princessa Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 Okay so my friend was sleeping with some dude.. She wanted something no-strings attached. I told her not to do it because I knew she was going to end up getting attached to him. A couple of weeks later she came to find out that he was sleeping with one of her friends too. This friend is the trashiest person ever and sleeps around with just about anybody. Now my friend got pissed and blew the shyt out of proportion and started competing with the other girl to get the guy all to herself. But wait, it gets even stupider than that. The 2nd girl doesnt use condoms when they're together . I suspect they're all not using any STD protection.. I'm just scared for my friend. Not only that but now she also thinks she's falling in love with him. WTFFFFF This story makes me sound like I'm hanging out with the worst type of trash on this planet, but this is not the case. This girl is actually more than decent and is a very very good friend of mine. She's usually strong and independent, hardworking, and generally has very much common sense when it comes to give somebody like me advice on relationships. But attraction, infatuation, and attention from a man seem to be her worst weakness. When she's after a guy's attention, nothing can stop her. She pulls the wickedest schemes just to get to him, even making herself look stupid in the process a lot of times. I tried to tell her that but there's just no way getting to her. I think that maybe she needs to work on her self esteem so that she can stop thinking that her value is determined by men. But how do I make her understand that? I tried screaming, yelling at her, along with the other girls who have all told her how dumb she was acting. All she does is says "I know, I know.. I'll stop seeing him..." And the next day goes right back. Yesterday I called her up and just let her talk, I barely said anything. She felt very guilty as if I was the mother figure that was about to punish her for being stupid, and said that she knew I was mad at her for screwing up, and told me not to be mad... So I said, well what do you want from me then as a friend.. she said that she just wants me not to judge her and to support her when she'll have to deal with the consequences and avoid saying "I told you so".. I mean wtf she's totally conscious that she's ****ing up big time. Then why does she keep doing it?
EC Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 Wow I just stopped speaking to my best friend of 6 years over the same thing. Here I am 3 months later and she is still after his dumbass. I dunno what to say but Im right here with ya. Nothing you say helps. All they want you to do is agree to their schemes to get him and then be there when it didnt work and tell them it will be ok. She wont learn until she really catches something or he lets her go or she finds a new infatuation. Its sad and really bugs me too!! grrrr lol
Author princessa Posted March 23, 2007 Author Posted March 23, 2007 Wow I just stopped speaking to my best friend of 6 years over the same thing. Here I am 3 months later and she is still after his dumbass. Why'd you stop speaking to her?
EC Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 We decided to go on a girls night..because we had been arguing back and forth about this guy. Hes is such a player /scumbag and I thought/KNEW/ she deserved better! So w/e we decided to go have a girls night..go dancing have drinks..have a good time. Well you know the saying 'drunken words are a sober mans thoughts' She had a bit to much to drink I guess and that night he called her to meet up ( sex) and she was actually going to ditch the girls early to go see him. Mind you he hadn't even called her in like two weeks and then called her at 11:00pm to meet up. So I became upset and asked her not to go that he was a loser! She unleashed on me. She said I needed to stop trying to control her life. That a real friend would just support her and be there for her. I looked at her and for the first time in 6 years I realized she had changed. Or maybe I had seen HER for the first time. I havent spoken to her since. She sent me an e-mail a while ago but Im like why bother. I mean what sucks is that she is a GREAT friend in all other aspects but when it comes to guys forget it~ Shes a completely different person.
DanielMadr Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 The best way is not to have idiot friends. The best is probably not to care so much about others lifes. They are different persons after all. And no advice can match with real experience. HIV is certainly very real experience. Its a shame but you cant do shyt. Spare your advices for your children. They could listen to you. You offered advice, dont be angry she didnt take it. Its her life.
1DeadB Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 Anybody else has any input? How do you expect her to listen to you when you have so many problems of your own? 'Don't have idiot freinds' I like that...also, don't be an idiot freind!
Author princessa Posted March 23, 2007 Author Posted March 23, 2007 How do you expect her to listen to you when you have so many problems of your own? 'Don't have idiot freinds' I like that...also, don't be an idiot freind! I'm not even going to dignify such stupidity with an answer.
Erik Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 My sister is a PhD, very level headed, cast iron b*tch. Same pathology, she always falls for a*holes. She knows it and can't help it.
McFadden Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 There is no reasoning with The Idiot Friend. It sounds like you already firmly expressed your opinion. After that you have to let it go or they will just resent you and you will be frustrated. You should tell her she can do whatever she wants but you don't approve and you don't want to hear about it anymore, especially if she is whining to you about him. I had a friend who was complaining to me about the same situation over and over and I kept reasoning it out with him about it because I was trying to be a good friend. Finally I got fed up with hearing about the same thing and (with the help of LS) verbally shook some sense into him, telling him the cold facts of the situation and then told him "this is the last conversation I am ever going to have with you on this topic" and hung up. And after that he finally he did what I was telling him to do all along, go figure.
