Patience going with immature friend

I have a friend who ended a friendship directly (with valid reasons), and it was awkward at first but now it's fine. They don't meet and none of us talk about it.

The only thing before burning the bridge - does the friend bring anything positive to your life?

If not, leave kindly and with grace. If you say things you can't take back, IME people like your friend will stew on it for years, decades even.

Avoid anything that's pent-up frustration or could seem like character assassination.

An old friend of mine was sort of like this. She wasn’t as annoying but she rejected responsibility (didn’t want to learn to drive, rejected promotions, left uni in the final year and got minimum wage work). She was always a bit self-absorbed but less pro-active in winding people up, she would just talk about herself a lot and could be insensitive. Anyway, she ended up having psychotic breaks and being institutionalised. She has now been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Everyone is saying ASD/learning difficulties, but there are lots of ways a person can be mentally unstable/atypical that are less common and may be harder to define.

I also know someone with narcissistic personality disorder who acts like a teenager and never wanted to parent her kids. They ended up with their dad and seeing her only when she could be bothered to stop partying long enough. It’s not beyond her to poke waiters or other childish/embarrassing behaviour. She would blame others for any fall outs and never change.

Whatever the cause of her behaviour, you
don’t have to continue to be her wind-up toy. She sounds seriously hard work. You’ve tried. You have other people in your life requiring your time and energy who (presumably) appreciate it!

Have looks through your updates and I couldn’t see any info on details of her life.

Is she single, does she have kids?

I have a friend very similar to this. Shes the one messaging the group chat constantly and can get shitty if people don’t reply right away. She can really fail at being sympathetic to other peoples problems and I think her behaviour and attitude stems from a place of sadness and bitterness. She’s single and doesn’t have any children and I think she sees everyone around her settled down with families and it touches a nerve and comes out in weird ways.

One sort of friend lived with her parents. She did work in the same place from leaving school to retirement. Her parents did everything for her. She never lifted a finger at home. Boyfriends came and went over the years. Of course her parents health failed in the end, she finally found a nice man married him. They still live in her late parents house.

I always thought of her as somehow unfinished emotionally. I think that was environmental, she was a much adored only child born late in her parents life.

The immature friend has no learning difficulties.

When you know someone for a very long time it's hard to see them in any other way than how you've always seen them. When you stand back and look at it, none of what you're describing is normal adult behaviour. There's something more to it.

Have you heard of a spikey brain profile before? It means when part of someone’s brain does not develop at the same pace as the rest.

Examples include someone might be brilliant at English but terrible at maths. A normal brain profile (ie if both sides of brain developed normally) the person would be at similar levels in both English and math. But spikey brain profile there is a big / obvious difference. If someone has a spikey brain profile the underdeveloped part does not just have academic deficits - it also has emotional deficits.

It’s likely your friend has a spiky brain profile and therefore is likely neurodiverse and the therefore likely learning difficulties. ADHD etc are all classed as learning difficulties. Not being able to learn social cues / read the room or autism is also classed as a learning difficulty.

This is no reason to keep her as a friend - I would only say after all these years of friendship she would appreciate being explained to what she is doing wrong. She’s unlikely to realise what a plonker she’s been - if you ghost her and she does not understand what had happened you could literally ruin her for life … can you imagine after 20 years of close friendship your friends suddenly cast you out?

I totally agree that you can be ND and a twat. I just think it's a bit horrible that everytime someone behaves horribly, loads of posters assume they must be ND.

@Spaghettihoops2026i have a friend just like this, and it really is tiresome.

Also, her mother sounds very similar, my friends mum has said to her “they are just jealous of you” since we were 6 years old, leading to friend having a very inflated opinion of herself.

When me or other friends talk about anything like marriage, kids, careers, she shuffles her feet and looks down at them in a sort of embarrassed way and smirks and giggles in a “omg I’m so embarrassed for you because you’re so boring” kind of way. She will also openly laugh and say “oh I just think it’s so funny, you and you husband, in your little house, ahaha”

She is 43 now so has no mention of that anywhere on her social media and has friends who are much younger and I think she tells them she is in her late 20s. She also dates men in their 20s which gives me the creeps.

She still lives at home and can’t hold down a job. I try and downplay things that I am doing so as not to make her feel bad but I don’t know why I bother. If she is complaining about her life (ie more fall outs with friends, another job lost etc, which is never her fault) and she asks how I am, I don’t want to rub it in by saying I’m great so I’ll say “oh I’m fine, I’m just tired, work is a bit stressful”. She will then be really patronising and say “aaww. That’s such a shame. I feel so bad for you. That must be so hard. Why dont you see if you can get your job at the bakery back?” (I worked Saturday mornings at the local bakery when I was 16.).

She is hugely irritating and patronising and I doubt she will ever change. I have just massively reduced the contact I have with her.

My group has one of these. As the years rolled on she just didn’t get we had commitments to kids, husbands, elderly relatives etc but she was the gorgeous blond who was used to getting lots of attention. She was forever posting stuff about who wants to see this band or film or go for cocktails or Sunday lunch even holidays and got very upset when there wasn’t a bit take up so lots of sulking. We then went through a period when she was struggling financially and did not take kindly to any link between going out all the time and having no dosh. Whenever we went out we had to remind her to use her ‘indoor’ voice and that shouting rude comments could get her into trouble. We did create. separate WhatsApp groups which has made life a lot easier and quieter especially when I muted her. We are all now in our mid- fifties and it’s clear that she is lonely and is trapped in a job she hates and still lives with her parents. Has her behaviour changed? no it hasn’t! I do fear for her in later years especially now her sister lives overseas.

