Drama Chasers

[INeedAnAlibi]

I have a friend who is going through a hard time just now & we have a mutual friend who is offering a shoulder to cry on.

This mutual friend has form for being a bit of an attention seeking drama llama and I can't quite shake the feeling that she's not actually interested in helping our friend through a difficult time she's simply feeding off the drama of the situation.

She's not the first friend I've had like this - an ex friend used to listen to my woes during my split from ex but it turns out she just loved the drama as it made her feel better about her life.

AIBU to think that drama chasers should sort out their own lives & leave those with real issues alone as they're not really helping?

Yes they should sort out their own lives and not live vicariously through th dramas of others but, usually, they won't and don't. The key is recognising them and being able to differentiate between them and those who genuinely care and want the best for you. It's not that difficult to work out.

These so called friends drive me nuts ! I have a friend surrounded in drama who feeds off everyone else and makes issues 10x worse now I don't tell her anything but it took me a good while to see she was more interested in leeching on me for the tough times so she could play the saint when really she fucked things up as my genuine friends withdrew. Once I'd cottoned on to her game plan I was extremely lucky to salvage the real friends.

onemore I'm much better at spotting them these days but the ex friend was a really close friend for 5 years & it wasn't until I moved away & we lost touch that I realised I didn't talk about the split so much & I'd only ever really discussed it with her because she initiated the conversation.

Oh I have a couple of 'friends' like this too. Only after having a series of a CBT for anxiety did I realise these individuals did me more harm than good. I was originally under the impression they were concerned and interested in my problems but I think they enjoyed finding out about my woes so they could feel better about their own lives (classic schadenfreude) and be a bit judgey (carefully disguised as advice giving). This therapy helped me realise that talking about my 'problems' wasn't always helpful, it often served to fuel the anxiety. I also have noticed that better friends don't ask me about certain difficult situations, I know they are there to listen if necc but they recognise I may not want to talk or it may not be helpful.

Some people do seem to thrive on drama. Somebody else's personal tragedy is like juicy entertainment for people like that, and their concern is usually only skin deep. I can't understand it and would much rather have a quiet, peaceful life.

Sadly I think you're right. There a lot of people like that

fraggle that's what this friend is like a few of us go with the good old "keep your friends close & your enemies closer" in this case even though we'd like to cut her off!

It's just so frustrating because the friend going through a hard time really needs real friends who will support them not someone stirring the pot!

There's always one isn't there and you can guarantee that one has had every scenario going! Like I had an Op many years ago very rare tbh yet this one friend had the same so I said ooh let's look at your scar as mines really clear she said yeah yeah, two days later she had a tattoo done covering the supposed scar I knew I could smell bullshit.

It also gives them some sort of currency in social circles as they can always tell the next story.

"So how's X, has anyone seen her, how is she coping"? And DramaLLama says; "Well........" And everyone listens and she is the star of the hour while the story unfolds and later she is the person everyone checks in with to see how you are doing.

Not difficult to see why some people love this role. It does take a while to spot sometimes though.

BadKnee that's it exactly. We have one in our extended family - my Dad was very ill a few years ago, I rang her after he had an operation. I swear to Christ the woman was actually disappointed that he got through it really well and that the outcome was much more positive than we had hoped for . She positively relishes bad news and loves to be the first point of contact for any info, of course she gets told nothing now.

BadKnee that's exactly the situation we have found ourselves in with this drama llama however she's now withholding information on the basis of "X has sworn me to secrecy" & "I'm the only one who understands because I've been through it too". I just want to tell her to fuck off & let X know what she's really like but I think that would make X worse.

I was in the most bizarre bereavement situation recently and I really wasn't sure how to handle it at all. A friend's husband was killed in an accident, obviously very sudden, crucial stage of his career and left very young children. I had gone to her house to see her. A mutual friend (she is an acquaintance of mine) was there too, and the bereaved friend was very composed, saying that she missed him so much to the extent that she had a pain in her chest. The acquaintance then said she knew exactly how she felt, as Ronnie (?) in Eastenders had lost his wife (?) and she felt totally gutted for him, had a pain in her chest, felt empty etc. She spent about 10 minutes going through the whole plot, how much impact it had on her, we just sat there a bit gobsmacked really.

Hmm. I know there are people like this. However I recently supported a friend through cancer treatment, after which we very unfortunately fell out due to unrelated issues. I am still quite upset about it. I have a horrible feeling that me being a 'drama llama' and only being interested in her when she was sick is her version of the story and I can't bear it because it is so fundamentally untrue. I wanted to help and I did when others didn't bother.

I had one of these. Loved the drama of anything bad and always brought it all back to her. I don't really like talking about personal stuff unless I have to if it's tough. The two ones that stand out in my mind as the only times I did open up to her I was so shocked at her selfishness I didn't say anything.
One was my fertility issues. They were so convenient to her as since I had no money for holidays I could use my annual leave when she had a baby, me and my DM could travel to her and do the donkey work until her parents paid for a nanny
Then when she was relieved my DM might have cancer. She was worried I might have been pregnant and told me how selfish it would be of me since she wouldn't have anyone to go pay for her drinking. So it was wonderful that it was 'just your Mum might die!'
Took her nearly 2 years to realise I phased her out because she was all about herself.

Quark - what a weird thing to say to a recently bereaved friend! Maybe she can't relate it to anything in her own life, so the soap storyline is the st she has? Better surely to say nothing!

I had one of these in my life. Grief junkie. Didn't seem too bothered about me until my daughter died and then she was my bessie mate. Until another friend's partner died, and she ditched me in a flash and became the other friend's best mate. And now she seems to have moved on to another friend who has a very sick child. It's hard because she is very supportive in the moment, and says the right things... but then just disappears and has moved onto a new grief and you are left feeling like the whole friendship and care was fake.

elusive she's a truly awful person

Yes elusive it was so weird, it was as if she had deflected all the attention away from grieving friend and wanted the sympathy herself. She was trying to show how her situation and grieving friend's was exactly the same It did seem that she was genuinely trying to be empathetic rather than attention seeking, but the comparison to losing a husband in real life and watching someone on a soap losing a DP seemed so bizarre to me that i did wonder if she had MH issues that were tainting her judgement.