I have a friend who I've known for years. Our DCs are friends too. She is lovely and thoughtful in some ways, but in other ways she is quite catty at times and also can be very blunt with people. She also drinks a lot of alcohol.
Quite often when we're chatting she will start making catty comments about mutual friends or other people we both know, such as other parents from the school. 9 times out of 10 I will say to her that it isn't very nice, and other times I will just say nothing and change the subject. If I tell her it isn't very nice she'll say "I know, we're horrible aren't we?" or she'll say catty comments and then say "Ooooh aren't we mean?". I hate bitching ( have had it done about me in the past by a friend and it was horrible), and try not to get involved in that kind of thing. It really annoys me how she tries to justify her behaviour by making out I am the same as her.
Other times, if she's talking about herself/her bad points, she'll again try to lump me in with it and she'll say things like "We're both so rude/upfront/judgemental aren't we?". I usually say that no, I don't consider myself to be any of those things. And again it annoys me how she is justifying her behaviour by telling myself that I am the same.
The third thing is, she drinks a lot of alcohol, and always gets annoyed with me if I won't drink alcohol if I go round to hers. She will try and get me to have a glass of wine and I don't drink in the day, in fact I rarely drink, but she'll go on and on at me and won't take no for an answer and sometimes pour me one anyway. Then she'll say "Aren't we terrible drinking alcohol in the day?"
I feel like I am going to have to keep a distance from this friendship as it seems that she has thicker skin than a rhino. And I really don't want her making out to mutual friends that I've said any of the things that she herself has said about them.