Being friends with Type A...Me

[amkxoxo]

I am so confused and upset with my friend Kelly. We are both 24 and I have felt disconnected from her for about a year now. She and I got really close. We did everything together and had the best times. She was my drinking buddy. She was my shopping buddy. She was my dinner buddy. But like I mentioned, in the last year things have changed.

 

She decided to become a vegan. I'm not a fan, but whatever she chooses is fine. The problems started because my dinner buddy then couldn't go to half the places we liked to eat at. She started constantly talking about vegan food and it became annoying. If I mentioned making really delicious chocolate chip cookies, she would have to say how she makes amazing ones and then tell how she made them vegan. She started wanting me to try vegan food. I like the food I like. I eat healthy and I eat what is medically advised to me for my body. I wouldn't want to try it and she would almost act like I wasn't open to anything. She would say that trying vegan ice cream was for "fun-sies" I would tell her it isn't fun for me who can eat regular ice cream. I know I like regular ice cream.

 

Then friend and boy issues started popping up. She introduced me to this group of friends. I grew close to them fast. Even closer than she ever was. They really liked me a lot. They opened up to me after a while that they liked me more than they liked her and that they felt she was self centered.

 

Things got weird when she and I would go out and meet them and they were all super excited to see me. I would have them over every Sunday to watch a show we all liked. Kelly didn't like that show so she never came. Things got even more awkward when she started not being invited to some events and I was invited. I would beg them to invite her and then they would, but always at the last minute. She would know I got invited a long time before she.

 

She met a guy last year. Her first real guy she dated. They rushed into things so fast. I mentioned to her once that it seemed fast but she was blinded so I backed off and let her be happy. She preached being this nice sweet girl, but then slept with him after a month. She claimed she loved him and she just knew it was right. When she slept with him she told everyone she knew. I didn't like that. Its a very private intimate thing. Not an attention getter. She was turning crazy. She started talking like people thought they were perfect together and like a married couple. That his family just loved her and thought she was the best thing to ever happen to him. It was all so cheesy and fake. She was living an exaggerated life. It also hurt because I started seeing one of the guys in the group. It was early on, and we did things right. We dated for months before getting more serious. We had a true organic relationship, with no need to rush. I felt like Kelly was so absorbed in her life and this guy that I got no attention for my good thriving relationship at all. Anytime I talked about my relationship she made the subject purely her and her boyfriend.

 

After about 4 months he broke up with her. Now she talks like she knew he wasn't the one and she was settling etc.. What happened to the married couple?

 

All she does is talk about him now. When I mention an ex, she compares it to him. I have had the worst year with men. I've been used, depressed, down, and emotional. Its been hard. Nothing like her at all. But she talks like she knows exactly how my life is and that hers is the same. Anytime I say how I feel so always has to say how she feels. Its not about her. She wasn't in an on and off relationship for three years and its frustrating for her to act like she was.

 

Then it just seemed like things got competitive. I would say I was going to be on a sports team, she would join a bicycle league. I would say I was going to be someones gymnastics coach, she has to gush about her being a Sunday school teacher. Everything I say, she is also doing something, not comparable, and she has to talk hers up like mine isn't anything. I got my job two years ago. Its been great ever since. I'm very successful. She got her first real job this year. She talks like she is the secretary for some fortune 500, when he job is so minuscule. I heard her telling people she was practically an interior designer. She is a secretary for an interior office. Not a designer.

 

Any negative situation that comes up she plays the victim. Nothing is ever her fault. A guy hits on her and thinks she is available. She doesn't lead him to think otherwise. They try and dance with her and she doesn't want to. Then she gushes how they "took advantage of her". No, she doesn't say no, and she acts like they just throw themselves at her.

 

I miss the way she and I used to be. On the same wave length. I feel like I barely have fun with her. She talks about herself. She doesn't care about me or ask about my life. I feel like she would leave me for a guy or better friends any day.

 

I ended up dating one of the guys in that group. She was often the source of fights between my boyfriend and I. I would ask her if she and her boyfriend would want to do a double date. She would tell me she has to ask her boyfriend. I would say okay, thinking she could just quickly ask him. She wouldn't answer me for days and when I would ask, she would give me the same answer. My boyfriend would get mad because we would wait so long for them and then she would never tell me and he and I wouldn't have any plans at the end of the day, waiting around for them. Again she laughs like she does't know why my boyfriend and I would fight over her. I would end up finding out that while we were waiting around, she was snuggling up to her boyfriend and she would tell me later that they wanted a night in. Well, thank for telling me. Not.

 

That guy in the group and I broke up. I am no longer invited to events with the group, which is understandable. Recently, Kelly was invited to something and she went. I was very offended but couldn't say anything to her. As my best girl friend, you shouldn't be hanging out with my ex and his friends. I would never do that because its wrong. She's so desperate for attention and social importance.

