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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a very good friend like this.  He genuinely believes he is “helping” me and has good intentions.

I love to drink coffee. He sends me links describing all the negative consequences of coffee. I tell him I’m going buying new tennis court shoes. He asks my specific size and then buys them because he knows how to get the best deal. He thinks he knows health secrets that no one else knows (from watching YouTube videos) and is frequently trying to “fix” me.

It’s caused a lot of fights between us because i am a very independent person and don’t like the way he pushes his view of things onto me.

I am much more guarded now on what I say to him now.  He doesn’t realize how he comes off, given that he’s “trying to help”.

Your friend sounds similar to mine. [/quote]

Reviving this thread because I’m still frustrated with this friend and had a few incidents recently with her where I was left really annoyed. And although I don’t like doing this, I think it might be time to fade her. I’ve never really done that with a friend.

First, she seems to get easily hurt when I don’t respond to her right away or call her back. My schedule is busy and ‘catch up’ phone calls with her are usually an hour, 30 Mn if I cut her off. So if I’m busy, tired, etc I’ll just text back and say ‘sorry, Larla, I’m tied up on a work deadline, I’ll check in when I can, hope all is well’. This has miffed her as she later seems to respond with passive aggressive commentary. Ex, I saw her in person and she remarked that ‘everyone abandons me!’ ‘Why is everyone too ‘busy’ for me?’ Or even ruder ‘you work too much!’ (As if I choose to). But when social things are raised for her to get involved in, she often rejects them. Ex, I’m happy to host her and a mutual friend for dinner but I know my home is inconvenient for the other friend. I’ve suggested she host and I’ll come over and help, and she declines because she has expensive furniture and art and she doesn’t want it to get damaged. WEIRD but ok.

So her latest thing is to reach out to me about something political or advocacy related, and then suggest *I* not *her* take some action. ‘You should start a petition about XYZ!’ on some topic that is important to her, not something I was necessarily thinking about. Then she gets passive aggressive and moralistic with me if I don’t take the bait. ‘That’s such an important issue, it’s unfortunate that no one is stepping up to XYZ. We all have to do our part or nothing will get done!’ It’s bizarre, and I think stems partially from the fact she is unusually paranoid about putting herself out there. Ex, she wanted to rent her house but pulled out bc the agent wanted to put photos of her place online, and that freaked her out. Not sure what to do with that one…

But recently she’s sent me political posts and when I haven’t totally agreed with her- fine, we don’t need to agree- she insists on flooding me with links and arguments. So I tried to change the subject and she signed off. And then the next day, she started texting me more links on the original topic, trying to point out how wrong I was. I asserted my position again instead of agreeing with her, and she sort of implied I was dumb/misinformed and must be getting my news from ‘salacious’ news sources. I challenged that, and then she retreated to this passive aggressive victim stance thing that she often does ‘well I have my opinions here, so I’m going to sign off to preserve my energy’. WTF. You pick a fight and then act like you’re the victim??

I realized I kinda can’t stand this woman most of the time, but I feel bad (and I’m peri right now, and know I feel irritated a lot lately). She always talks about how she’s lonely and I think she thinks she’s a kind person.

Wwyd? Say something? Slow fade once and for all? [/quote]

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