As I shared here, I ended a nine-year friendship at the end of August. We didn’t have some big discussion in which we said we weren’t going to be friends anymore. Instead, she blew up over something stupid, and instead of reining things in by playing my role, as I always did before, I said, “F#$% it,” and discontinued contact.
The dysfunctional pattern was that it was my job to make her feel better and reassure her that she is “in charge” of the friendship. I’m done with that. If there isn’t room in a friendship for me to be myself, then I don’t want the friendship. Period.
Unfortunately, the ex-friend transferred her daughter to my son’s tiny private school, so there is no way that we are going to avoid seeing each other. Ironically, her daughter gets along with my son just fine (and that’s what her blow up was over), and her daughter still adores me. The three of us are fine – it’s just the ex-friend who is “out.” Both of our children stay for the afterschool homework program, which is how I continue to see her daughter. She always greets me with a huge smile on her face.
So far, I have managed to avoid seeing the ex-friend. Twice I have been driving out of the parking lot while she was pulling in. Thankfully, we have yet to overlap in pickup time.
Yesterday, I picked up my son early from the afterschool program to take him to get a flu shot. We then went to Target to reward him for getting a shot. As we were leaving Target, the ex-friend’s daughter came running up to us, squealing in delight to be bumping into us. I purposely did not look in the direction from which she came, knowing that my ex-friend would be there. My son, however, did look. He said that she gave a look of disgust as if she couldn’t understand why her daughter would like us. Then, she walked into the store as if she didn’t even know her daughter. Whatever.
I am relieved to get the first “run in” over with so I can quit dreading it. I figured that she would ignore me and pretend that I don’t exist, but now that has been confirmed. It’s high school all over again. Goody.
It’s just as well. I, personally, would prefer to be able to say hello and goodbye like two mature adults, but I can do the “I don’t know you even though I know all of your secrets” thing, too. It’s so stupid.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
it sounds like youre better off without a friendship like that, well done for not falling back into it!
Alice x
Faith,
I seem to be being confronted by all kinds of immature adults lately too, and it’s crazy-making, and I, too, have a middle-school-mentality ex-friend who does the same “I’ve never seen you before in my life” glazed over expression when we bump into each other. I have taken to finding the high road, given a slight smile and nod or a gentle wave, and then moving on. I then spend a few minutes in deep breathing, reminding myself why I chose for this person not to be in my life.
I am not sure why there seem to be so many emotionally stunted adults. And, in most cases, it is not survivors that I’m dealing with … it’s people that had relatively “normal” upbringings in decent families with parents who seemed to know how to parent. So, why are there so many horribly immature adults?
I’m sorry you’re having to deal with that on a regular basis. It’s annoying, to say the least, to be an adult dealing with someone enmeshed in middle-school mentality. It’s also exhausting if you don’t take the extra steps to acknowledge the feelings it brings up and then release them.
Hang in there.
I’ve also met a lot of immature adults. I think it has to do with how people are raised in this country. I’m an immigrant and my experience is that my friends in my country of origin are healthier, more stable (they keep most of their commitments, have longtime marriages and friendships and enjoy more job stability) and take more responsibility for their own actions. In our culture children are taught that they are the center of the universe, nothing is their fault (this plays into this culture’s training that you can sue people for everything. For example if you were drunk and fell of the stairs at your neighbors, you don’t have to take responsibility for the fact that you were drunk because it’s your neighbors who are at fault for having an unsafe stair). Our culture encourages people to think first, foremost and only about themselves. With all the diva’s and princes walking around who are genuinely convinced that life and everybody else owes them, it’s no wonder that our divorce rate is the highest in the world and most people don’t have friends (see research). About 17% of the people have some form of mental illness, and with the promotion of narciscism and internet addiction, I predict that the divorce rate will inch even higher. So, that’s why there are so many horribly immature adults. The only way to protect yourself and not become completely disenchanted by the human race, is to screen well who you let into your life. And wait at least a few years before you let someone into your heart.
Ugh, how horrible. I bumped into a dysfunctional friend from school a couple of years ago, and it took me a long time to remember who she was, since I have almost no memory at all of my childhood up to the age of about 18. She took offence at this and accused me in a snide tone of voice of “pretending not to recognise” her. WTF. Like I haven’t had more important things on my mind over the past 24 years. I loathe people like that. I have problems with anger anyway, but people like that… I don’t know. It’s the narcissistic arrogance that offends me, I think. They really believe that everything revolves around them and get annoyed when you refuse to play. They’re just like abusers, and I suppose in their own subtle way, they’re abusers too. I genuinely hate them, which I was always taught was a waste of energy, but on the upside at least it reminds me that they’re the ones in the wrong. If I didn’t hate I might forgive, and that would be extremely dangerous.