I'd have removed her from the group chat at this point to be honest
"Whenever a serious conversation is being had ie: another friend was having some cells removed after a smear test and this friend in between our conversation with the others was saying things like 'ewwww you have to let someone up your vagina'"

I'd just set up a new group chat with the others, and make arrangements through that, say specifically "I don't want to go out with Betty anymore after the way she's behaved over the last few year." Just stop inviting her to things, and let her sulk. If she contacts you persistently, then block her number.

If you want to keep a relationship, but keep her at arms length, just don't invite her to everything. Arrange to get together with the others and only invite her to every fourth one or something.

You’re far more tolerant than me! She sounds insufferable! I’d distance myself totally!

You can be ND and a twat…….I think people are just trying to give an explanation to her behaviour. No one is saying it’s excusable. OP can be friends with who ever she wants to be.

Either this person has been enabled to the point of lunacy or she definitely is living with a masked disorder, I'm no doctor so can't say but there may be a physiological reason.

That said, she sounds like you at least have grown out of the friendship as her behaviour now irritates you. There's no coming back from that and any friendship going forward wouldn't be true.

What is it with everyone looking at someone who behaves like an utter twat, and saying they must be ND?! Being ND does not make people act like twats! This prejudice is driving me insane

Most ND women would try and fit in and mask but not all.

She might not have learning difficulties but she maybe neurodiverse? But what Evers going on it doesn’t mean you have to be friends with her, you are all adults and you can hang out with who you want to hang out with. It sounds like she has issues interacting with people and knowing what is or isn’t appropriate?

Have you ever told her she’s acting inappropriately?

You have my official permission to drop this friend guilt free!

My SIL behaves like that.

At our wedding, a few people who had never met her before commented to me and dh that they didn’t realise SIL had learning difficulties and wasn’t it fantastic that she had a job in a school.

She has no learning difficulties and she’s a was fucking deputy head at the time (now a head teacher).

Done a quick scan of all your posts and am just wondering what the rest of your friends think/feel? If you cut her out, will they follow suit, or will you have to find ways to continue your friendship with the, but separately? Ie a new whatsapp and organising meet ups with you without her?

Am wondering what that would that look like for you as I get the feeling you are looking to unilaterally exclude her from your life - which I totally get and would also be doing myself as she sounds absolutely awful.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the college visit call. I would have gone ballistic at her for that. I think you need to cut her out, she is clearly not going to change and l could not be bothered with that.

I have a few thoughts.
She sounds very immature, an ex-colleague of mine from years ago sounds very similar. She had either a mild brain injury following either an infection eg meningitis or a head injury (I can't remember which) but acted in the same immature disinhibited way you describe. My other thoughts was something like Tourette's Syndrome.

Yes I understand the manipulation tactics. We had experience of someone like this at work who eventually was encouraged to move on. Someone described it as “the tyranny of the weak” a phrase which suited them perfectly.

Tbh the more you describe your friend, the more she sounds like she has a personality disorder of some sort.

Why can’t you speak to her and end it op? Are you afraid of her reaction? Don’t get me wrong, it would be very understandable if you were, given her past behaviour.

Given the length of your friendship, I think I would invite her out for a coffee in a public neutral place and end it. Use “I” statements.

“I know we have been friends for a long time but I no longer wish to continue with our friendship. I am telling you face to face so there is no misunderstanding between us. I wish you well but I have felt for a while now that we are on very different paths and with three teens at home I no longer have the mental bandwidth for what you seem to need from me. To be honest, the stunt you pulled when I was dropping my daughter at university was the last straw. I am sure you saw it as a joke but to me it was very immature and selfish”. Then just let there be a silence and don’t be tempted to fill it.

Draw a line op. Be calm and clear. A boundary is alll about how you behave moving forwards; it’s nothing to do with the other person. Move on. Write her a text if you don’t feel able to tell her face to face. You are obviously a very decent person op but try not to feel guilty.

She has obviously been enabled constantly by her own family and tbh it hasn’t done her any good as she has never faced any consequences for her actions. By cutting her off you may be doing her an enormous favour. Explain honestly, then grey rock. It’s kinder in the long run.

In my friendship group, we had a very immature, attention-seeking, overly dramatic woman, who behaved as if she was 18, footloose and fancy-free with no commitments, even in her 40s when she had a mortgage and a child. She got into a huge amount of debt and decided that we could all help her by giving her £5K each - there were 9 of us. Not one person agreed with this, and one by one, we all dropped her. I haven't seen her for more than a decade now, and hard-hearted as it sounds, she isn't missed.

She sounds like she has very poor impulse control and is emotionally stunted. Both of which could be neurodivergent traits, or environmentally acquired (still being treated/spoiled as a child by her parents, lack of responsibility etc), or an unpleasant personality, or a combination, or something else entirely.

Any which way she is responsible for her own actions and sees no need to change. Unless there are some glowing positives then just fade away

Exactly this