I think not ever having had a job gives you a pretty warped sense of perspective here, etv78. I was unemployed for about 6 months a year ago. I regularly helped friends with work situations, going so far as to meet with one in particular who had the enviable problem of having two new job opportunities to choose from - in the same field I’m in. Another friend wanted help in negotiating a salary for a new job - also in my field, and getting far more than the going rate for that job, one in which she’d not had minute one of experience. The OP’s friend’s problem is a severe inability to get the fuck over herself - likely one of the causes of her unemployment in the first place.
Life is much easier when you learn to do that, as well as dropping any sense of entitlement or martyrdom.
Why the fuck did you mention your salary? My brothers and mother don’t know mine, I don’t know my brothers’, and the only reason us three know how much Mom’s pension is, is that it’s a public amount (she gets the maximum pension a Spaniard can get from our public pensions system).
Bitching about work is one thing, but bitching that you “only” make anything over minimum wage to someone who’s unemployed is worth a slap like the one Gilda got.
Our closest friends have no idea how much we make. I’m not sure how that kind of personal information just “pops up” in conversation, but it’s crass, so for future reference, cut it out.
On the other hand, you venting about work shouldn’t be a big deal to a good friend, even an unemployed friend. If she can’t handle it, then it’s she who is in the wrong. You’ve tried apologizing, now back off and see how it plays out.
Finally, if you were texting at work, cut that out, too.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s kind of important to find out what exactly the “venting” was about before judging the friend too harshly?
Certainly the friend should be mature enough to express why she’s so fed up. I totally get that. But I have been the “listening ear” for some petty rant sessions before. It’s not cool having to listen to shit that seems trivial compared to the stress you’re going through and having no one that you can vent to about it.
I mean, if the workplace fight was about salary–a topic the friend had already clearly expressed is a no-go for her–I could understand why she’d blow up again.
I’d like to know exactly what we’re talking about before I take the OP’s side.
I think unless you are mentally unstable, you don’t cut a friend out of your life for something that trivial, unless it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And it very well may be. I’m guessing there is more to the story than this incident alone.
Even if this was the proverbial straw, the person who cuts someone off without ever saying why could certainly have spoken up if they were upset. They didn’t value the friendship enough to do so.
Some people, and I’m sorry to sound sexist but I find they tend to be female, just do not like confrontation.
Something like this came up years ago with my wife and she was burning inside with rage and was ranting and raving about it to me but refused to actually confront the person. I frankly, got tired of it and persuaded her to speak her mind to her friend. She did, and things worked out.
Correct. But it’s not uncommon for someone to be so fed up and over the relationship that they don’t even bother with a confrontation. If you have no hope, there’s no point in rehashing things. In my experience, when you bother to give an explanation for cutting someone out of your life, they respond with defensiveness and it just turns into a big ‘‘did not’’ ‘‘did too’’ clusterfuck that could just be avoided by waking away.
People’s feelings get hurt about things that others think are silly all the time. My group of girlfriends used to complain to me all the time about what seemed to me to be some imagined offense. And the I got a call about me!
Mutual friends were having a costume party/masquerade ball for charity. I was out of work and could afford the donation but didn’t want to spring for a costume. So I called my friend whose wedding I’d been in and who was attending and asked it she would be offended if I wore the bridesmaid dress either as part of a princess costume or just as a ball gown with a mask. I only considered thai after her sister told me she would be doing the same. She wouldn’t answer my texts for weeks. Friends told me she was hurt that I considered her bridesmaid dresses a costume. I didn’t go. Friend posted multiple pictures of her and sister in bridesmaid dress enjoying the party everywhere I might see. Not her fault I didn’t go, but my feelings were hurt, and I kinda didn’t want to see her. She has plenty of problems with her sister so she might not have spoken to her for weeks either. Anyway, there were mutual apologies. We got over it.
I said I was sorry for inadvertently hurting her feelings and that I most certainly loved the dress. I had picked it out.
I have since donated the skirt part but I kept the corset part. I might need it for a costume later.
Two friends of mine are in a minor fight (I hope) because one of them kept complaining to the other that she hated her job and couldn’t find a man. The second told her that her job or marriage wasn’t perfect either and to more or less quit bitching and fix it and quit idealizing her marriage, in front of the husband. Multiple arguments ensued.
I’ve had calls from friends that one of them was pissed because the other mentioned they couldn’t fit into their size six jeans anymore while the other is struggling trying to lose the 30 pounds they put on in the last 6 months.
I have so many stories like this.
TLDR: I will give you my best advice, although I’m no expert. If your friend is acting like feelings were hurt then they probably were. Maybe your friend was going thru a really tough time that day about not having a job and you rubbed in it.
Just say “I’m sorry if I was insensitive. I think the world of you. I value your friendship very much and I miss it and you”
Exactly. Which is why I am so loathe to judge the friend. We have no idea how many times the two have gone around the mulberry bush together over this. We have no idea what the OP was complaining about or how frequently she/he complains. We don’t have any idea how chaotic the friend’s life is. We don’t know if the friend really is the “lend an ear” type of person. And the fact that the OP has not felt it necessary to fill in any gaps makes me wonder just how serious the OP is in delving deeper into the issue.
Toxic relationshps can exist. The whiny, needy, self-centered, tone-deaf friend is common enough that we’ve all heard the horror stories. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to walk away from such a person. It’s funny, because this board is notorious for telling people to do just that when it comes to bad friends. Seems to me the friend was following our typical advice and is now being (perhaps unfairly) raked over the coals for it.
And some people can’t hear something which is being said plain as day.
Like my PhD advisor, who when I told him he had 30 days to come up with a Plan B before I executed Plan A of leaving with a Master’s, thought I was PMSing. Note that the reason from Plan A was that he’d been stealing my research and that of other students. But yeah, PMSing.
Or that dude who patted me on the head. I said “don’t touch my head ever again”. He did it again. I said “second warning, don’t ever do that again or I’m not talking to you ever again.” And after he did it again, he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t talk to him, even with everybody else from the club asking him “which part of ‘don’t touch my head’ do you have problems with?”
So, I’m starting a new job on Monday.* But before that, I’ve been unemployed for the last two years.** During that period, I spent a ton time listening to my friends bitch about work.*** It never bothered me - at least it was something to do.****
*apologies to people who still don’t have jobs.
**apologies to people who have jobs, and don’t want them.
***apologies to people who don’t have friends.
****apologies to people who don’t do things.
I am going to totally disregard your wife, Urbanredneck, just because I don’t want to cause offense, so please keep this in mind, and I will try to blot out everything I read about her, so, if I cross into something that relates to her, know that it was inadvertent.
I, OTOH, have been unemployed BIG TIME, and my best friend from high school and others have never entered into a conspiracy of silence, to protect my feelings. Talking about their jobs was their lives; just because I wasn’t employed was no reason for them to treat me like I was some retard, or ‘out of the club, so, we don’t ention-may obs-jay’.
If they were to keep silent about everything that I didn’t have, there would have been some mighty one-sided conversations, believe me!
