Friend problem

The BBQ Pit
1

I have friends, oddly enough. One though, just is a nuisance, though he has been a friend so long I don’t know what the hell to do with him.
He has a serious alcohol problem, loves to smoke pot, and cigarettes (which I am contemplating banning from my apartment), and… well- his feet stink. Sometimes stinking my apartment up for hours after he has left.

Now, he has been my friend for years, and has only recently started to get on my nerves. I don’t know if I should be a dick about him or not, but I need to vent today:

It is a good Saturday, my legs are sore from yesterdays squat session, so I am taking it easy. He calls from the local gas station we call the Granny-go-kill (due to me getting held there because of a hit and run that occured on an eldery lady, and I saw it). He says he is comming over to play some Magic the Gathering ™. Ok, not too bad of an Idea for a lazy Saturday.
Well, after a conclusive series of victories, I am ready to tackle my day. Chores, responsiblities, apartment cleaning, the likes. However, he procedes to convince me to go all the way out to the ritzy part of town to rent a video at it’s blockbuster. Seems it was the blockbuster around that carries his all time favorite movie: Remo Williams.

This isn’t the bad part. The whole time we are driving there (a 20 min drive) he is going on some psuedo-intellectual rant about how technology is being witheld. I tell him a little about capitalism and why I think that idea is impossible. He then gets all indignant and blathers drunkenly about how capitolism is similar to socialism or something that didn’t make sense. Whatever. The whole time he is smoking in my car. Great, my fucking clothes smell like a damned ashtray now. Thanks.

Then when we get to the damn blockbuster, in a ritzy part of town, he throws his pop bottle out the window. In plain fucking daylight, in front of what is apparently a huge traffic center, right in front of the parking spot I was pulling into. Well, he had some ignorant bimbo blonde bitch see him. She of course yells at me because she is stupid, and didn’t notice it came out the PASSENGER side, or assumed that my friend was under my complete and total control. At first I didn’t even know she was talking to me, it didn’t become apparent untill after we were leaving. Yes, she stayed out there to yell at us after we came out of the store as well. Something about not respecting property. I was about to not respect the property she called her face, as she should have been yelling at my friend, not myself.

Well, inside the blockbuster he starts talking really loud, being stupid and drawing attention to us. He says suggestive things to me about some girls he points to. I look. The girls he refers to happen to be an ugly, portly woman and her 12 year old daughter. I am assuming he was talking about the daughter. ICK. So my friend is a pedophile when he is drunk apparently. UGH.

Well, the trip back I sort of yelled at him for littering, since blockbuster has little trash cans in front of the doors, it was pretty dumb of him to litter out of my fucking car. I was pissed. I could have recieved a ticket because of his lazy ass.

While watching the 1985 special effect masterpiece (snort), my friend falls asleep and blocks my whole apartment. (I live in a studio, he is like 6’3 350lbs)

Ok, perhaps I am an asshole for having these feelings. He was drunk, and his obnoxiousness was probably stemming from that. It’s just that he is always drunk when he comes over. (I have had conversations to him about driving drunk, but he apparently does not care)

Argh, I don’t know if I should end this friendship, which has lasted for 15 years, or keep on pretending that I like hanging around with him. What motivates him to be the way he is I don’t know.

To my friend: Grow the fuck up asshole. You are 25, being drunk all the day, littering, stinking, and drooling on 12 year olds is not a mature and responsible lifestyle.
I want to be cool about this, but goddamnit, I want to make something of my life, be responsible, have people not think I am a hooligan because of my company, and I am a mature person. Fucking damnit, why are people so immature and have so many problems.

2

I think your “friend” is in strong contention for the Asshat Of The Week Prize.

However, the woman had a perfect right to yell at you, even though it was your friend who threw the bottle out of the car. You bear more then a little responsibility since it was your car that the bottle came from and you were in said car at the time of the incident.

If it was me, I’d drop this guy so fast he’d have whiplash.

Remo Williams??? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Sheesh.

3

OK, for starters, you can insist that he not smoke in your house or in your car. That’s normal nowadays…very few households allow smoking inside.

In terms of him drinking, you can sit him down when he is sober, and tell him that you don’t enjoy his company when he is drunk, so YOU are making the choice to not be around him at that time. Make it very clear that he is welcome at any other time, but NOT when he has been drinking. And you must stick to this resolution.

. This just doesn’t make any sense, and I think you need to take some more responsibility for what happened. You mentioned that you wanted to do your chores etc, but it seems to me that you too were keen to go get a video. While what happened there and on the trip sounds pretty unpleasant, could you perhaps have forseen the scenario with your friend. IMHO, you should’ve stuck to your guns and asked him to leave after you had finished playing the game.

Really, it is none of your business if he drinks, smokes and leers at little girls in video shops. It IS your business when you are in his company when he does so. Take yourself out of the equation, and THEN decide whether you want to continue the friendship on YOUR terms.

And good luck. :wink:

4

Now wait a minute here. Don’t be dissing The Destroyer and the sun source of all martial arts just because of one asshat. With different casting, writing, and direction, that could have been a better film translation.

