Getting rid of a best friend when she becomes a frenemy
When to drop a "friend"
I just dropped a friend. I literally dropped her and probably never want to speak to her again. This is because I realize our entire relationship was built on her being overly competitive with me, she never supported me. Let's call my ex-friend Laurel, okay, so her name is really Laurel.
Laurel and I met in high school and were inseparable. We went to the same college together, hung around the same friends and she was my BFF all the way. Now I am 30 years older, and I realize she was never my BFF, just someone to make her feel better when she was down, or someone to come to her aid. It was never the other way around.
Executive Summary: I realized that Laurel was treating me like her sister when we went shopping once and she turned it into a competition. Of course she has several sisters, I have none. So her whole life was a competition of some sort, I never understood this. On our shopping trip, she commented about my weight as we shared a changing room. She bought all of the clothes that I put back as too small, and told me she was glad she didn't have the weight problems I had at the time, because she would have shot herself if she had to go on a diet. I weighed probably 140 at that time, she must have weighed around the same, but was taller so carried it differently. I realized this was mean spirited, and made the decision to watch her for crap comments after this to prove she was not really a friend. I was not to be disappointed.
After that eye-opening shopping trip, I began to take note of the times we talked on the phone. I waited a whole week before calling her, and no, she did not call me first. So, I was usually the one who called, note taken. Then, when I did talk to her, I timed how much time she spent asking about me. I always asked about her first, got the pleasantries out of the way, then on my end set the timer. My pad was empty every time. I realized and noted that she NEVER asked about me during our calls. They were always all about her.
I noticed she would dump all of her problems on me, with no break in the conversation for me to join in with my own issues. She obviously could not care about my problems. After she had dumped all of her toxic issues into my yielding ear, she would do a hit and run and say, "look at the time, I gotta hop," and would get off the phone quickly. This always left me tired, slightly used and frustrated that I once again missed out on a conversation with my friend. I was an unpaid therapist, not so much fun when you want a real relationship with another person after all.
I thought long and hard about never speaking to Laurel again. It was going to be so difficult, not to be able to call her, wasn't it? Reality check: when I stopped calling her she also stopped calling me and I went first weeks, then months without hearing from her. It seems she did not notice that I was avoiding her, she had never initiated contact with me unless she wanted to dump on me, so when I stopped calling I guess she took the hint and never called me back.
Well, that was it. I had to realize I was having a relationship all by myself. Laurel gave me the courage to make better decisions regarding friendships, and I started noticing who else was just in a relationship with me for the therapy aspect of it all.
My advice: Don't call your friends for one week. See who calls you back first to see if you are okay or not. Those who do not call you are sending a message to you about the friendship. You may be surprised to find out what you consider your best friendship in the entire world is bogus, and that it does not really exist beyond your own mind.
I vow not to have any more relationships with myself, but to have normal give and take relationships with people who really care about me. Bye, Laurel, oh sorry, you are already gone.
