Bad Friends

[beeblebrox]

I just have to ask this because this keeps coming up in my life. I have a former roommate is moving here and now starts asking for my help. (another one would have moved here, but backed out). She lived here for two years when I was in graduate school and never talked to me even when I emailed her and tried to say hello and stuff. Now that she's moving back here, she wants my help with contacts etc. This after she virtually ignored and never sent any sort of card or communication for the longest time. Fortunately, I didn't have any information or contacts that she needed. Have you guys experienced it where someone virtually ignores (she did in my senior year of college too) and then suddenly wants your help like you're cushy friends again when you aren't.

[Winter Storm]

Yep, fairweather friends get on the ignore/block list. Those are the ones that only come around when then need something. In a situation like that, they would get no response from me.

[wordsmith]

I am slowly and surely learning the hard and painful way that when you're "friends" with someobody who can't and/or won't ever be there for you, can't and/or won't be the friend that you need, and the friend that you are to them, it's extremely damaging to have that person in your life. That person is not a friend. That person is not someone who cares about you. That person is a person who wants something to do with you only when its convenient and their fleeting interest in you as a person isn't distracted by something elsewhere. Those aren't real friends.

If I were good at keeping on reminding myself of that, I might not have gone to sleep sobbing last night.

[Kitty]

Thankfully I don't have any friends like this, and that's mostly due to the fact that I've cut them out of my life completely. I don't have any tolerance for people who only come around when they need something.

[AshleyJordan]

I just cut out two once long-term "friends" who had been doing similar stuff for years-- and, ironically, feel much less lonely as a result. I've also been quick to meet better quality people. It's hard to do but well worth it.

[weary]

i'm kind of split on this. i def have a prolem w/ users or ppl who only come around when they need something, and i used to be very cut and dry on ppl who were unresponsive/didn't communicate for long periods of time. but over the years i have learned more and more that you never know what people are going through, and sometimes it's okay (and even good) to make allowances for that. not to be a pushover or just accept flakey behaviour as o-k, but to ask or at least consider, if they are/were important to you.

[wordsmith]

I think there's also the matter of imbalance...as we all know, there are a couple of levels of friends who are the super close, know everything about you, be there for you when you need it and you're there for them friends, and ones who are less intimate, more situational acquaintances...the ones who are fun to talk and banter with, but aren't gonna have a real finger on the pulse of what's really going on with you or feel the need to, either. I find I have the problem of valuing friendships more than the other party does, from time to time.

[AshleyJordan]

Right. Weary makes an important point but I'm talking more about people who are actively crappy/manipulative. . . not acquaintances, of which I have many and sort of tailor my "expectations," for lack of a better word, accodingly.