Have you got a "no because" friend?

I did read them. Try asking about her, see if that makes a difference. Perhaps she feels you always bring every conversation back to yourself and what you think. Or you could just continue as you are and nothing will change. Do you not see that you're pretty much doing here what you're accusing her of doing?

Do you think she's just an overthinker who can't help but think out loud? As I read it, that's what I thoughts

People don't like being told what to do.

She says something. You tell her to go to New Look.

She says no. You tell her to go to M&S.

She's says no. You tell her to go on line.

And so on.

If you value her friendship, stop telling her what to do.

I need new trousers. Oh, where are you thinking of going? She'll tell you.

She wants to control her own conversation and make her own decision about where she buys her own trousers.

Trying asking and being curious about her instead of immediately giving your advice and opinions and see if that makes a difference to her "negativity".

Listen to that gut feeling, somethings off and its easier to not get tangled up with her in the first place than to have to deal with a massive problem later.

If you feel a gut instinct then ditch her

If you think it is nastiness or negging
I.e what ever you say is wrong/put down or criticised then she is not a friend

But she can only negate, rebuff etc if you give her the option.
She won't change so you either change the way you communicate and rather than offer advice or make suggestions , listen and then ask a question. Or a neutral remark " that's interesting" " lovely suggestion" etc
She then has no negative place to go

Please listen to that little voice! Bitter experience talking here.

If its a repeating pattern then she might just be a negative person, it might be subtle negging or controlling behaviour, or it could be something worse. Does she ever fish for info about you? Do you ever find yourself revealing more than you're comfortable with?

I would also agree with this, don't give advice when its not asked for.
In the scenario she wasn't asking where she could get trousers, she was just telling the Op she needed them

People who jump to advice are really annoying, the assumption you can't figure it out yourself.

Even if it's not this you can control the conversation by asking questions, she is sharing something with you so LISTEN rather than jumping in to speak and give solutions.

Ok, I think I may have misunderstood action v intention.
I strongly suspect I am ND and others have commented that I may be too - I'm 53 and feel it's probably too late in the day to get a diagnosis at this point.

I love deep conversations but i think I'm self aware enough to limit these kind of interactions with people I actually know, but feedback I get from honest people is that I'm quite intense at times and that stops me from being my true self 🥺 so I come off as shallow - it's a tightrope for sure .

One of my friends can be like that sometimes. In that case I just shrug it off and say "well there's no solution then its over i guess we're all going to die" and we just laugh it off.

In the hypothetical conversation in the original post, seems to me the OP's friend is highly irritated that OP is taking so much interest in where she's going to buy a pair of trousers. Sometimes apparent negativity can be used to establish boundaries and OP didn't take the hint.

My mum's like this. It's quite a narcissistic trait tbh. The conversation has to always be about her, revolve around her, she has to be in control of it. She just likes the sound of her own voice and thinks her own opinion is the only valid one and will argue the toss at anyone else's suggestions.

She basically 'talks at' people, not to them or with them.

I will be blunt about her behaviour on a forum to share my experience that it's not worth it and the deeper you're in the harder it is to walk away, take opportunity to leg it if you can.

I've gone along with the oh woe me and it spiraled like mad. I've given her options and I'm met with excuses. I ask what she's going to do about it and she tells me there's nothing she can do and yeah buts herself in circles. And lastly, if I point out her contradictions/lies she gives me silent treatment for days on end (ironically a blessing). Why do I put up with it? She needs someone to vent to for her mh to be stable ish. Before her DD was born she was a sound enough person. Five years of above is absolutely exhausting. As I stated above- the soul and morals are solid. She's just got lost along the way and is not even glass half empty type - there's no fucking glass.

Enjoy your opinion though, hopefully op will read above that it can be useful to them. My friend didn't start that extreme. In the beginning for 20 years she was like lady in op.

Good luck to you all 😂

ah, I've never heard the name of this game, but yes I know a couple just like this. Excuses for everything and always negative, even about things they say they are passionate about. Its very draining

You sound like a great friend yourself What a horrible way to talk about someone you've been friends with for 20 years 😳

A have a friend who was in UK from overseas and I didn’t enjoy her company for this reason…complete personality change from when I saw friend a couple of years ago!
Tried delving to work out why everything was so negative,contrary,race to the bottom and race to the top ! Anything that was bothering me ,she always had worse case scenario,anything that I was happy and excited about ,she had something bigger and better to reply with ! And the name dropping was ridiculous,just not the friend I have loved over the past 35 years . Absolutely impossible to have a proper chat and conversation,felt relieved but also really sad when she left to go home.

Yes, though not a friend but an acquaintance through a hobby. The lady in question is so negative about everything and it is draining. I just try to keep my distance and not get stuck in a conversation with her!

I’ve met a couple of people that are contrarian in this way, and honestly, I avoided them precisely because it is so draining. I couldn’t/wouldn’t have become friends with them.

However, this is familiar:

One aspect is regular put downs of herself peppered through conversations.
I always always say noooooo [friend's name]! You're NOT fat/stupid/flaky/lazy/ugly or whatever she's calling herself, and the convo stumbles on

I have made a relatively new friendship group and there is one woman who does this all of the time. I found it quite shocking tbh. She is an amazingly intelligent and eloquent person, runs two of her own successful businesses is funny and kind. But she always does this. The rest of the group, well used to it, tell her very robustly it isn’t true. I asked about it once (when she wasn’t there), and was told that it is the way her family treat her telling her she is thick, useless, boring etc and after years of the husband doing it, the sons now do the same. She also has another separate ‘friendship’ group from years back when she lived elsewhere that also treat her the same. I have never met her husband/sons but the rest of the group no longer see them for this reason (one of whom has apparently told the husband to his face he is an arsehole). So, now I understand why she is like this, I will also be strong in rebutting it instead of eye rolling.