My so-called friend
QUESTION
Hi Irene,
My so-called friend deleted me on Facebook
because of an accidental slip-of-the-tongue. I told her I didn’t like her
cousin. I thought telling the truth even though it hurts was the right thing.
In addition to deleting me on Facebook, she talks
about me behind my back and when I try to apologize, she ignores me. Because
she talks about me to my other friends, I’m scared I’ll lose them too.
Signed, Kim
ANSWER
Hi Kim,
I don’t quite see this as a "slip of the tongue"
on your part. You felt comfortable enough with your friend to tell her your honest feelings about her cousin. If your friend didn’t welcome hearing what you had to
say, she should have told you so. Ending the friendship was overkill.
Cutting you off the way she did, with one
click on Facebook, suggests that she might have been looking for an excuse to
sever ties with you. My advice: Forget your so-called friend and don’t make any
more apologies.
Since you share friends in common, act
cordially when you see her, and refrain from making negative comments about her
or her cousin. Your mutual friends will be able to judge you for who you are,
not who she says you are.
Hope this helps.
Best, Irene
Category: Uncategorized
Dear Kim,
Never mind about the your so called friend’s behavior, she doesn’t deserve to be your friend anyway for she has no good qualities of a true friend. I had a friend whom i cared a lot about in that the things i did for her were far beyond what i did for my sisters. I was 200% involved in all her problems owning them and taking the responsibility as if they were own. Each time she fell, i was there to wake her up; morally, financially, socially etc….
To my surprise, after eight years of our friendship, i came to know she was always behind my downfall, meaning; always responsible for my failed relationships with my boyfriend and girlfriends i totally failed to date any one during the 8yrs of our friendship because she went behind my back and blackmailing me to them, and all i could see next was continuous breakups. This may sound simple but its serious and true! At that time i had no other true friend because she always blackmailed me before everyone and most of the time the so called friends whom we shared looked at me as stupid because of what she told them about me.
However to cut the long story short, one day in 2008, i got to know exactly who she was and the actual damage she had caused to my social life in 8yrs, with lots of facts, I decided to wake-up one morning and walked away without telling her, she got so angry because she did not believe that i would ever get to know her evil works behind my back. She has gone asking people to re unit us, but i meant to start a better life with true friends…i have never given her chance to explain, because she misused her time and undermined me a lot.
So after realizing that i was gone for real, she got crazy…and despised me more out of frustration she called the so called friends whom we shared, relatives who had known her for long, even those who did not know me and on and on just to seek sympathy from them. But i was determined to find myself and truly redefine myself from the person she said i was.
But tell you what…, i have gotten true friends after all that swaggaa
they respect me for me, care about me, think about me, always there when i need them which she had never done for me (our friendship was one way) with her i always thought i was meant to care of her and that’s all not her doing likewise.
Now I no longer feel uncomfortable around my new friends….and this has helped me understand and contextually define my self better, am learning a lot from them as they learn from. Let me phrase it like this “Am out of the grave which i was from 2000-2008” Am a live and will never let that happen to me again!!!!!!!
Please let her goooo….and you will find your self positively and free to express yourself. You know, you can never receive a new gift if your hands are still clinging on the old stuff….so let go of her and give chance to new friends. It doesn’t matter whether you stand to loose those you share with her! you will still find better ones.
Hope that helps
Aa
Kim, your assessment sounds like the exact feelings I experienced associated with having to tell a long-term friend that I didn’t appreciate a nasty comment she made to me.
In my case, the person in question had been demonstrating behavior symptomatic of a toxic friend for quite some time. Refraining from attacking, I simply suggested that we cool a mutual activity for a while to relieve obvious tensions. That resulted in flat denial of the nasty comment plus more nasty comments. Regardless, I stayed on subject and reiterated my suggestion.
Like you, I feared mutual friends might abandon me. Then a trusted and “unassociated” friend reasoned that abandonment from mutual friends would indicate they were not real friends in the first place. She said, it is impossible to lose something you never had. Additionally, she conveyed that she doubted abandonment of mutual friends would happen… that mutual friends may feel the same way about the toxic friend.
Kim,
I can definitely relate to your fear about losing your other friends. I definitely agree with Irene, though, that if they are true friends, they won’t be swayed by someone else’s words, but rather, they know your true character and will base their actions upon that.
That’s happened to me before a couple of times – both times, my friends were real friends and refused to take sides, which I thought was very mature of them. They didn’t bad-mouth my ex-friend to me, and I’m assuming they didn’t bad-mouth me to her if they remained committed friends to me. In fact, in one of the situations, one of my friends went on to explicitly tell me that she wasn’t going to take sides, because we were both her friends, but not to worry that she was going to go away, becase she knew me and what kind of person I am, and even if the ex-friend had a valid cause for complaint against me, she wasn’t going to terminate her friendship with me over it.
Hopefully your other friends will not allow themselves to be swayed by what she says – and if anything, she’s not recommending herself well to them, if she’s continuing to gossip against you, KNOWING that they are your friends as well.
Take care, and hope everything works out well for you!
I had a similar thing happen to me this week simply because I found another church that better suited my needs. People often use the “unfriending” card because it’s easy to do from behind a computer screen yet is still passive aggressive. I am sure there are a lot of better friends out there who will support you without judgement or passive aggressive behavior.