Toxic Friendship

[snoopy]

Nope. I tend to make friends for life. I went through exactly one situation where I was the one who was divorced, and it was a very painful experience. It was a silly argument blown out of proportion....guess my friendship wasn't worth trying to work it out. I've since worked out that it was never really a true friendship to begin with, more or less an acquaintance.

Fortunately, the people I count as friends now I trust with my life. Most I've known for a good part of my life, and the ones that are new friends understand how I feel about loyalty and always going the extra mile to work out differences. I'm confident that I won't experience another divorce.

 

[nliedel]

Please don't just stop calling or answering her calls, that's cruel. I am in the process of "rethinking" a friendship. I love my friend dearly but she did something manipulative in the beginning of our friendship that I just found out about that may have caused me other friends. That is bad, but forgiveable. What is not is that she comes to me if she needs something but the rest of the time ignores me. She expects me to call, me to reach out me to do all the work in the friendship. She says she will call me back and does not. I told her that it seemed like I was intruding and she swore that was not the case and she would try harder. This continued for a while. I finally got an e-mail from her all chatty and like it had not been three weeks since we had spoken, ok there was a breezy apology, but it was all about her and her situtation without even asking me how I was. I called her and was gentle but explained how I felt and that I needed a break. She told me to contact her when *I* was ready. What I really need is for her to realize that I am valuable to her and make an attempt to contact me. I will tell her that in a few days, before I leave, in an e-mail.

In other words. Friends are precious. If you can get it on track do it. Work hard at it. If it's just toxic or painful or you are banging your head into a wall then get out but be honest about it. Don't leave her wondering what she did for years. Give her the gift of true friendship and tell her the truth.

 

[DMRick]

Nope, I'm with Snoopy..my real friends are like family, and are my real friends for life, even if it takes some work sometime either way. I've started off with people I thought would end up being friends when I first met them, but after getting to know them, I haven't gone the extra mile to "seal" the friendship, and just let it go to the side...but the longtime/real friends? I'm loyal, they seem to be loyal, and I'm willing to talk if we have a problem with each other to get back in "friendship"...but to tell the truth, I can't remember friendships having to be "worked" on much at all. Real Friendships are worth working on, in this throwaway world.

I'm talking about friendships that are local, or in person, not computer friendships. Often people I've known via computer, are different in person. Those friends I may have a certain thing in common, but without that "thing" (such as a computer craft or a certain single interest) the personal friendship is seldom there.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

Well, several months have passed and I guess I am officially divorced from my friend. A few weeks back, I was awoken at 2:00 a.m. by the sound of sirens. The apartment complex next to mine was on fire. This "friend" lives there. I went outside and talked to her to make sure she was alright but everyone in the building was okay, just lost some personal belongings. I brought her into my house, gave her some coffee and offered by condolences. She gave me a hug and told me that she missed me. I did not respond because I don't miss the "friendship" that we had. I do miss having a best friend but she treated me badly. But I was sad for this experience for her, it must have been really scary.


A couple of weeks later, the school where both our children attend called and claimed that someone needed to come up and pick up her son because he had sprained his ankle and they couldn't contact his mom. So, I dropped everything, and went to get him, only to find out that she was on her way. So I left. She was arriving as I left. She didn't bother to pick up the phone and thank me for coming to help.

I am sad to lose a long standing friendship but she is not making ANY effort to mend it. I guess it wasn't important to her.