I’m not sure how to cope with a long standing friend of mine. I have posted her about her before and I don’t want to repeat myself but it is getting me down now and I don’t know how to deal with it. We’ve been friends for almost thirty years now. I find that she is having jibes at me in a meek way but I know she means it. I like to go out for a coffees and meals and when she’s been out with other friends she makes a point of saying ‘And we didn’t spend all day in the coffee shop.’ We text each other a lot. I work full time, she doesn’t work at all and hasn’t done for some years now. I don’t have time to spend hours on the phone so I text her, she often makes comments about this. Last Saturday morning she texted to me to say another friend had been funny with her but this friend was out of turn as it happens, I was at work all day and out with friends in the evening so hadn’t got chance to ring her so I sent her a text to advise her and sympathise. I met her the next day and the first thing she said to me was that she got it off her chest with another friend who rang her on Saturday. This is fine but she didn’t just say that, she had to add on (meaning it) ‘Its OK texting all the time but I can’t get things off my chest that way.’ She has made comments before about me preferring to text.
Also that same day we had met because she needed a new phone. We had a coffee first in the city centre and she wanted to go a retail park outside the centre, I told her it didn’t close until 5.00 pm so she said there was no rush and was happy to sit chatting. She decided to try the phone shop in town first, we went there and she saw the phone she wanted and it was cheaper than in Currys at the retail park. However, she still wanted to go to Curry’s so we went there to find the same phone £18.00 more expensive and the staff said they had no time to set it up for her and she would have to go another day. She then said she would get it from the shop in town. However, she blamed me and said ‘That’s with you wanting to sit in the coffee shop longer.’ I did react and told her that Currys would be busy at any time as they deal with more than just phones. She then admitted it was her fault as she could have bought the phone in town in the first place. We went back to the shop where she got it set up straight away.
There are other examples which are too long to mention here. She’s always trying to rearrange plans, even my birthday meal which I’ve booked, she’s hinted that I could arrange it around her and this other friend to somewhere ‘more central’ for them and why can’t other people get buses or taxis. However, tomorrow she is going to another city with some other friends which is a lot further to travel to than the place when I am going for my birthday meal.
A good male friend of mine says she’s not directing at me as such and I should ignore what she says and she’ll get fed up of making these jibes but its really getting me down. He thinks I am being too sensitive. Another mutual friend of ours has noticed and thinks she’s making digs at me. Should I have it out with her? Do I ignore her jibes, do I say something back, am I being too sensitive? For instance the comment about my birthday meal being too far, she hadn’t planned to go to the other city then so there was nothing to compare it to but maybe I can say that next time she tries to change arrangements because its ‘too far’. I don’t want to get into a case of ‘tit for tat’ and I don’t want to fall out with her but I think it needs to be nipped in the bud.