 

This summer she met a guy on Tinder. Right off the bat he told her he didn't want a relationship. I warned her he wanted a summer hookup. She kept claiming he was so nice and kind etc.. I'm sure he was nice but she wanted a relationship. She slept with him quickly, but then kept preaching to him she was a sweet and innocent girl who isn't just a hookup. She didn't practice what she preached. He has since gone back to school and he doesn't talk to her at all. Occasionally he throws her a bone and tells her he wants her to visit him 5 hours away. He wants some a**. Guys are guys. He hasn't committed and doesn't want to. He had her all summer. She still claims he is the nicest guy and she won't admit he didn't want a relationship. He used every excuse and she ate it up. He claimed he had to wait to see how school was going to go. She thinks he is so studious. She even went as far as to say he really wants a relationship with her, but not right now. But he really wants to be with her.

 

I just feel like she isn't the person I knew. I wish we were close again. I don't know what to do. Everything she does annoys me. I don't want to lose her. I don't have a lot of friends. I just feel like I'm not very happy when I hang out with her now. I don't know if its me or its her. I feel its her. People have told me they have noticed she changed. I think at our age, 24, the innocent victim act is getting old and she's too old.

 

I'm extremely type A and I've been so scorned by friends and men in the last three years so part of me wonders if I a part of the problem.

[Taramere]

I'm extremely type A and I've been so scorned by friends and men in the last three years so part of me wonders if I a part of the problem.

 

Well, your post does come across as you being really competitive with your friend. I'm still trying to get to grips with your judgement about this:

 

She met a guy last year. Her first real guy she dated. They rushed into things so fast. I mentioned to her once that it seemed fast but she was blinded so I backed off and let her be happy. She preached being this nice sweet girl, but then slept with him after a month.

 

Do you live in a country where it's in some way abnormal or shameful to sleep with somebody you've been dating for a month?

 

I didn't like that. Its a very private intimate thing. Not an attention getter. She was turning crazy. She started talking like people thought they were perfect together and like a married couple. That his family just loved her and thought she was the best thing to ever happen to him. It was all so cheesy and fake. She was living an exaggerated life. It also hurt because I started seeing one of the guys in the group. It was early on, and we did things right. We dated for months before getting more serious. We had a true organic relationship, with no need to rush. I felt like Kelly was so absorbed in her life and this guy that I got no attention for my good thriving relationship at all.

 

You really are competitive with this girl, aren't you?!

 

I just feel like she isn't the person I knew. I wish we were close again. I don't know what to do. Everything she does annoys me. I don't want to lose her. I don't have a lot of friends.

 

I thought you said Kelly introduced you to a group of her friends and that they all liked you more than they liked her. What happened to that lot?

 

Honestly, if I were Kelly I would be freezing you out. It seems as though she's just a fairly normal girl living her life, making a few mistakes here and there, maybe sometimes being a bit indiscreet about her personal stuff at times, prone to exaggeration. Impossible to say, without meeting or talking to her, how competitive she is - but you definitely sound competitive - and competitive in an angry, negative sort of way to a degree that I suspect puts other people off you.

[preraph]

You are growing apart. It happens. I had this concert buddy and we had a lot of fun doing concert and music stuff. And she had a weird diet already, but we tore it up and had a blast. She was sort of vegan, but mainly, it just wasn't much food at all. And she got bad stomach aches and would never understand it was from her starvation type diet.

 

Anyway, just a couple of years went by when I was no longer seeing her regularly because of a career change. And then when I saw her at a party, she was anxious to tell me "I'm not like that anymore." I had met a new friend of hers at the end of when we were buddies and i didn't like her. She was sort of a nuevo hippie all self-righteous about health and crazy diet and she acted really snubby toward me. Anyway, that's the way my friend went and she told me straight up she wasn't "like that" anymore, which I took to mean as "I'm not fun anymore," because that seemed to be the case.

 

People get on new tangents and they get influenced by new friends they emulate and drift away.

[basil67]

You've been complaining about this friend for many months.

 

Frankly, it's time to end the friendship. If she knew how you truly felt about her, she probably wouldn't want to be your friend anyway.

[amkxoxo]

I don' want to be competitive. I want both of us to have our own things. I always feel like she is talking about herself constantly. I just went out tonight with a mutual friend of Kelly and I. She and I talked back and forth. We had intriguing conversation. It wasn't all about her nor all about me. We talked, caught up, and had great conversation. As soon as Kelly arrived, she only talked about herself, people in her life, things she has been doing, and all about her plans. It wasn't fun anymore. I just felt anytime I said anything, it was not as important as hers.