An old friend \u2013 we first met over 50 years ago \u2013 used to be kind, supportive and good company. But she has become a self-absorbed and petulant know-all. She is the centre of her own little world, and all her friends \u2013 me included \u2013 are expected to run around after her and cater to her needs.<\/p>\n
She constantly brings up her health issues, disregarding the fact that other people in our friendship circle also have health worries. The label \u201cnarcissist\u201d has been mentioned by some!<\/p>\n
In recent years I have taken deliberate steps to reduce the amount of time I spend with her. But other friends of mine, who don\u2019t know her, have been urging me to drop her altogether. I don\u2019t want to do that as I know she would be terribly hurt, but she would never be able to acknowledge that her behaviour is the root cause of tensions between us. I am constantly biting my tongue to avoid the tantrums that erupt whenever I remonstrate with her. Should I go for a clean break or just put up with the bad behaviour?<\/p>\n
Eleanor says: Decades-long friendships have to braid a person\u2019s past together with their future, which is tricky, because people can change a great deal in that time: the person we became friends with all those years ago might not feel the same as the one who keeps dragging down your birthday dinners now.<\/p>\n
The past you shared together does matter. The whole point of long friendships \u2013 long relationships of any kind \u2013 is that the time you\u2019ve spent together takes on its own moral weight. You don\u2019t evaluate the other person anew each day, as though they\u2019re standing in front of you for the first time and you\u2019re considering whether to begin a relationship with them. The frustrations and irritations we have with someone in the present get tinted with patience and consideration from the years they spent being supportive and good to you.<\/p>\n
Equally, though, their past doesn\u2019t buy indefinite access to your future. Friendship<\/a> is also, always, about what you think will come next. Nothing kills a loving relationship faster than thinking that a person has exhausted their capacity to surprise you; that you can already predict what they\u2019re going to say and do, and you don\u2019t much like the look of it. It sounds as if you might have hit that point with your friend. You\u2019re pretty sure what you\u2019re going to get from her: more of the same.<\/p>\n The question is, when someone\u2019s past and future conflict, which version should you respond to? The one you knew, or the one you\u2019re tired of knowing?<\/p>\n For whatever it\u2019s worth, I think the problem of figuring out whether to be led by the past or the future is a fairly common one with old friends: sometimes parts of our personalities get stronger and more concentrated over the years, turning once mild sources of tension into all-out conflicts.<\/p>\n I\u2019m inclined to think you don\u2019t drop her unless she really wrongs someone. If you drop her, you\u2019d be cutting off the possibility that she ever surprises you again. Once you\u2019ve mitigated in the way you describe \u2013 reducing the amount of time you spend together, managing your own emotional reactions, making it clear to other people how you feel \u2013 only a relatively small amount of friendship remains. That little bit might be a libation to the time you did enjoy together, or an offering you make to the possibility she might change. Unless those vestiges are totally intolerable or objectionable, I don\u2019t know that they have to be thrown out just because you wouldn\u2019t strike up a friendship if you met her now.<\/p>\n But equally, if you\u2019re keeping up with her only because it\u2019d be too hurtful not to, that\u2019s not quite the same as staying friends. I think Aristotle was right that there can\u2019t be real friendship except between equals. If you\u2019re looking at her with pity, or contempt, it might be more accurate to think of her as an acquaintance you interact with because of your history, rather than a friend.<\/p>\n Ask Eleanor a question<\/p>\n If you\u2019re having trouble using the form, click here<\/a>. Read terms of service here<\/a> and privacy policy here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An old friend \u2013 we first met over 50 years ago \u2013 used to be kind, supportive and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-641822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}