That is such a crappy feeling. The “I don’t know you even though I know all your secrets” feeling. At least initially. For me, eventually I realized that there was nothing really anyone could say that had any power over me anymore because I was not that person anymore, not the way I was anyway. (Like you explained in your post about going back to your hometown).
I feel so badly for the little girl. How awful to have a mom who is so immature and nasty. I hope she manages to navigate though it and keep her sunny nature.
Hang in there Faith… it sounds like you are being tested by the Universe these days…. and you’re kicking butt!
Peace,
m
Hi Faith,
I am still, after years of work, very bad at drawing and especially holding boundaries. It’s so difficult for me, I have to choose one boundary and hold that until it’s natural (sometimes that takes months). My first bounday was “I will not lie, especially to keep from disappointing or ‘getting in trouble’.” That took about a year. My current boundary is “I will be who I am, ” Somehow, even tho I am awfully unconfrontrational, this has pared my life down to about 5 close friends and the rest have become friendly acquaintances or have disappeared. I still feel sad when I see the “disappeared” ones out in public. But I don’t try to win them back. I just keep being me whether around them or not. If they like it they can say hi back. If not…that’s how it is.
I am kind by nature, but can be a doormat by training. My one question that help me decide whether to reach out or stay quiet is “Am I acting out of love or fear.” If I’m afraid of their response…I stay quiet and let it happen.
Well…I don’t mean this to be about me. It’s just so inspiring to see the strong lines you are now able t draw and I wonder if I ever will. Please keep writing.
Ruby
PS: I’m sorry…I did have a tie in the dysfunctional people in our lives. Just that, they will do what they will do…perhaps we just need to stay to true to what we know of ourselves and let the outcome be what it is. It’s hard to do when a) we’ve always been told we were at fault for the outcome, whether it’s a personal relationship or abuse, b) being in control of the outcome has always held the illusion of safety. But, we will never change anyone else, I think.
Ruby
Oh, btw – forgot to attribute the source: http://www.childtraumaacademy.com/bonding_attachment/lesson03/page04.html
Oh drat – fat fingers today. The link above is for the article I quoted in my comment below…
Sigh…
Ruby, thank you for this line: “My one question that help me decide whether to reach out or stay quiet is “Am I acting out of love or fear.” “
I too am affectionate and kind by nature, but also trained (trained is such an ineffective word here: brainwashed?, indoctrinated?, forced?, coerced?) into being a people pleaser/doormat. I never really considered that many, if not most, of the ‘nice’ things I do for people who I know won’t reciprocate are in fact people pleasing because I feel obligated to, rather than truly being kind. It’s me being, on some level, fake – even though I never thought of it that way before, and certainly never intended to be. And that gets me into all kinds of places I shouldn’t be, once they take whatever I’ve had to give and then give me the brush-off once they’re done. I get mad or hurt at them for taking advantage, when I am equally responsible for continuing to do favours even after I’ve had plenty of evidence that they had no intention of returning it.
Helps me to realize that I shouldn’t mistake kindness for politeness, and need to stop wasting favours on those who neither respect nor deserve them. My husband, my in-laws, my cats, a few of our friends (all male – hmmm) all reciprocate my affection and are in turn kind and loving and considerate. Sad to realize that everyone else in my life – not so much.
I’ve just realized that that’s a type of predatory test that I fail every time. Can’t believe i never saw it this way before.
Your comment reminds me of an article I recently read at the Child Trauma Academy:“Non-clinicians may notice abused and neglected children are “loving” and hug virtual strangers. Children do not develop a deep emotional bond with relatively unknown people; rather, these “affectionate” behaviors are actually safety-seeking behaviors.” It hit me like a kick in the gut that many of the behaviours I had as a child that I thought of as being affectionate were in fact “safety-seeking”.
Your line above is a great tool that I can use to help me figure out which is which.
Hi Birdfeeder. I’m appreciated you reply. The quote from Child Trauma Academy rings very true for my childhood and life. My “sweetness” was self-protective in SO many ways. I don’t regret it, it helped me survive. But now…I would rather be real and hopefully more genuinely loving (which sometimes isn’t sweet) and take the consequences. But I’m not always true to that yet.
Also appreciated what you said about “training” seeming to mild. That’s true. In my own mind I use the word “programmed.” Sinister as it sounds…the abuse is that sinister, isn’t it?
Anyway, thank you for the insights and the link.
Ruby
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