When people turn out to be not nice as you thought

GobbledyGook

Does this throw anyone else's confidence?

I've been friends with someone for a few years. Her daughter is the same age as my youngest. She's always been kinda high maintenance in my opinion and I knew a few other people just thought she was needy and selfish, but on the whole I've found her ok.

Yesterday I realised they were right and I was wrong and it has shaken my confidence a little. I feel like a bad judge of character because she's actually really selfish and rude with it.

I don't really have many friends - I lost quite a few in my divorce (that sounds like they were part of the asset split :rotfl:) and I don't have any long term friends from school and the likes so 'losing' one isn't something I enjoy, but I do think I'd rather have no friends than rubbish ones.

I should say the thing she's done this week isn't actually something done too me, just something I've seen and made me look at her in a whole new light.

Kayalana99

One thing I will say - is don't always judge people by one action, I have a friend from school who is high maintenance, selfish as well - but on the whole she has been my friend though and though.

Sometimes she gets on my nerves because of her attitude but when push comes to shove, we are great friends and we look out for each other. She did something a few months back and I thought I would never speak to her again - but my anger died and after speaking to her about another subject I realised how good a friend to me she is despite her 'me me me' attitude (I do love her don't get me wrong)

Just because someone doesn't have the right qualities on the front (i.e being selfish) doesn't mean that defines who they are altogether.

GobbledyGook

It's more the straw that broke the camel's back tbh. She's always been high maintenance in terms of she expects a lot - she gets huffy if you don't contact her enough or gets moody if you have to change the weekly get together, even though she changes it often.

Me, me, me sums it up.

She's caused WW3 over her brother's wedding tomorrow and has been spectacularly rude (imo) and yet is still all 'me me me' and it's made me realise just how selfish she is.

DigForVictory

Weddings can be notorious for bringing out and highlighting the very worst in people.
There's rarely a good time to be "me, me, me" but before & during someone else's wedding is deeply unfortunate.

If you can bring yourself to stay friends, albeit at a cautious distance, she may repay the effort? As she may well feel the same about hanging onto some old friends & be willing to mend her ways a bit, for a while, as a gesture?

aileth

I've seen this sort of thing looking from the outside in and it's been very frustrating.

My OH's ex-employer was a family friend of his side and he used this to a great advantage when royally taking the !!!! out of my OH, I'm talking paying him £5-7k less per year than he should have been for the job he was doing because he knew OH wouldn't argue about it (which meant the job was less than minimum wage!!!), making him do all the running around, not providing proper safety wear, basically mega taking the p*ss.

I felt like I was the only one who could see what was going on, as everyone else was blinded by this 'close friendship.' I brought it up with OH and he just waved it off with 'but we're friends, it's what they're like, they don't mean it.'

Even when they came to sell a house which they co-owned (both families co-owned) and my OH's dad wanted to sell it to his other son (the house was a huge burden on both families - unoccupied), the other side agreed but attempted to push the price up, almost refusing the sale, even though there was about a grand of equity in the house which had been pretty much spent on running costs, and again this was met with 'they're only joking' and 'they wouldn't mean it like that', when it was obvious to anyone looking neutrally that they were hugely taking the p*ss.

Well, I can't remember what it was but something showed them for what scumbags they actually were and my OH felt absolutely destroyed. He had seen these people as all-shining can-do-no-wrong beacons of light for years and all of a sudden he'd seen what rotten people they were. It absolutely destroyed him to be honest.

Prothet_of_Doom

If you want to find out whether she's worth being friends with, you should ring her, tell her you've thought about what she's doing over her brother's wedding, and you think as a friend, you have a responsibility to tell her some home truths.
Then tell her why she's behaving like a pre-madonna. If she goes mental, and starts being angry, put the phone down and find some new friends. But if she accepts that you might have a point, you have got the wedge of a good friendship, where in future you can say "Remember when I was right about your brothers wedding, well I need to tell you something else, that you might not want to hear"

Either way, there's another thread you need to start which is how to I make new friends and keep them.

GobbledyGook

Basically she split up with her husband almost a year year ago (the day after her brother announced his engagement). There has been running jokes in her family and with her friends about what she was going to do to bring the attention back to her at the time of the wedding, which I thought was mean....

However she and the husband got back together on Monday night. She announced it to her family on Tuesday night and yesterday kicked off big time when her brother invited her husband to the night do of the wedding.

They are having a tiny wedding and they are limited to 24 people at the meal for fire regulations. She actually thinks they should uninvite someone because her husband is family. Her brother did say that if someone else pulls out last minute then obviously her husband is welcome, but there is nothing they can do about the limit the hotel has for the room.

She's probably not going to talk to me again anyway because she asked me outright if I thought she was being unfair to feel the way she did - obviously she was expecting me to agree that her brother's fianc!e (who she dislikes) was a big bad wolf who was being evi.

It's just making me rethink lots of things I've brushed off. Maybes my issue is less 'rubbish friend' and more over analysing!

Thanks. Gemma x

GobbledyGook

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

If you want to find out whether she's worth being friends with, you should ring her, tell her you've thought about what she's doing over her brother's wedding, and you think as a friend, you have a responsibility to tell her some home truths.
Then tell her why she's behaving like a pre-madonna. If she goes mental, and starts being angry, put the phone down and find some new friends. But if she accepts that you might have a point, you have got the wedge of a good friendship, where in future you can say "Remember when I was right about your brothers wedding, well I need to tell you something else, that you might not want to hear"

Either way, there's another thread you need to start which is how to I make new friends and keep them.

I did tell her honestly I thought she was being very unfair on them. Also suggested that she look at it from their point of view. I also said that if it was my brother then even if I was offended I wouldn't be causig WW3 24 and 48 hours before his wedding.

It went down like a bucket of cold sick....

tea_lover

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

Then tell her why she's behaving like a pre-madonna.

Love it! :rotfl:

KxMx

I've had this happen, had what I thought was a great friend drop me when things improved for her (we were in a similar situation), really shook my confidence and my confidence in my ability to judge people.

But what I did realise is i'm not perfect which is fine, and shouldn't be so hard on myself as to expect to get things right all the time

In fact i'm more annoyed at my Mum who keeps saying "what a shame" when she should be b!tching about this person lol!

sk240

Personally i tend to see the world as black or white (right or wrong) where as most people see things as grey :-) in my experience everyone will dissapoint you at some point, its just somthing you have to accept, or if your like me i give people a couple of chances and then just cut all ties and be done with it.
The main downshoot is that you wont have many friends, but the upshoot is you wont have any of the hassle either.