Friend with PD traits?

mary_poppins · July 19, 2024, 08:11:57 AM

Hey all! How are you doing? I always feel better to post here, in the 'Working on us' section than in the PD parents or Siblings section. He he.

Anyway, some time ago I pruned my entire social life. I went through all my fake friends and cut them out. I was left with one good friend. Later on, I realized I still had old friends in my life. These are people from my childhood that I went to school with. When I came back to my country, I thought of hitting them up to see what they are doing.

One particular childhood friend (a very busy mom with kids and a family) seemed very interested in hanging out. I think in the last couple of years we made 3 or 4 appointments and only 1 was followd through. We had to meet on her terms when she was waiting for her kid to finish her gym class. I remember that I was waiting at that door for maybe a half an hour before she decided to show up. Was pissed but let it go.

We had another date long time ago but she 'forgot' about it and didn't apologise.
The nail in the coffin was last month. We both talked about meeting close to her place (again, it had to be on her terms 'cause she wouldn't bother to come meet me in the park or something-we had to meet somewhere closer to her home or where her kid has her gym classes). I contacted her to confirm our date a few time and didn't answer. We didn't meet and when I confronted her about it she said: 'Sorry. I got busy with stuff.' That's it.

I don't think she was sorry, she just didn't like to be told she was wrong or did a bad thing.
When we were kids, she would do the same thing but, because she didn't have other friends (my friend never had any close friends), she depended on me. So she'd try to convince me to not be upset with her because that's who she is (I still remember how she'd defend herself).

She is the person I didn't cut out because..well, we spent our childhood together and have a lot of memories from being at each other's houses or at school or at school events/parties.

But she is so much worse now. Very self-entitled, whenever we talk (sometimes we meet by chance in a store and we talk a lot, ha ha), the discussion reverses back to her and her issues. And she never respects your time. You can be the US president and she'll still stand you up or ghost you. It's like she pretends we were not even supposed to meet.

Ever had this kind of friend? What did you do about it? Not sure if no contact is the best decision here but, deep down, I know I can't meet with her again. She will not honor our appointment and, even if she will, we would spend hours talking about her.

bloomie · July 19, 2024, 08:56:45 AM

mary_poppins - you sound like a good friend. A person of your word. Willing to listen and engage and to be understanding and accommodating to a friend who is a busy mom and with whom you share a common childhood.

You have a lot to offer and have kindly done so with this person and even been loving enough to confront when you were ghosted again.

That is healthy. Bravo!

Would it be healthy and wise to continue to go toward someone who has made it clear they:
do not honor their commitments to you
do not honor your time and are late
are unwilling to reciprocate and meet occasionally where it is convenient for you
monologues when you do see her about her life
refuses to take responsibility for her rudeness

Sounds like a slow fade and moving this person out to a distant level of contact - superficial - might be the way to go. This person does not sound healthy enough for you. My two pennies!

TurnThePage · July 19, 2024, 09:10:59 AM

Agree with bloomie

Time to weed this person out of your life....

I recently decided to do so with a couple of my lifelong friends who did much as your friend did to you and I feel so much better!

I was so focused on my BPDH and dealing with him that I didn't realize I was also letting "friends" treat me much the same as he did. I don't take it from him anymore so why allow so called "friends" do so?

Some friends are only meant to be in a lives for a little while....

Rebel13 · July 19, 2024, 01:33:04 PM

This must feel awful, to be treated this way by someone you value. I might be tempted to just wait, and see if she contacts you. Sometimes people will "fade" their own selves right out of your life.

If she pops back up, you can decide then whether you want to see her. You could try to address the situation, if you wanted, saying something like, "The last few times you turned up late or not at all; can we commit to meeting for sure, or letting each other know the night before if our plans change?" Whatever agreement would make sense and feel comfortable to you. If she makes excuses and won't agree to something that is basic courtesy, well, that is more information for you, and you can choose what to do based on that.

I hope you find some new friends, if you want them, and enjoy the time you get with the great friend you decided to keep. Those are gold.

mary_poppins · July 20, 2024, 01:32:36 PM

Quote from: bloomie on July 19, 2024, 08:56:45 AMmary_poppins - you sound like a good friend. A person of your word. Willing to listen and engage and to be understanding and accommodating to a friend who is a busy mom and with whom you share a common childhood.