taylor Posted March 24, 2007 Posted March 24, 2007 Princessa, Your girlfriend is trying to validate her self-worth by having sex with this man. She doesn't feel good about herself unless she feels desired by a man. What she really wants is someone to love her, someone to say she matters, someone to be close to. Since she doesn't have a relationship like that, she settles for sex because it makes her "feel" like someone loves her. It makes her "feel" like she matters. It makes her "feel" close to someone. I have a girlfriend who did this same thing for about 2 years. She had low sel-esteem and some depression. The sex was like a temporary "fix." But it was like a vicious cycle. The more meaningless sex she had, the worst she felt, and the worst she felt, the more meaningless sex she had. All of her friends, including myself, tried to talk some sense into her head..how dangerous it was, how unhealthy it was, how stupid it was. It made no impact because we weren't addressing the real issue - her self-esteem. We were helpless in our efforts to help her because we couldn't give her her self-esteem. She had to find it herself. What happened to my friend? She had to hit rock bottom. One day she looked in the mirror and didn't like who she saw. She didn't like who she had become. And she realized that what she was doing did not bring her one bit of lasting happiness and certainly did not make her feel good about herself. It sounds like your girlfriend will have to do the same before she "sees the light." I don't think there is much you can do to change her behavior. I'm afraid you are going to have to sit back and watch her self-destruct for a while. She is going to learn the hard way that self-esteem and self-respect come from within, not from validation by other people..and certainly not from sex. But please don't turn your back on your friend. She is in a lot of emotional pain right now, even though you may not see it on the outside. She needs your compassion and support more than anything right now. This does not mean you need to be glued to her side or condone what she is doing. If you need to "distance" yourself a bit, do it, for your own sake and sanity. But please keep the lines of communication open between you and let her know you are there for her if she needs you. And believe me, she will need you when she hits rock bottom. And please don't judge her for her behavior. One of these days she will "wake up" and when she does she will have to try to come to terms with her behavior and the person that she has become. She will judge herself and she will probably feel a tremendous amount of guilt. My girlfriend did. It took her a long time to come to terms with some of the things she had done. The only other suggestion I can make is, if you can, try to persuade her to use condoms for her protection. Above all, you want her to be as safe as possible. She's lucky to have someone like you who cares.
mental_traveller Posted March 26, 2007 Posted March 26, 2007 Anybody else has any input? I once injured my ankle playing football. I wanted to continue playing, even though it would risk exacerbating the injury. After a couple of nasty twinges I asked a no-nonsense friend of mine if he thought I should keep playing or not. He just shrugged and said "it's your ankle, do what you want". I realised it would be stupid to continue playing, and went and got it checked up. If he pestered me to stop playing, gone on about how it was bad for me etc, I probably wouldn't have listened. But that callous "if you want to mess yourself up, go ahead, I don't care" response was all it took to get me to realise how stupid it was. I would wager a similar response to your friend will work much better than trying to harangue her.
Author princessa Posted March 27, 2007 Author Posted March 27, 2007 I once injured my ankle playing football. I wanted to continue playing, even though it would risk exacerbating the injury. After a couple of nasty twinges I asked a no-nonsense friend of mine if he thought I should keep playing or not. He just shrugged and said "it's your ankle, do what you want". I realised it would be stupid to continue playing, and went and got it checked up. If he pestered me to stop playing, gone on about how it was bad for me etc, I probably wouldn't have listened. But that callous "if you want to mess yourself up, go ahead, I don't care" response was all it took to get me to realise how stupid it was. I would wager a similar response to your friend will work much better than trying to harangue her. In your situation it was blatantly obvious what the right thing to do was. As in, black and white. Human interactions are always much more complex and that's why even though she is somewhat aware that she's screwing up, I think she does welcome objective opinions are some level. I think in this case some balance is required between lecturing her and telling her "hey it's your life, do what you want with it". Besides, she often talks about it herself, so sometimes I'm actually asked for my opinion.
Author princessa Posted March 27, 2007 Author Posted March 27, 2007 Princessa, Your girlfriend is trying to validate her self-worth by having sex with this man. She doesn't feel good about herself unless she feels desired by a man. What she really wants is someone to love her, someone to say she matters, someone to be close to. Since she doesn't have a relationship like that, she settles for sex because it makes her "feel" like someone loves her. It makes her "feel" like she matters. It makes her "feel" close to someone. That's so very true. That's exactly what I told her. I tried to explain to her that she needs to find herself and stop looking for validation outside, in men and in society. I don't think she really understood what it meant but I hope that in time she will think back on this and realize the meaning of this. I don't think there is much you can do to change her behavior. I'm afraid you are going to have to sit back and watch her self-destruct for a while. She is going to learn the hard way that self-esteem and self-respect come from within, not from validation by other people..and certainly not from sex. But please don't turn your back on your friend. She is in a lot of emotional pain right now, even though you may not see it on the outside. She needs your compassion and support more than anything right now. I think I did the right thing. I talked to her the other day and told her what I thought about the situation. I didn't yell at her or insult her, I just told her that it was making me sad to see her do this to herself. I tried to give her the best advice I could. She said that she needed time to figure this out, and I said that from now on I will leave this alone. We still hang out, and I'm not feeling annoyed or responsible for her. She's still smart so I think she avoids talking about this as well. The only other suggestion I can make is, if you can, try to persuade her to use condoms for her protection. Above all, you want her to be as safe as possible. Unfortunately I didn't succeed She says she doesn't like how they feel. I left it at that.
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