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Have a friend that kinda gets on your nerves?


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I have a friend that means well but is too dam bossy and knows everything and is competitive. Not competitive towards me but competitve. She means well but I hate being told what to do all the time.

 

When I changed my number due to some other reason,, I did not call her for a while cause I did not want to talk to her.

 

One of the things I hated with a passion was that she was very good friends with my ex boyfriends best friend and SHE always knew what was going on with them before I did. It was a inside benefit but then it wasnt when I really did not want to hear about it. I feel like being friends with her is being tied to him and I'm still trying to get over him. At the same time, she was there for me when things were hard on me because of him. Now i just dont want to hear what she has to say. I dont want her to have the "inside" scoop on ex and his life or anything that is my responsibility to report. It is so annoying. Like she know him on a level that I dont. I just dont want to talk to her right now. Am I wrong?

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no, you're not wrong for avoiding her, because honestly? She sounds like she's trying to one-up you. And real friends don't do that to each other – instead, they are very cognizant of your feelings and go out of the way to not say things they know can be upsetting unless there's no way to avoid talking about them.

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I am not sure if she does it on purpose or not. I think a friend should be careful what they say to their friend when they know they are hurting over someone. Especially when a man is involved. Women can be wishy washy when it comes to a guy they care about even if he aint worth a quarter. I think she was trying to be a friend but at the same time I wasnt always sure because she did not want us to be together. She would say, it aint going no where. I was trying to work it out with him and work on my emotional state and mental well being. She became a part of the hurt I was feeling. I hated that I KNEW she knew stuff and would act like she was trying to choose her words carefully. I just did not like it.

 

Another thing I did not like is because I felt like sometimes I had to choose between her and him. He did not like her. She knew I was going thru that and she would push. I guess I was not a good friend to her either. My thing is if I have a friend and she wants to hang with her man over me...it is no big deal. He is going to come before me unless she chooses otherwise.

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One of the things I hated with a passion was that she was very good friends with my ex boyfriends best friend and SHE always knew what was going on with them before I did. It was a inside benefit but then it wasnt when I really did not want to hear about it. I feel like being friends with her is being tied to him and I'm still trying to get over him. At the same time, she was there for me when things were hard on me because of him. Now i just dont want to hear what she has to say. I dont want her to have the "inside" scoop on ex and his life or anything that is my responsibility to report. It is so annoying. Like she know him on a level that I dont. I just dont want to talk to her right now. Am I wrong?

 

I've been in the same situation, and only cut my final tie with the friend in question very recently. Long after I'd actually got over the guy. In many ways she'd behave like a genuine (if somewhat blunt talking) friend. Also, she could be a lot of fun. However with hindsight, the bad outweighed the good fairly heavily.

 

There was a strong streak of unkindness in her. One time we were out and some guy (not particularly great looking, but a nice enough person) had been trying to chat me up. She told him "you're old, ugly and bald. We don't want you in our company. Off you f*ck, baldy."

 

The next day I went round to see her and reminded her of what she'd done. Told her she needed to get a grip of herself sometimes. She looked contrite, but in an "I know...I'm a bitch, but I'm a loveable bitch" sort of way. Then qualified the contrition with motherly pep talks about how I needed to be more selective about who I "allowed" to talk to me when I was out.

 

And yes....the ex. It was through him that I'd got to know her. Before I'd met her, he and his friends had portrayed an impression of this sort of uber-sex goddess who trampled men's hearts into the ground and intimidated other women. I'd been surprised, when I met her, because she'd really seemed to warm to me instantly. She'd often let my then boyfriend (her friend) know that she thought I was "too good, inside and out" for him. Yet somehow it didn't feel like a compliment. More like the "too nice" assessment that really means "too weak".

 

In the initial stages of the break-up she was full of "put it behind you and get on with your life...you were always too good for him." Yet there was a niggling feeling that she didn't really want me to put it behind me. I got a sense that she quite enjoyed having the power to influence my feelings by selectively passing on snippets of info to me.

 

Also, during my relationship with her friend, I'd sometimes got a sense that despite the protective, motherly approach she took towards me, she was doing some very subtle smearing about me behind my back. The kind that often goes over men's heads, but alerts women's radars. I tried to raise this with my boyfriend at times, and he'd spout assurances about how she was just very protective of me and was a genuine friend to me.