You have a lot to offer and have kindly done so with this person and even been loving enough to confront when you were ghosted again.

That is healthy. Bravo!

Would it be healthy and wise to continue to go toward someone who has made it clear they:
do not honor their commitments to you
do not honor your time and are late
are unwilling to reciprocate and meet occasionally where it is convenient for you
monologues when you do see her about her life
refuses to take responsibility for her rudeness

Sounds like a slow fade and moving this person out to a distant level of contact - superficial - might be the way to go. This person does not sound healthy enough for you. My two pennies!

Thank you, bloomie. And thanks for those questions. No, it is not worth it to continue a relationship with her. Truth is, I know she will never commit to any of our meetings-even if we were to have a private meeting to talk about ourselves it will become a discussion about her. And I'm kind of tired of this.

mary_poppins · July 20, 2024, 01:37:38 PM

Quote from: TurnThePage on July 19, 2024, 09:10:59 AMAgree with bloomie

Time to weed this person out of your life....

I recently decided to do so with a couple of my lifelong friends who did much as your friend did to you and I feel so much better!

I was so focused on my BPDH and dealing with him that I didn't realize I was also letting "friends" treat me much the same as he did. I don't take it from him anymore so why allow so called "friends" do so?

Some friends are only meant to be in a lives for a little while....

TurnthePage: did it hurt to cut those long-term friends out of your life? I keep rationalising our relationship. "But she was there for me when I was 14" or 'we were at school events together, if I was on my own at that age, I'd be a mess" or "I cherish those memories and it's hard to let those go" or 'we spent holidays together"

Did you have these melancholy feelings? I know that some friends are meant to be temporary in our lives. In theory. In practice, it is different.

Also, way to go for letting go of your toxic friends. You sound at peace with this experience.

mary_poppins · July 20, 2024, 01:46:24 PM

Quote from: Rebel13 on July 19, 2024, 01:33:04 PMThis must feel awful, to be treated this way by someone you value. I might be tempted to just wait, and see if she contacts you. Sometimes people will "fade" their own selves right out of your life. If she pops back up, you can decide then whether you want to see her. You could try to address the situation, if you wanted, saying something like, "The last few times you turned up late or not at all; can we commit to meeting for sure, or letting each other know the night before if our plans change?" Whatever agreement would make sense and feel comfortable to you. If she makes excuses and won't agree to something that is basic courtesy, well, that is more information for you, and you can choose what to do based on that.

I hope you find some new friends, if you want them, and enjoy the time you get with the great friend you decided to keep. Those are gold.

I did confront her about her not commiting to meetings or being late. Her response is a cookie-cutter response she gives I believe, to everyone who gets mad at her "Sorry, I was busy" or "My kids kept me at home"
BTW, I do get that her kids are her priority. I know that.

But we were best friends growing up and me coming back to this country after a long period abroad should make her wanna see me. She keeps telling me how I'm her bestie. If you are too busy, I get it but don't make plans to meet and then ghost me as if we never planned anything. Also, she has so much help with her kids-her mom is there almost daily (which is something that worries me; I love her mom, she's healthy; but her mom almost cried in my presence the last time we bumped into each other because she was burned out from babysitting my friend's kids; she is also old and not the healthiest person. Felt so sorry for her-which is again a red flag. My mom is awful and I dislike her but if I had kids, I would never use my mom every day as a free babysitter. Yeah, maybe she could help for a couple of months but that's it. My friend's mom was the round the clock babysitter for BOTH her kids (one is 12 the other is 1.5 years).) ---so she can find time to meet me-even for 10 minutes.

Anyway, I digress. I will wait for her to see if she will make amends but if she keeps to herself and is quiet, I'll ghost her and let her be. It's no point in making a big drama about our relationship. She'll never understand that it bothers me when she's disrespectful.

Sorry for the long text.

Anyway, THX, GUYS! It's good to see that I was not exagerrating about my friend and she indeed is unhealthy.

Rebel13 · July 22, 2024, 01:13:33 PM

Good luck and let us know what happens!

