Friend cut me off after i was snarky with her once. iin?

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Grunewald here.

I have just been cut off by an IRL friend who replied to my message with one word: 'Goodbye'. She then removed me from our group with a mutual friend.

Can I share my anger and grief with people? This is me being vulnerable and is quite an 'ask'. If my therapist wasn't on vacation I'd ask her instead and spare you a longread. I feel like I'm being cast in the role of an aggressor. It isn't very convincing casting, but I am still having to make a concerted effort to stand firm in my sense of self-worth.

....................................

So I have (had) this emotionally draining friend I used to work with and once, just once, I wrote a text message that showed my frustration with her self-centredness and apparent belief that her eternal defenceless victimhood status should be at the top of everyone's priorities and dispense her of being gracious towards well-meaning friends who mess up.

After removing me from the group with our mutual friend, she announced to the mutual friend that she and I had had a disagreement and that that was why she was deleting our group chat, and that also, her grandmother had just died ('perfect' day for the two events to coincide...). Ironically I was with this mutual friend at the time and she told me. That's how I know about her grandmother passing away.

Before I begin going through what was said, some background is in order. We used to work together, and it was she who introduced me to our mutual friend. This emotionally-draining friend is closer to 40 years old than 30, and emotionally immature for her age. I am 31. The fact that she has so little emotional resilience wouldn't be such a problem if she accepted responsibility for herself, but her bad feelings seem to be everyone's fault and responsibility but hers. I have counselled her time and time again at work, reassuring her that such-and-such a person probably doesn't hate her, and how to deal with perceived crap from so-and-so. I try not to let her established tendency to claim victimhood status, to apparently try to coerce me using guilt, to regularly draw attention to her own negative emotions or opinions about things, to take control of other people's plans, and to be possessive about mutual friends, grate on me.

As for our professional background, neither of us can call ourselves 'novices' in the industry in which we work anymore. We know the ropes, whether teaching privately or publicly, and we know how to get work.

Now, onto what was said. Someone from Facebook asked for my tutoring services and I said I wasn't free but recommended my emotionally-draining friend, because she is very good at what she does and can be professional when she needs to be. Her contract for next year isn't 100% certain and she is unemployed, and it cost little to help her out - though I always half-expect some low-key drama from her. Out of courtesy I asked if I could share her number before just sharing it.

She said she didn't like sharing her number with people she didn't know as people have abused her number in the past. She asked for more details and I said I didn't know, at which point she stipulated that in future I ought to ask "these people" for all of the details "beforehand".

It seems like a small thing, and if my friend were an inexperienced young girl in her early twenties and I were mentoring her and regularly passing jobs on to her, it would have been completely different. But she isn't. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for me because her saying how I 'should' be offering her this favour was one more evidence of what appeared to be a sense of entitlement founded only on her past experience of being a victim and her refusal to do anything to protect herself in future. Was I somehow doing her a disservice by passing on work to her? In a spate of frustration I rashly said I had thought that they could sort that out between them, and that I'm not the JobCentre. I added that if she wanted the job she would have to exchange phone numbers anyway, and asked her if she had considered getting a separate 'Pay As You Go' phone for her business needs, if she was anxious about people abusing her personal number. I added that people do that even for things like online dating, and that I personally would if I was into that.

She replied with "Goodbye", removed me from our group chat with our mutual friend, told said friend about our exchange (however she had perceived it) and also told said friend that her grandma had died (and let me find out from the mutual friend).

I hate the indignity of running after people who cut me off for the gratification of having me beg for 'forgiveness', and when I permit myself to think cynically I have an inkling she knew I'd find out about her grandma second-hand via this friend and come running, penitent and contrite, laden with some overwhelming burden of duty to rescue her. I used to be that codependent.

I swallowed my pride a bit and got in touch again because she has said she doesn't have many friends except us two, and her family aren't exactly stable people, judging from what she's said about them. In cutting me off at this time she is really just harming herself, unless she has acquired other dependable friends of late who will also counsel her through her own negative feelings and paranoid fears. I somehow doubt it. It cost me a lot of counselling and time spent on self-help videos to respect myself. It's true that I have become overreactive to perceived attempts to manipulate me or treat me with disrespect. I hate the indignity of all those memories of slaving around after manipulators who played on my then- 'saviour complex' to get me in their thrall. I am zealous to prevent it from happening again.