 

Yet that was part of the problem. I'm fairly quiet, but I'm not generally weak....yet this woman seemed bent on portraying me as some kind of wilting flower who was about to crumble at any moment. Whenever my boyfriend had spent a lot of time in the circle of friends she belonged to, he'd seem to get agitated and fearful that he was going to end up hurting me badly. At the end, it seemed like a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

I reacted terribly to the break up - particularly as I'd recently had a few other things (falling into the list of top 10 stressful life events) to contend with. I wondered if perhaps she was right after all. If there was something inherently unstable, vulnerable and paranoid about me. A personality disorder, maybe. That doubt affected me in ways I won't talk about, but culminated with me sitting in front of a psychiatrist earlier this year, being given professional assurances that utterly contradicted the view this woman and her friends (and my ex) seemed to have of me. I'm ashamed that it ever got to that point. I won't suggest for a moment that this woman's influence in my life drove me to it - but I don't think she exactly helped.

 

Whenever I expressed doubts about her to my other friends, they'd get really agitated. "Don't you see what she is? She's poison. Ditch." Then I'd wonder if I was over-stating it and giving an unfair account of her. After all, a lot of what I was saying was more to do with gut feeling and suspicion than actual hard evidence that she was malignant underneath the cosy, "honest friend telling you things as they are" demeanour. I wondered if my other friends were overly sensitive and just unable to relate to a woman who was very much a "guys' woman".

 

At times she'd seem to be such a supportive, caring, nurturing friend that I'd feel guilty for doubting her. Yet there were so many red flags about this person and the way I heard her speaking about her other friends. And other women in general. One time I received an email (sent to a group of people) from her containing a picture of a woman who was allegedly one of her closest friends. This woman had lost enough weight to be looking ill rather than in good shape, and when I saw it I felt a jolt of concern - then horror when I saw my friend's caption. "Ugh. Can we say anorexia?"

 

It came to a head when her partner was a complete sh*t to me in a non-social context, and she backed him up to the hilt. We're no longer friends on any level, and it's frightening to find how much happier and more relaxed I am now. Frightening to see how negative an influence one person can have.

 

So trust your instincts, I say. Don't worry about seeming paranoid, suspicious or overly mistrustful. If you have that feeling that someone is relishing their sense of having power to make you feel happy or crap (depending on what info they choose to feed to you), you may well be right. Regardless of whether they generally seem to take some kind of motherly, affectionately bossy and nurturing approach to you.

 

Very likely they genuinely care about you on some levels, but it doesn't mean their actions are likely to enhance your life overall. And if they're not enhancing your life - if they're causing more upset and self doubt than fun, happy moments, get rid. Cast out feelings of guilt or "am I being unfair here?" confusion. Sometimes you have to just make a decision about a person, put your own interests and welfare first. Dismiss arguments relating to their good points and whether they "mean well", concerns about their feelings - or doubts relating to whether you have sufficient "evidence" of their ill intentions to eliminate them from your life.

 

I don't want to project my own experience onto your situation, but there was just something about your post that reminded me so much of that woman and how the friendship with her used to make me feel.

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We all have personality issues so dont feel bad at all.

 

Yeah it is wierd. I'm still going to sort thru my feelings on it. She has been in public with me and acted like a ass before. I'm just going to chill

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sometimes we just have to cut ties with

certain people or certain "friends" if they just don't

"fit" into our lives anymore.

 

I've cut ties with two so-called "friends" in my life,

one I just stopped calling because he was loud and obnoxious

and meddling (even for a dude) and would always bring up

to other people things i had told him in private... and the other friend, well, we had a shouting match falling out kind thing, he was a cool dude at first but ended up being very opionated, very conceited and I got sick of it one day and let him know. Hence, we aren't friends anymore.

 

i don't miss them, though at one time, they were cool and

gave me a helping hand. But the BAD outweighed the GOOD in

terms of friendship with those two, so i cut ties.

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We all have personality issues so dont feel bad at all.

 

Yeah it is wierd. I'm still going to sort thru my feelings on it. She has been in public with me and acted like a ass before. I'm just going to chill

 

Thanks, 9-lives. I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'll never resemble one of the perfect post-op female inhabitants of Stepford - or the guy's wife in the Truman Show - in mind and manner.

 

Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide. If you're feeling in a dilemma about this I guess it means that you're not really ready to let the friendship go. Rather than spending too much time thinking about a "frenemy" and wondering whether you should ditch her from your life, it would be helpful to focus your energies into nurturing your more trusting, rewarding and positive friendships.

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i have been kinda talking to her but I can tell that I am guarded. We will see how it goes. I just dont know how long it is going to work out

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