Reply to How to pull away from a friend who only talks about herself, her kids, etc.

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Reply to "How to pull away from a friend who only talks about herself, her kids, etc."

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[quote=Anonymous]If you aren't getting what you need from the friendship, just be less available. See if stepping it down to just once a month or something makes it better, or worse. Don't just stop talking to her altogether because that will hurt her and you will create enmity between you. Just step it back a bit (you're on vacation, work is really busy, so hard to get together first month of school) but still schedule things, just fewer and further between. See how you feel.

By the way, I think the bigger issue here is that your friend brags a lot, not that she talks about herself a lot. I actually love it when friends just volunteer info about themselves, tell me what is going on in their lives, etc. Once you've known someone a certain length of time, it's nice to not always HAVE to ask or draw them out. So I have a bunch of friendships where mostly, we both just volunteer. So I'll talk about my stuff, she'll talk about her stuff, we aren't necessarily asking a ton of questions but we will comment and ask follow ups.

But the bragging is an issue, especially if it takes the form of one-upping. I do have one friend who is like that. I'll say "Larla is starting ballet this fall, she's excited" and she'll respond with "Oh, Julia has been in ballet since she was 3, she's just moved in to the pre-professional program. We've added tap and modern, too..." and then go on for 20 minutes about her kid's dance career. And she'll do this with everything -- vacations, jobs, kids, houses, etc. The issue is not that she talks about herself, it's that it feels like she has to "top" everything I talk about and then dominates the conversation. I am at the point where I only see her like twice a year and usually only at family things so my interactions with her are more diluted. I don't hate her or anything, but talking to her 1:1 isn't very fun for me so I don't do it much.[/quote]

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