But I did respond to 'Goodbye' because bereavement is bigger than a petty dispute and her feelings will be all over the place right now. I said in the message that I had heard about her loss, asked her to excuse my being in a 'bad mood' from that morning, and reassured her that I was still there for her.

If she dares come back to me criticising me for not saying the exact words 'I'm sorry for your loss'...

If you have reached the end, bravo. I am just writing this because I feel fragile and am looking for affirmation. No doubt 'Is It Normal' is the wrong place to do it, but hey-ho...

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Comments ( 11 )
  • LornaMae
    2 years ago

    Hey! I made it to the end, yay! Haha. So, when I reached "she stipulated that in future I ought to ask 'these people' for all of the details 'beforehand'" - I'd already made up my mind about how I see this.

    Unacceptable, really. Disrespectful to you to demand that YOU do all the info exchange when it doesn't interest/concern you personally and when you are helping HER with getting work.

    It's not normal for her to cut you off. You were not rude and you even tried to suggest a solution to her alleged problem. What would be normal in this situation is for you to cut her off.

    If anyone needs to apologize for anything it's not you. Yet you still mentioned a bad mood, as if it were your fault. Hearing the story from your perspective, it isn't.

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  • [Old Memory]
    2 years ago

    Uh thats a lot of text.
    Some people are just really overreactive. My former best friend could be pretty dramatic and had a short temper. Would always apologize for being snarky and ghosting me and mend things when he'd cooled down though which could in some cases take like two-three weeks. And yeah that could also be pretty emotionally draining and felt unbearable at times but regardless we still had a good friendship that I valued.
    Eventually he just blew up over something small for the last time and basically just went "goodbye" and this time he had no interest mending things. I just kindly told him weeks later when I could get ahold of him again that I will miss him but I understand. Just to end things on a good note and show that i'm not mad at him and that I wish him well in life.
    Had I met him in person again since which unfortunately I haven't, we have not run into each other, I would've said hello and smiled and if we got to talking at all I would've tried to mention something about what happened. So that's the best advice I can give, from someone who's been in a similar situation.
    Be nice and show that there's no bad blood from your side if this is a friendship you'd wish to keep or care for and then the rest is up to her.

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    • Grunewald
      2 years ago

      Thanks for sharing. That does sound a lot like my situation. This is the first time she has threatened abandonment in this way.

      It's chilling to think that if I hadn't been with our mutual friend the day emotionally unstable friend cut me off, I would have been floored by the inexplicable 'goodbye' and then the message 'x has removed you from the chat' on our group chat, and I probably would have reacted in an undignified, panicky way. Then I would have turned to mutual friend, heard from her about the death of the grandmother of emotionally unstable friend (and emotionally unstable friend would probably have given her a reason for cutting me off that made me look worse than the things I actually wrote if she had given her any reason at all - if she had just told it how it was she would have made herself look ridiculous) and I would have been filled with panic and guilt and confusion and grief and anger at being abandoned by 2 friends I'd happily got on well with at work and only ever wanted to be a blessing to, since they had been blessings to me.

      Sigh. I hope I'm wrong and that this wasn't so calculated. Even if it wasn't calculated 'as such', I can't see how else that would have panned out if I hadn't been out in town with mutual friend the day it happened.

      Emotionally unstable friend had been showing signs of gatekeeping my friendship with mutual friend, and signs of jealousy when we did get together. I suspect she might have wanted to split us up for a while. She also either took over my plans to meet up and changed them at the last minute, or made them impossible by saying she couldn't make it at all the times when we could and concluding 'I guess we'll have to meet up some other time'. In the end, mutual friend and I just met up without her and didn't tell her.

      I also puffed and grumbled audibly sometimes when she took over group arrangements made choices that inconvenienced everyone except her and refused to compromise. She will have noticed. I had hoped she would take a hint and make a U-turn, realising that someone wasn't okay with what she was doing. This was fruitless, though. She seemed to be aware when she had messed up because she looked anxious and made apparent attempts to distract us or impress us in other ways, but she never said 'I'm sorry - I guess I was so worried about tick bites that I didn't think how uncomfortable you'd be if I made you walk 20 minutes to a picnic area laden with stuff you can barely carry in the summer heat, while I cycle on ahead.' For the record, ticks do exist in our country but really aren't at all common in the big urban city where we live. It turned out that there were lots of wasps in picnic area and in the end, barely 5 minutes would go by without her flinching and wailing about the wasps. I genuinely half-expected her to insist that we walk all the way back to where we'd started.

