Ok . . . I have to vent!
I have a good friend that has recently been crossing the line a lot and getting on my nerves.
A bit of background: we met through work about a year and a half ago. She and I became close friends last fall . . . she was just married in June. She is the only child and VERY spoiled . . . but I love her and her family very much. She is very generous but needs to do a lot of growing up. (Because she is so spoiled she sometimes behaves inappropriately in my opinion. I overlook it a lot but lately I have HAD IT!)
I have stopped going out to lunch and such all week long because I realized I was spending over $1000 each month just "hanging out." We have credit card debt that would be paid off so much faster just by finding more economical ways to spend my time. I have explained this to many of my friends and they all resepct this--and it doesn't mean I've been in hibernation. I go out once a week now . . . and I don't see a problem with it.
Yesterday my friend sent me a text asking if I wanted to go to lunch. It was 11:30 am . . . I was going to accompany my boyfriend to the dentist at 1:30 and then to his fathers house to help with chores afterwards. I let her know I couldn't go and that I was going to the dentist soon . . . I get a "WHAT EVER" response. I let it go.
At 5 am I recieve another text message . . .chewing me out for ordering sweatshirt for our office. (We work at an emergency animal clinic so we are only open nights and weekends--we keep horrible hours.) She knew darned good and well that I would be asleep. I keep my cell phone on my nightstand in case of emergencies or if my brother calls me if he is out drinking--I'm the DD on call. Apparently my friend had volunteered to order these sweatshirts over a year ago--which I did not know--and took it as a personal affront that I had ordered them myself. (Nevermind that our manager asked me to do it--and its only been 3 weeks and I got it done . . . vs 1 freaking year???)
I was so angry to be woken up with such a stupid, childish issue that I blew up. Not only did her ill-timed temper tantrum wake me up . . . it also woke up both my dogs that sleep with us and my boyfriend. I had only been asleep for 2 hours by that time as well . . . .I WAS HOT!!!
I went downstairs to the garage and called her since she was at work . . . explained to her that it was inappropriate and I was not going to tolerate this kind of behavior anymore! Her defense was that she was doing all kinds of pricing research, etc and felt her time was wasted and she was being undermined. Are you kidding me? Over sweatshirts? Really? I just can't believe it!
I have really worked hard to not "sweat the small things" in the last few years . . . . maybe part of the real growing into an adult thing . . . but this just has me so fried! I have come to the conclusion that I will have to keep our friendship at arms length in order to have some peace in my life. Every other day there is something that hurts her feelings, her ego, her senses, who knows . . . . and I don't have the time or patience to dance around her all the time.
I left our phone conversation at the point where I said I would talk to her later when I wasn't so angry about her behavior . . . but I could use some advice on how to sit her down and explain why we cannot be close friends anymore . . . shes the kind of person who has been protected all her life and doesn't handle things like this very well. I'm sure her mom will call me to talk about this and thats definitely going to send me over the edge!
She does sound self-centered. I have found as I've gotten older that sometimes we hang onto friendships longer than we should. Sometimes you are friends with someone, you grow apart and change, different things become important to you, and people get annoying. Maybe you should cut her loose.
And WTF took her a year to order sweatshirts? Good grief!
Sounds like she's totally off the deep end. One thing that I've discovered as I've gotten older... you don't have to argue with anyone about anything, EVER! You can just tell her that she's not behaving like a friend to you and you're not interested in continuing the friendship. Period. She may make excuses, try to manipulate, etc, but you don't have to listen to it one bit. Say your piece, then if you can't get away gracefully, (if you're at work with her or whatever) just say, I don't want to discuss it anymore, and stop listening to her. It sounds too simple, but I've had great success with this! A lot of people will try to put you on the defense, make you justify your feelings, and make you give them a 'list' of what they've done wrong. You don't owe anyone any explanations for your feelings. You can just say, 'this friendship is not working for me.' If you repeat a simple phrase often enough, eventually the point gets across.
And if her mom calls, well, that's just ridiculous, but if she does, just tell her that it's a matter between you and your friend, thank you for your concern, goodbye.
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