Selkie
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2006
- Messages
- 2,876
Sorry in advance for the length of this vent!
I have two female friends, A and B, both in their 40''s. A is the first friend I made after moving here 8 years ago. We carpool together, used to be roommates, and she introduced me to DH. She''s single, and has mild alcohol and definite self-esteem issues, all of which feed into this scenario. She is sometimes tactless and blunt, and often hypersensitive. Passive-aggressive, too. She often annoys me inadvertently, but it''s not the kind of friendship I can just drop, there''s too much history. She needs therapy big-time but always has an excuse not to do it.
We''ve both been friends with B and her husband for years now too. B is *also* often tactless and blunt, as well as oversensitive. Do you see where this is going? We all hang out a couple times a month. Usually, there is some "small" incident that blows up between A and B. For instance, we spent the 4th at B''s apartment. It''s the kind of situation where they were going to invite us anyway, but A preempted that by talking to B''s husband last month and inviting herself (and us) over. That rankled B on principle, and on top of that there were little tussles about who was bringing what food, and various other stupid things that piled up. So they basically spent the evening making little jabs at each other. For instance, A in her typical casual manner asked for something, and B followed up with "Please?" A got pissed and sulked, until the opportunity came to blow up at something ELSE. Their dynamic alternates weirdly between sisterly and mother/daughter-like antagonism.
Since both my DH and B''s DH essentially either sit back and laugh or ignore the situation, I end up feeling like I should mediate. Usually I just try to lighten the mood, since there''s not much else to do. I see B less, so I hear less of her venting about it. Mostly, I have to listen to A''s griping when we drive to work and try to sympathize (it''s hard, when she brings so much of it on herself). I can very clearly see when each of their particular personality quirks are starting to bug the other, but I don''t feel like it should be my job to always intervene so I try to stay detached. They are both at least 10 years older than me, for crying out loud.
I guess I don''t really have a question. It''s sort of like dealing with family, you can''t really avoid it even though it''s like oil and water. You just have to limit the amount of interaction, which happens more or less naturally in our cases, since we mainly get together only for special occasions due to work schedules. It''s just that I don''t feel like getting together at ALL with any of them, even though we do have fun sometimes. I''m also afraid that I''m just going to blow up at one or both of them one of these days. Frustrating.
I have two female friends, A and B, both in their 40''s. A is the first friend I made after moving here 8 years ago. We carpool together, used to be roommates, and she introduced me to DH. She''s single, and has mild alcohol and definite self-esteem issues, all of which feed into this scenario. She is sometimes tactless and blunt, and often hypersensitive. Passive-aggressive, too. She often annoys me inadvertently, but it''s not the kind of friendship I can just drop, there''s too much history. She needs therapy big-time but always has an excuse not to do it.
We''ve both been friends with B and her husband for years now too. B is *also* often tactless and blunt, as well as oversensitive. Do you see where this is going? We all hang out a couple times a month. Usually, there is some "small" incident that blows up between A and B. For instance, we spent the 4th at B''s apartment. It''s the kind of situation where they were going to invite us anyway, but A preempted that by talking to B''s husband last month and inviting herself (and us) over. That rankled B on principle, and on top of that there were little tussles about who was bringing what food, and various other stupid things that piled up. So they basically spent the evening making little jabs at each other. For instance, A in her typical casual manner asked for something, and B followed up with "Please?" A got pissed and sulked, until the opportunity came to blow up at something ELSE. Their dynamic alternates weirdly between sisterly and mother/daughter-like antagonism.
Since both my DH and B''s DH essentially either sit back and laugh or ignore the situation, I end up feeling like I should mediate. Usually I just try to lighten the mood, since there''s not much else to do. I see B less, so I hear less of her venting about it. Mostly, I have to listen to A''s griping when we drive to work and try to sympathize (it''s hard, when she brings so much of it on herself). I can very clearly see when each of their particular personality quirks are starting to bug the other, but I don''t feel like it should be my job to always intervene so I try to stay detached. They are both at least 10 years older than me, for crying out loud.
I guess I don''t really have a question. It''s sort of like dealing with family, you can''t really avoid it even though it''s like oil and water. You just have to limit the amount of interaction, which happens more or less naturally in our cases, since we mainly get together only for special occasions due to work schedules. It''s just that I don''t feel like getting together at ALL with any of them, even though we do have fun sometimes. I''m also afraid that I''m just going to blow up at one or both of them one of these days. Frustrating.
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