Reply to S/O friends who can’t read a room

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here,

Okay, I'm not asking this friend to comply with "group think" or to sugarcoat her opinions. The funny thing about that is that she is the type who will ask for advice, but as soon as you give it, she's upset that you aren't "making her feel good about herself". Typically these instances of needing advice are from her making a fool of her self due to... you guessed it... not reading the room.

Ex. She's out to dinner with 2 friends. Both of those friends are immigrants who have been in the USA for a while. They are talking about planning trips to their home countries. Friend (I'll call her Larla)  says "I don't know if you should go. A lot of those poor countries have issues with kidnapping and gangs". One of the others says, "I'm from (country) and my family is still there" in a very dead pan "WTF" type of way. Larla proceeds to get defensive as if she isn't the one who just offended these people.

Ex2. She harps on other people's decisions. So if a friend is buying a house that she thinks is "too much house", she will not let it rest. Even at this person's housewarming she was making a big deal about how it's "too much house for a small family". It has gotten to the point that the house buying friend has said to her, "Look Larla, I get that you wouldn't want a big house, but it's what's right for my family right now. I'd appreciate if you would stop bringing it up". Larla then proceeds to talk about it with mutual friends as if she's trying to get them to side with her about how the house is too big.

As some posters have said previously, it's not that she is wrong for having an opinion, it's just that she comes across like an A hole and then back pedals and makes herself the victim. It all could be avoided if she just thought about things before speaking. [/quote]

She's only ever going to change if SHE wants to. You can't force her to change and it's not your responsibility to do so, anymore than it's her responsibility to try and dissuade people from traveling to certain countries or to buy smaller homes. Set your boundaries and then follow them. Spend less time with her or don't invite her out with others if she can't get her $hit together.

Also, it sounds to me like other people are handling her comments well by telling her directly to stop. Are you following their lead? For instance, when your friend with the new house shut her down on the subject and she kept trying to bring it up with your to get you "on her side" did you state clearly that you were not interested in talking about it? Or did you say "you're right, it is too big of a house, but still, you should SAY that to her Larla!" Are you playing both sides of this and in your own way encouraging her behavior and even participating in it in an underhanded way? I've seen that before.[/quote]

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