgrown these girls and they're too clueless and painful to recognise it.

 

Good luck!

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Quit letting them bully you around telling you what to do! Beware of people who think others MUST be like them or at least aspire to be like them. Call a locksmith and get a new bedroom doorknob lock and do NOT give them the key. Be sure it has the button on the inside so you can lock yourself in there. Your little roommates are idiots.

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I'm in the midst of my senior year of college, and with graduation at the end of the year and knowing I'm going to be moving across the country, I have been trying to appreciate my friendships and enjoy them to their fullest. Part of this involved moving in with three girlfriends which I would never normally do. Unfortunately this seems to be a disaster.

 

I'm an introvert, I like to socialize and enjoy spending time with people, but I need my alone time to debrief and wind down on some days. So, I try to give myself at least an hour in my room to be watching Netflix or doing homework, relaxing, whatever. Two of my roommates are constantly calling me a "weirdo" for doing this. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but it does hurt my feelings when they are constantly calling me weird for needing my alone time and space in an apartment with three other people.

 

Even fairly extrovert people I know tend to like at least some chill out time on their own.

 

If these girls find you weird for needing a bit of space, then they're probably going to encounter difficulties when it comes to sharing apartments with other people post-graduation, living with a partner, having kids (who grow into teens who want lots of space on their own) and so on....because it's actually pretty common for people of various personality types and backgrounds to appreciate a bit of personal space. If the ladies you live with don't learn to appreciate that, then they might find in due course that other people feel somewhat suffocated by them.

 

As for how to deal with them - you could try "it's not that I'm weird. Nor, in case you're secretly angsting over the prospect, do any of you smell so hideous that I can't sit in the same room as you. I just need time on my own to recharge, as do lots of people. Best get used to it because you're probably going to meet lots of other weirdos just like me once we all hit the real world."

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