A
female
age
36-40,
*ost_Soul85
writes:I've known my best friend for around 7 years now. We get on like a house on fire most of the time, she's great and we have a lot in common. However, there is one aspect of her character which I am finding harder and harder to put up with - she is incredibly fiesty and highly strung... recently I get a real sense that I am falling short of what she expects of her friends (despite my best efforts) and she has an incredible capacity to guilt trip me and make me feel like I'm selfish and uncaring. Let me give a few examples...About a month ago we found out a mutual friend's dad was dying from a terminal illness. Obviously we were both upset, we spoke on the phone for around about 30 minutes about the situation, we both had a cry etc. Anyway about a week later she text me saying "I felt like you weren't there for me enough, it felt like you had somewhere else to be..." for readers reference, this phone call took place quite late on a Friday night, after I'd worked a 65 hour week, I'd literally just finished cooking my tea and was the first instance I'd had to sit down ALL week. So I was a little off the boil, though for completely understandable reasons (to my mind). I still spent 30 minutes on the phone with her, comforting her, but apparently this wasn't enough.... GUILT TRIP NUMBER 1GUILT TRIP NUMBER 2We went on holiday for a couple of weeks in March and we had to travel back from London on a coach. I hadn't anticipated that we would be back so late, so I rang my boyfriend to let him know I wouldn't be home until after midnight and so I wouldn't be able to see him. My friend heard the end of this conversation and somehow managed to turn this on her, accusing me of attacking her travel arrangements and that "she was angry that we wouldn't be getting home till late as well, its not just your problem." I did stipulate at this point that she had walked in on a private conversation with my boyfriend and that it had nothing to do with her. Not once had I said to my boyfriend that I was angry about getting home late, just that I'd missed him and that I'd see him tommorrow. Still, she sulked about it and again, made me feel like I was being selfish (just for telling my boyfriend that I was back in the UK and would see him tommorrow). The last guilt trip happened this past weekend. One of our friends was throwing a party and I needed somewhere to stay - she said I could sleep on her floor. I text her about this a week before the party to see if this was still OK and to let her know that I might have to leave early on the Sunday for a meeting - this was still OK. I text her the day before the party, to check one final time and at this point she got in a mood. I ended up not going to the party (which was on the Saturday), on the Sunday we exchanged a few texts and she said she was pissed off at me because she hadn't heard from me all week and that her plans had since changed from the Friday (7 days ago) where I'd first checked it was OK. That she had work on the Saturday now and so it made arrangements different. Now, to my mind, she had previously OKied the arrangements - surely if her plans had changed, it is her responsiblity to tell me.... I'm not a mind reader. In reverse, if I'd told a friend they could stay at mine and then my work dropped a shift onto me, well I'd let them know. I wouldn't wait for them to check the plans, which had previously been OK. I gave her a weeks notice, which I thought was plenty of time.... but again, she's made me feel selfish and thoughtless "because [I] should have checked in the week so [she] could tell me the plans had changed." These are just three examples.... I don't want to seem like I'm cataloging problems - just it feels like I'm compiling a list of things I shouldn't say or do around her and I'm just constantly hyper aware of every behaviour I exhibit when in her company. Part of me thinks, "I actually don't like you very much right now." In my opinion, her hypersensitivity is getting worse and worse... its making it hard to even be around her at some points. Every conversation has the potential to blow up in my face, where other people would shrug off comments, let things go, or indeed show some tact and restraint where there is a difference of opinion. Everyones different, yet my friend just fails to grasp this and I'm tired of not fitting into her vision of how everyone should behave. I don't think that I'm a selfish, uncaring person, yet this person makes me feel so guilty for acting the way I do sometimes. Is there anything I could say to her, to maybe to get her to tone down this behaviour.... I'm aware that this makes up part of her character but at times its making me really not like her. I don't want to lose her as a friend, as 90% of time she's great! I've already told her that "thinking too much don't always make for good thoughts" but this doesn't seem to have resonated much with her. Any advice or thoughts are most welcome?
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, anonymous, writes (20 May 2010): it may sound cruel but you should try it...stop talking to her...yes you heard me..maybe if you ignore her completely she will realize that her behavior is really getting on your nerves, and she will apreciate your friendship...try it..even if you really want to see her or talk to her, dont do it...the way i see it..you let her behavior continue, if you stopped her the first time everything else wouldnt have happened...try it, it doesnt harm you...
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