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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You sound sympathetic OP but you need to do some honest introspection to see if you’re the problem. I have a not that great friend I meet up with occasionally when she initiates. She’s passive aggressive, competitive, anxious, and just not fun to be around. I know she’s pushed away other friends and feels lonely, so I put up with her. My other friends are pleasant and easygoing and we like hanging out so we meet up often.[/quote]

Not OP, but I'm like your friend and I'm aware of it. There are reasons for it and it sucks more for me than it does for anyone who "puts up" with me. It doesn't change that I'm lonely.[/quote]

If you don’t mind my asking, what are the reasons for your behavior? If my friend wasn’t so competitive and always on the offensive, I’d try to get closer and understand where she’s coming from. Right now, I just think she’s a jerk or has a personality disorder.[/quote]

PP here. Truthfully, I don't think I'm competitive. I'm insecure and often respond defensively to things that people thing are normal conversation, because I have a different background than they do. Like most of our friends have housecleaners, but we do not as we cannot justify it -- I work part time and technically have time to clean. But I don't like that I work part-time, I'm insecure about our finances and wish we had more money, and I would love to have housecleaners.

So I might be talking to a friend who is frustrated with her housecleaner. And I'll nod along at first but then I'll get annoyed and also feel awkward because, uh, I can't relate. So I'll say something like "yeah, I don't know, our house cleaner is super cheap because I clean my own house." And on the one hand this is true and is coming from a place, actually, of feeling defensive. But I know it gets interpreted as me acting superior, because of how I say it, and it sound like I'm being competitive, like "I do sooo much and you just have help." Though typing that out, honestly, that is how I feel -- I do so much and other people have help and I'm frustrated about it. I guess you could say I'm bitter. I don't know.

Point is, I'm in this uncomfortable situation where I feel like I can't relate to the stuff other people talk about and I can't relate to them as a peer, and it makes me defensive and also annoyed, and I know that comes off as competitive and negative. Maybe it is. But it's not because I think I'm better than anyone, it's because I think I'm not as good and it makes me feel bad and all my frustrating behaviors are just kind of an outgrowth of the fact that I feel bad about myself all the time.

Like I said, it sucks more to be me than to be around me, even if that sucks too. Sorry.[/quote]

Thanks for your thoughtful and honest reply.[/quote]

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