TurnThePage · July 23, 2024, 09:24:34 AM

mary_poppins

I cherish the time I had with these friends and the time we had together. I even gave them "second chances". But in the end, I realized that they were only meant to be in my life for a specific time and I needed to move on. I needed to do it For Me! so yes...I'm at peace with my decision.

Don't Overthink it....I did that for a long time. You tell yourself that they care because you do.

That being said....."If they wanted to they would" No Excuses!

mary_poppins · July 24, 2024, 03:39:39 AM

@TurnThePage

OK, I agree with you. If she wanted to be nice to me, she would have kept all her promises and commitments.

Catothecat · July 24, 2024, 09:38:32 AM

I've gone through something similar, Mary.

Had a "best friend" I met in high school and was friends with for many years after. We no longer lived in the same city but kept in touch, then she abruptly ghosted me. Didn't responded to my attempts to contact her, and since I had a lot going on in my life at the time (and this was pre-internet so communications were more cumbersome) I let it go. Her behavior hurt, but I didn't have the emotional energy to dwell on it. And as I had other friends who lived here and who I saw regularly, her disappearance didn't really have much impact.

Many years later, when I made an account on facebook, I looked her up. She was there, so I sent a friend request. It took her a long time to respond, but finally she did. After that we started messaging and discussed plans to meet up. She sounded genuinely interested and excited, but every time I tried to make a concrete plan, she had some excuse why she couldn't. Then she stopped responding to my messages.

For a long time I tried to figure out what was going on with her because none of this behavior seemed "like" her. But I couldn't understand it, and finally realized I never would. I think TurnThePage said it really well--I thought she cared because I did. I still cared about the friendship because it had meant so much to me back in the day, but back in the day is now long ago and I realized I was caring about a friendship that no longer existed.

I'll be honest and say it still hurts and I still wish we could be friends because so much of our shared past happened during those really important, developing times of our life. I don't think it's unrealistic to have expectations based on past experiences, which is what you had. You remembered how she was and thought she'd be the same in the present. But she's now showing you how she is in the present, and that's what matters.

I feel that the bottom line is--I've had old friends who drifted away over time, and that disappearance felt natural. It came with time, and while I missed them, their disappearance never hurt. With this other friends, however, it felt like a deliberate attempt to hurt me. Compounded with the fact that when we re-connected via FB she made it sound as if she was interested in getting together, updated me on her life, seemed genuine in her comments, only to ghost me once again--those aren't the actions of a well-meaning friend. Those aren't the actions of a friend at all.

What they indicate, I don't know. Some type of PD or other disorder? I don't know, but I'm no longer inclined to give it space in my head. She may have earned it once, but not twice.

mary_poppins · July 29, 2024, 06:06:29 AM

Update: I have cut her out. I'm so happy. Couldn't have done it without the talks we had here.
It is sad, though but like someone here said, some people are meant to be our friends for only a short while.

mary_poppins · July 29, 2024, 07:46:39 AM

@Catofthecat
I'm sorry that your highschool friend treated you like that. From what I learned about people, some people we come across and 'try' to get close to have no capacity to be a friend or have a close relationship. I have close relationships and i love those types of connections. My high school friend doesn't have friends and I always thought that it was odd.

And it is OK to let these people go. Sure, we had those high school moments with them but that was then and the present is different. I think nostalgia has something to do with why we want to reconnect with these people. Those times in highschool seem like easier, freeer times and, in my case, reconnecting and bonding with my high school friend would have fulfilled this 'nostalgia' need.

Marianne · August 13, 2024, 06:15:38 PM

I had a kind friend...who struggled to reply and all...and had a very difficult situation with her kids, that she didn't talk about right away...so she felt overwhelmed.

I was a shitty friend for years...where I would be so overwhelmed by my personal situation...that I was not organized and not attentive at all... and I still struggle with that at times...because of overwhelm. Which I do apologize and explain for btw. And try hard to do well in.

I think it's best to decide if it's acceptable to you...without filling in the reasons... it neednt be disinterest or PD. Maybe she is overwhelmed, or has ADHD or autism, or there's something up with her kids...you don't know. Just need to know if you are willing to deal with it. And you cherish the friendship even with this trait. If not...it's okay.

I think I'd personally be willing to put up with it if it were just a rare meeting here or there...if we have a long past...