She whines and whines and whines every time she talks to me about the shitty men in her life and how they treat her and how “men suck”. When I make comments to her about it she gets upset and says that as a friend I should just be there to listen and let her blow off steam and not inject my opinion or advice.
Is this really what being a good friend entails? Am I missing something here? How long do you stand by a friend watching them make one colossally bad decision after another and just be expected not to say anything??
The problem is she is very touchy and if I make any comment, she gets very defensive and usually says something along the lines of “you are happily married, you have no idea what it’s like to be 40 and alone. I can’t afford to be choosy”
Today she mentioned for about the millionth time that “men suck” and I took exception to this. No, all men do not suck. There are good men out there. Just because you choose to keep company with assholes does not mean that men suck.
Her: Men suck
Me: not all of them
Her: All the ones in my life do
Me: so get rid of them all and start clean lol
She got really pissed at this.
I honestly don’t know how much longer I can just sit and listen to her bitch and not be allowed to express my opinion or give advice. If being a good friend means being there to listen and only offering advice when asked for it, I’m not sure I can be a good friend.
I’d almost bet money she’s actually the stupid kinda of choosey. Like he’s a great guy but he likes country music so he’s right out. Or, I like him, but he’s a building contractor and I just gotta have a fireman. He seems nice and stable but have you seen his car!
If your pushing 40 and havent run across a decent person, either you aint trying too hard, you invariably choose actual assholes, or you’ve got a stupid filtering system that automatically eliminates the actual decent guys you’ve run across.
She is continually frustrated by the lack of quality men in her life. She insists that he has to be very good looking and let me tell you that while she is no troll, she’s no supermodel either. She needs to find someone that she has common interests with. Not pole vaulting onto his dick 3 hours after meeting him would be a good start at well.
I’ve suggested e-harmony and similar sites and she acted all offended saying that she couldn’t afford to do that. But $800 worth of Botox is fine.
Sounds to me like she is choosy but desperate. Desperate women attract sucky men.
Some people, no matter what they say they want, don’t want help, they just want an audience. They’re going to do what they’re going to do and they want someone to abuse when it doesn’t go their way. So the question is, is the friendship worthwhile enough to you to be that audience?
Well, the need to have a Mr Hunk while not being a Ms Hotie has reduced her chances by about 90 percent right there. So, rather than taking 5 to 10 years to find somebody like it takes normal people, she’s dragged it out to 50 to a 100 years.
I understand your frustration. It’s hard to listen to someone who has a problem with an obvious fix, but doesn’t want to hear about it, especially when she’s had the same freakin’ problem forever.
However… I’m a firm believer in listening when someone wants you listen and offering advice when they want advice. So, yeah, I think part of friendship is listening when your friend just needs to vent, even if you have to bite your tongue. That said, if you can’t stand listening anymore - for example, if she’s really just spending all your time together complaining about men - is there any way you can change the subject or just tell her, “I know you’re having some problems, but I wish you’d let me help you. It upsets me to have to listen to your problems, knowing that you won’t listen to any suggestions,” or something similar?
It’s up to you, of course, but I have a fairly low tolerance for people who complain but don’t make any attempts to solve the problems. She sounds like she is more interested in the drama than she is in fixing it, and all your future interactions with her will be the same as your past interactions. As her friend, I don’t think it’s over the line for you to tell her something like, “Look, I feel badly that you aren’t having success with men, but I don’t want to talk to you about it any longer, because you don’t seem to be interested in making any positive changes. Friends are for support, yes, but they aren’t for unlimited bitching; go pay a therapist if that’s all you want from this friendship.”
That brings up another point - she has an obligation to be a good friend, too, and that means not spending all your time together bitching about the same things.
I had a friend like that. She’d call and we’d hash over the same relationship problem. She’d cry. I’d listen and console and offer advice when asked but that was the sum total of our relationship. She never asked how I was doing. Never wanted to get together unless we were going to talk, endlessly, about her relationship problems.
I stopped calling her and stopped taking her calls. Sad but it was a completely one sided friendship and I was sick of playing therapist.
I’ve talked to her once or twice since then and she hasn’t changed. Same old relationship drama but I’m not party to it because I’ve removed myself. You might choose to do the same.
I have a coworker who sounds exactly like your friend, who uses me as her sound board. Probably because I’m the only one who is too passive to do anything about it. Except, actually I’m not. One day, after one particular bitchfest that bordered on insane, I went to the boss and told him, straight up, that the woman was getting on my LAST nerve. I knew he and the coworker had known each other for a long time and that he had mentored her for awhile, so I told him things about her that I probably wouldn’t have said to another boss.
He told me what I’m going to tell you. Be like a man.
I don’t know if this is true, but he said men don’t put up with crap like this from their friends. After the second or third round of whining, a guy would tell the chump to shut up whining about his problems because of the negative effect it was having on him (the guy, not the chump). Basically he said I needed to use that old line from the 70s and say, “You’re bringing me down, man!”
I didn’t have to follow that advice fortunately, because he had a stern talking-to with the coworker and she stopped with the self-absorbity (well, not really. But at least she’s not complaining as much). But I will remember the approach for the future.
If your friend cared at all about getting a man, she WOULD listen to you since you are happily married. The fact that she uses that against you suggests some jealousy or something. That would make me not want to be her friend (in addition to all that whining).
Give me her number, 'cause I’ll totally do her. It wouldn’t cost me much time or money… maybe just a drink one night, two tops. And it would be easy to ditch her afterwards because she already expects me to.
She may not know it, but that’s the vibe she’s giving off to every man she comes in contact with. And the cycle’s not going to stop until she chooses to stop it, and that probably won’t happen until she gets to the root of the problem: that it’s her, not them. Sure there are jerks out there, both men and women. But the problem lies in how she’s projecting herself, not in what kind of people she’s meeting.
I’m with DCnDC; the friend wants an audience, not advice. Trying to help friend fix her problem is seen as not being friendly.
Many years ago, I was unloading on a friend of mine, rejecting his solutions one after the other. Finally, he opened my eyes with a query,
“Just what is it that you want me to tell you?”
Like Sheldon Cooper, he didn’t have any more There, there’s in him:)
But the question got me thinking. I just wanted him to listen, smile and nod. He wasn’t up for passive listening, and I was venting too many thoughts for his comfort.
Haven’t seen the dude for nearly 40 years, but I got to tell ya that I have used his script many times since, and it has almost always helped to cut the moaning short.
You ARE a good friend. And a good person. You’re putting up with a Lot and I can only hope that she smartens up before she loses you as a friend. If she does, I hope she knows she owes you. She “polka-dot taffeta brides maids dress w/o bitching” owes you.
Are you asking if she’s worth it? I can’t answer that. She may have some awesome qualities inside which are being masked by her whorrific manners. If you are asking if she will grow out of this, the answer is probably yes. If you are asking if it will be soon, Og only knows. If you are asking if you will still be friends by the time she wakes the f-ck up… well for her sake I hope you still are.