Topically and seriously now:

Friendships change along with the people in them. People grow apart. Sometimes, one of them becomes a boorish drunken slob, and that’s definitely a sad development.

What to do? Sometimes the easiest and best answer to see is the hardest to actually follow through on. I think you know what it is.

Best of luck.

5

Why don’t you wash his feet?

6

ON the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for thinking outside the box, too. The feet-washing approach will be easy if he makes a habit of passing out.

7

LOL. (at the washing feet) Good idea.

Your right, it was my responsiblity on the litter. I didn’t see it happen, and didn’t even know it occured untill the lady yelled at me. But I should have I guess.

Yes, I am going to sit down with him and talk at length when he is not drunk/stoned.

Well, he offered to buy me lunch if we rented the video, I am such a sucker for free food. I am weak though when it comes to letting people talk me into things. It is something I am working on, just going slower than I would like it to. I do think this is the last straw though.

8

Oh yeah- I am going to have to read the Destroyer series though now. It was a bad movie, but might make a good read.

9

Watch out for enabling behavior on your part. This happened to me with myfirst hubby. I’ts difficult at first to see it creeping up on you; you are caught with a relationship where somebody you care about has turned into a jerk. If you are wanting to keep his friendship you might consider Al Anon, where you can learn about helping him while not being a doormat.

signed, A Former Doormat

10

I had a friend like that one time.

Notice the word “had”

You’re not helping him by enabling his lifestyle. If his friends start shunning him, and not putting up with his bullshit, eventually, he may figger out why. Maybe. Then again, some people just enjoy being assholes.

As for the driving/drinking/stoned, I just hope to dog he gets busted for DWI before he kills someone.

11

Everyone has their bad friends. But me like others i have a whole group of bad friends. Ditching, back stabbing, ignorant, bitches who i still consider my friends. I discovered that if i want to make it easier i just act as they do. In revenge i decided to ditch one of my friends. But she ditched me before i got the chance. Maybe i’m just not as good as being mean or maybe i’ve just learned to tolerate it all. In the end i only need a couple GOOD friends to make me happy.

12

Start with the third one, and stop when the original authors stop writing the series.

13

Were you already aware that this was his favorite movie? Reason I ask is, that sentence set off an alarm bell with me. Not because of his choice of film, but because I’ve known people who do stuff like that. I mean, you’d think that if he likes it so much, he’d already own a copy. He doesn’t, but he absolutely has to rent it right now because it’s his faaaaaaaavorite, and if you’re really his friend, you’ll help him, right? :rolleyes:

Don’t let your “friend” play you like B.Pants recently was. She learned better because of the incident, but I hope you won’t have to live something like that at all.

14

Ditto. On all of it.

15

[Dan Akroyd]Epimetheus, you ignorant slut![/DA]

Remo Williams-The Adventure Begins is one of the crowning jewels of cinema. How could you not love the subtext, the examination of the human condition, Joel Gray as a Korean?
“Chiun teach you that?”

“Anti-personnel mine, Nam.”

“Where do I put it?”

“Find a nail.”

and

“Chiun, you’re incredible.”

“No. I am better than that.”

 The tragedy was that they never made Remo Williams-The Adventure Continues.

BTW-It’s your appartment. Ban smoking. None of my friends have complained. Have a serious discussion with your friend. If his feet really smell that horrific and you’ve been friends that long, tell him.

16

I am not worthy (grovels) Forgive my imputence.

BTW- I have told him his feet stink and spray him down with a deoderizer. :wink:

17

Do you have other friends who feel the same way about him as you do? If so, it’s just a matter of coordination to arrange an intervention, if his drinking/pot smoking behaviour is that large a problem. Your local Al-Anon or Narc-Anon should be able to give you advice on how to handle that.

I’m going to chime in with a “me too” about the smoking. I’m a smoker, and I won’t smoke in a friend’s house/car without expressed permission to do so. Tell him “No smoking in the house. Or the car.” If he ignores you, grab the cigarette and toss it, telling him to light another one outside.

As for the feet, nothing works except extreme tact. If you’re lucky.

18

Do you realize how many books there are? At least 120, IIRC…

19

Yeah, but they’re just stupid after the original authors stop writing them.

Before that, most of the books are black, biting social satire. After, they’re stupid Executioner ripoffs.

20

Why are you still friends with him? I mean that seriously. Does he have good qualities you haven’t mentioned? Or is it just that you’ve known him so long?
Back To Important Matters-
Has any one else read any of the comics? IIRC there was 4 issue miniseries, titled The Destroyer, focusing on Remo’s battles with Nuihc, and a monthly series that was magazine-sized.

I don't have the final issue of Destroyer, but 1-3 have made me believe that a man can be the dead white night tiger made whole by the living master of Sinanju.

BTW-
Joel Gray! I can never get over that. Picture Chiun in Weimar Germany. “I will not accept marks! The living master of Sinanju must be payed in gold!” “These Nazis are a confused and deluded group. They believe that whites are the master race! Can they not see that Koreans are the highest of humans?”