      I'm saying these things to try and reassure myself in my decisions lol. I don't have the patience of a saint and I do get annoyed with people whose actions aren't respectful or considerate (as far as I can see).

      So, there we are...

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  • sweetone89
    2 years ago

    You were right. She is immature. If her friendship means a lot to you and you really were too snarky or mean, apologize. Otherwise, move on.

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    • Grunewald
      2 years ago

      Thanks. That's basically what my mum said. What I wrote to emotionally-draining friend is pretty much what I have written in the original post. Makes no sense to airbrush it...

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  • 1WeirdGuy
    2 years ago

    If I saw her again i would probably just kindly say "You're not gonna stay mad at me are you?" and smile. Usually people will just say "no its cool im over it" and yall pretend it didnt happen. I wouldnt even apologize id just change the subject if she said no.

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    • Grunewald
      2 years ago

      Thanks.

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  • Somenormie
    2 years ago

    She sounds like she isn't a good friend.

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    • Grunewald
      2 years ago

      She was, when we were working together. I'm not emotionally stable myself, and there were times when she was a great support to me. But I do know I have a problem and I try to stop it from hurting people.

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  • idolomantis
    2 years ago

    I read the whole thing and I’m so sorry you’re going through this, I can relate quite well…I am also quite co-dependent and I have dealt with manipulative people pretty much my whole life. Co-dependent tendencies can pretty much be like a beacon to some people, it’s crazy how certain types just know how to sniff us out.

    This isn’t your problem at all and you definitely aren’t alone. You’re just a very kind person, maybe just a bit to a fault, but that says much more good about you than it does bad. Lol I’m sorry, I’m kinda weird with complimenting people, but you’re honestly probably the first person here who made me feel “at home” again after my accident. You commented on my first post, which I don’t feel like mentioning atm.😆

    Back to your post…From what you’ve written, you’re clearly more in the right than she is it seems. Much more in the right, though I definitely want to emphasize that this doesn’t make her bad. She’s just another damaged soul with terrible coping skills(and yeah, -possible- mental illness)…And this is NOT your problem. You are your own first priority, so try not to feel too obligated to people. Easier said than done, I know.

    It’s quite clear that she is a very manipulative individual, so good riddance in my opinion. You deserve better, so try not to take it too hard.

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    • Grunewald
      2 years ago

      That's really sweet, idolomantis. God bless you. I love it when I can help people feel comfortable.

      I am concerned that my emotionally immature friend is cutting herself off from her friends at a difficult when she doesn't have many - and some people do do that when they most need support. I had asked her if she wanted to come out with me and our mutual friend, and she said she was too worried about her grandmother to see anyone.

      So I am concerned about her. However, I cannot become obsessed with rescuing her from herself as I used to get over people like her. It always ended in heartbreak and me feeling like a freak. I deliberately put a limit on how emotionally intimate I was willing to be with her, unlike with people I've known in the past who were wounded like her.

      I had an inkling that some kind of drama might happen with this person. Maybe just as they can sniff out codependents, codependents can sometimes sniff out people from whom they can expect this sort of behaviour. The thing these emotionally draining people who seek out codependents all have in common, is a kind of grasping to have someone recognise their wounds and traumas and wants and needs and vulnerabilities as the most important thing of all - the number 1 priority in any situation. They know that that priority treatment comes with love, close friendship or obsession, and they flirt and encourage it in order to get it, but they repudiate the give-and-take, offer-and-accept, tolerate-and-compromise intimacy of any meaningful relationship. It's as if they want to be 'serviced' rather than loved. They seem to think they are entitled to it. When the codependents try to love them, they find themselves repudiated, as if they're not good enough to be accepted by the invincible wounded angel whom they serve hand and foot. That's what I've noticed, and how I've been hurt. It might or might not resonate with your experience...

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