Raft: The OP is REMINDING her ex-friend WHY she has free time. A jerkish thing to do! But, yeah don’t give her veto power over who you socialize with.
+1
Griping about a job to an unemployed person might have been a mistake, but we all make mistakes. True friends talk about it and get over it.
I’m surprised you’ve been friends for 10 years without realizing someone is such an idiot that they can’t deal with something like this.
I might say something like this: “I’m sorry I offended you. I enjoyed having you as my friend. Let me know when you’re ready to get over it. If I don’t hear from you again, well, have a nice life, and I’ll miss you.”
This +1. Maybe even +2.
Maybe your friend will feel better once she has a job, or maybe if she doesn’t have her “dream” job she won’t. It won’t do any harm to apologize for hurting her feelings or saying you should have realized that she wasn’t the one to vent to about employment problems.
If that helps resolve the problems between you two, well and good. If not, find new friends at work.
Regards,
Shodan
Wow, opinions about the OP’s conduct are all over the place—perhaps not surprisingly, since I’d need more context to know whether the OP did anything wrong.
OP: have you been generally supportive, sympathetic, and helpful toward this friend through her period of unemployment?
Honestly, if she is going to cling to this fantasy that life satisfaction is black and white - that having a job somehow means your troubles disappear - this is not a good friend for you right now, or possibly ever. I can’t imagine not being able to talk to a friend about what’s going on with my life. I’ve been unemployed for long stretches of time and I never once thought it was inappropriate for someone to vent to me about work. Their life is not my life. How can I compare my suffering to another’s?
I guess this is why I said there are no good guys or bad guy in this situation. I should have qualified that with “based on the information provided.” I mean, if the OP’s complaints were something worthy of kvetching about and not a part of a long series of workplace rants, then the OP’s friends behavior is not acceptable. However, I can totally see how it would be understandable if those two conditions were not met. It sucks that people can’t be how we want them to be, but a frayed nerve is still a frayed nerve.
The OP says the friend is a “lend an ear” type of person who likes to listen to other people’s problems. I can’t imagine that someone would like always being in this position. Especially if they are going through their own shit. And it is easy to take advantage of a listener without realizing it. If the friend were here to post her side, would she say that the OP is the “lend an ear” friend that SHE needs. Or would she say that their friendship is one-sided and she’s sick of having to feign sympathy all the time?
Since we don’t know, I’m not going to judge either way.
Depends. “$200 dollars for frames! You don’t know how lucky you are!”
The fault isn’t in the friend feeling hurt at being “reminded” that she’s unemployed. Obviously the OP having a job wasn’t a secret but clearly he inadvertently poked a sore spot. The OP wasn’t at fault to talking to his close friend about a major portion of his life- his work. That’s what friends do.
The fault is the friend being so immature that she can’t tell him it bothered her and give him the chance to make amends. I credit the OP for wanting to reach out and offer an apology for hurting his friend’s feelings, even unintentionally.
Sorry if I got the OP gender wrong.
I agree. Part of being a good friend is being interested in and caring about the life of your friend, no matter what. You can’t hold jealousy for your friends’ situations and stay a true friend. You can’t.
Doesn’t mean that one can brag or tease about their perceived-to-be-better situation all over their friends and not expect pushback. But if one is simply venting about an aspect of their situation that is not ideal, it’s just not cool to be all “WELL BE GLAD YOU HAVE THAT SITUATION AT ALL!”
People without relationships, kids, jobs, cars, savings accounts, eyesight, living parents, trust funds, stable homes, etc are friends with people who have all those things. It’s a normal way to be part of a society.
If you can’t handle discussing something that someone has that you want but don’t have…then that is all on you.
I can see where the upset friend is coming from but the right way to deal with it is to say “Hate to cut you off but I’ve been really bummed about being unemployed lately, can we talk about something else?” and then talk about something else. If that happened, we’d be bitching at the OP for pushing the issue on the unemployed friend after she said she didn’t want to discuss the OP’s work.
But as far as I can tell that didn’t happen. The friend just freaked out and went as far as to stop all communication. Not cool.
Another vote for the friend being overly-sensitive. Horrible to be long-term unemployed, I’m sure, but does that mean the only people she wants to associate with are unemployed people, or employed people who won’t mention their jobs? That seems rather silly.
Exactly. We’d all be walking on eggshells, constantly, if that were the case.
I can see why the OP’s friend might get upset and frustrated at times, but if that is her standard M.O., it might give some insight into why the OP is gainfully employed, and the friend is not. Desperation and bitterness are not viewed as positive traits, usually.
As an example, my best friend from grad school had trouble getting pregnant. I had two kids in the time she was still trying. I felt awful calling her when I was pregnant the second time, but I wanted to share the news. She was gracious about it and genuinely happy for me, but I also kept it to a minimum. I’d be upset if I couldn’t talk to her about my pregnancies because she was hanging trouble. I would also be mad if her feelings were hurt and she just cut me off. I tried to be sensitive, but she had to communicate her needs with me as well.
Barring some dickish way the OP might have talked about work, the OP’s friend sounds like someone I would not want in my life. It’s okay to be sensitive about certain topics and to let your friends know, but to push them out of your life for touching on one? Crazy talk.
You just don’t get it man, you’re no longer in the cool I don’t have a job, I ain’t workin for the man no more club. Winning is for losers.
Don’t you dare apologize for a ‘lack of sensitivity’. Wait till she has something that you want, and see if *she’s *apologizing for anything she says.
This is no good friend. You P’d & M’d, about something that she doesn’t have, and she *completely *cuts you off?? This is not a friend. This is a fucking baby that you will need to nuture for the rest of your lives. The appropriate response on her part would have been ‘WTF, WATP, quit your fuckin’ complainin’." But, no, she broke off all communication. There is something more than your complaining that is at play. Perhaps her psychosis.
You are well rid of her. If it does get ‘made right’ you are going to have to hook her back up to a lifelong umbilical cord, attached to Mama WeAimToPlease.
Let her fuck herself. That would make it all ‘right’.
That would, of course, be ‘nurture’.
One thing we seem to be glossing over is the “no longer being invited to group gatherings”. So is everyone in the group going along with ms overly sensitive? Are they all unemployed too or what? How many friends have actually been lost here?
My real friends took care of me in all ways possible. Some called me almost daily to check on me. You may not understand this kind of relationship but my friends go back to grade school and I’m in my 50’s.
You’re reading way too much into what transpired.
A few brief paragraphs giving a bare-bones outline of one person’s side of a story, and so many people are sure they know exactly what is happening, and who is in the the right and who is in the wrong. :rolleyes:
Now I disagree.
Being unemployed and another person talking about their great job can be very tough on a person. Maybe her friend felt like the OP was bragging? My wife went thru something similar to that when a friend of hers got a job in a field she wanted and seemingly, wouldnt stop talking about it.
Yeah, maybe she was behaving a little like a spoiled baby but otoh, sometimes we dont truly think about what we say?
Does this mean you shouldn’t talk about, or bitch about your job to others that are in a worse position. Can I not try to commiserate and try to console?
Share stories? If for no other reason than to show that you understand?
If someone complains to me about their position, I may do the same. Nothing is perfect. I have a good job, but frankly, it really, really sucks sometimes. Strikes and gutter balls.
To hell with that. I can also share the tough times in my job. There are plenty of things that keep me up at night. The biggest being my job.
What can I say, a big part of my life is my job. But when my friend constantly complained about how worthless government employees are, I took offense. I’ve worked for the gov for 22 years. He knows that. And the next time I saw him he went into the same diatribe that all government employees are on the take and don’t work hard.
That was pretty much it for me.
Friendship. Over.