Has this friendship run its course?

[Chattenoire]

I've written about this friend before.

I think we've been friends for 3 years, we met after I posted in a local Facebook group.

Although we don't have a lot in common, we liked each other enough and there was enough "chemistry".

However, this year things changed. We started noticing that her DH will look for ways to NOT split the tabs evenly when going out for example.

Then she decided she'd come to cook for me to celebrate my birthday (I did post about that) I was extremely uncomfortable about the idea, and in the end they came and watched the football (which I totally dislike).

We also looked after their dog and in turn they looked after hours. We hosted their dog while they'd just come and check on ours (it was only for the odd night away) but what they never told is that the neighbours had complained before about our dog being distressed. We thought she was fine. We now have a wonderful dog sitter, but if I had known from the very start our dog was so unhappy we would never have done it.

Then this weekend she came to pop in with minimal notice (10 mins) and when I was telling her about my latest conundrum (which has the full support of my DH) and she just started telling me off. So I feel like I can't be ME around her so to speak.

I'm ND and I have severe attachment issues. I go through phases of really not liking people, so I don't know if I'm going through one. I don't have many friends (just another one who I like and we have more in common) but then that's it.

From a very utilitarian POV I'm concerned about losing the few friends that I have.

I'm Latin American, and she's Eastern European.

So for example, we always tend to know that an excuse means NO.

But also some things are out of context "ahorita" could mean anything from "right now" to "never".

Why should they split the tabs evenly ? Sounds like they are watching their finances carefully. Maybe why she wanted to cook your birthday meal rather than go out.

The dog thing.... you surely know your dog. Getting someone to pop in is unacceptable. They need a proper dog sitter.

They go on holidays every other month, and they have openly said when they had no money.

I did tell her that I'd rather just go for a glass of wine, that having to host her for my birthday.

Ok so there's a cultural difference too which might explain some of the different approaches.

Look. If you think she and her husband are basically decent folk, not perfect but good hearted, but on a slightly different wavelength then don't ditch them if you're worried about not having many friends locally.

Just as I say, scale the friendship back to neutral territory, get to know them better. Stop doing and receiving favours (maybe in an emergency), so it is a friendship based solely on company. Not a tally of who's done what for whom, even if started with the best of intentions. No shared bills. If you go out to eat, look for places where you order and pay at the bar, separately. Maybe a few simple activities together, cinema or park run with the dogs or something so you build that common ground?

I do think the dog is on you really. If they fed, watered and walked it as they said they would then they did what they offered. If doggo was crying then leaving it with that level of supervision wasn't adequate and that isn't their fault. You know for next time.

The bill sounds like a misunderstanding rather than trying to pay a quarter.

Look, try and be clearer about what you mean. Meet on neutral territory. Be assertive if she's overpowering again.

The whole point about the dog is that they knew she was distressed (we didn't).

If I had been in their shoes I would have immediately told them as soon as they got home that the dog was distressed and that we needed a dog sitter. Not offer to do it again.

They were doing you a favour with the dog, you sound a tad ungrateful. However I'd never dream of leaving my dog with someone just checking in!

We also looked after their dog even though our cat got extremely distressed, so I don't think we were particularly ungrateful!

You sound really generous and well meaning so don't take this the wrong way.

I just think your boundaries are off and the pleasure you get from doing more for people obstructs your own interests. You then come to resent this somewhat when it's not reciprocated, it seems. Your friend is very different. She seems willing to help but within the bounds of what she wants to offer. Even if it's not quite what you, the recipient, would choose. It's quite interesting, the difference.

And I see your point about reporting back re DDog. However, they might have thought it was a normal part of a family dog unused to being left alone rather than serious distress whereas the neighbour heard ongoing barking and crying.
It was really for you to weigh up whether to leave him, not for them to provide more care than they'd offered (it wasn't an emergency. Obviously I would expect them to do more if it was).

Also if your cat was unused to another dog in the house, it was for you to decide whether that was in its best interests to introduce one rather than be giving at any cost.

I get that you feel you did more caring but at what cost and was it really the best all round solution? Id have a think about this and reflect on approaches rather than pushing them away as yes, they sound a bit self interested but people like that can be ok if you have good boundaries and don't get too intertwined. It's like I say, you don't have to be best friends but you don't need to burn bridges

That's kind of what my DH told me. They're good to have "good fun" but you'll never be intimate friends with them.

After thinking we'd never see our cat again, we decided to simply never look after their dog again, our cat came first.

I also didn't really like that they heavily criticised our other good friends. Coincidentally it was mutual, but our other good friends took 2 full years to say that they didn't really like them whereas the ones I've been posting about mentioned it within months.

I learned my lesson there and never mixed them again.

I think you need to take this as a lesson to deal better with minor irritations as otherwise they grow into grudges. It is you who suffers from losing friends and giving up so much headspace to people making tiny missteps or not quite aligning with what you think.

These are all very little things around communication, not saying you'd paid your bill for example, which was confusion rather than sneaky. It doesn't sound like you suggested anything you would like to do for your birthday either, the cooking/football thing sounds like someone trying but getting it slightly wrong, who would probably welcome some more input from you. Not criticism after the fact, but in the planning stage.

The whole birthday saga was MONTHS in the making. I said at the very least five times that she didn't have to, and that I'd rather go out or leave it for another occasion.

I even actually said that my birthday celebration was going away and that I actively planned it that way to just celebrate with DH and our DC.

I even said, if I really wanted to see people I could have organised something, but I didn't for a reason. It all fell in deaf ears.

The birthday thing was the worst because I ended up hosting something that I really had no intention nor interest in and that I did try in the kindest of ways to avoid.

What would you do differently for any of these things mentioned, for your part? If they happened again?

I think I'd just say very clearly that to me that's no "treat" no matter how well intentioned.

Yes this friendship has run its course.
(It's upset:
Your Dog
Your Cat
Your Neighbours
Your husband
Your other good friends
And your good self. )
The friendship is over.

LOL basically!

At least my other good friends have only ever upset these friends!

Plus my other good friends are well liked by our DC, which is always a bonus!

Ok but it isn't them that have upset your dog, cat or neighbours, that is most definitely you.

Husband needed to be clearer re bills.

I get it about the dog, cat, neighbours, that was on me (although I wish they had told me about what they knew about our dog, rather than just let it happen again). I just wished they had told me.

The bills, yes husband could have been clearer, but it was super obvious the bill was substantially lower and they made no comment about it.

But my birthday? Ignoring my wishes and doing something they know I really dislike?

Yes, I should have said a clear NO, but she wouldn't take my attempts of soft negatives .

Then I posted in another local meetup group about finding people to work together in a shared office type of thing. She's part of that group and she tagged herself into the conversation. There's a reason why I didn't ask her first, but she definitely ignores subtleties. So if I try to organise ever again, I either have to block her or tell her that I want to expand my circle without her being part of it.

No the birthday was pushy and I wouldn't have liked having to say 'no' twice but it required clarity. You didn't have to accept.

I totally get you, don't get me wrong on that, it's clear youre not a match for besties as it would be exhausting just being yourself and you want your close friends just to understand you, even if they're very different. I also am more along the lines of wanting to do more rather than less to help and am absolutely not forensic over bills in the way they are and these things read as quite churlish.

She's reminding me a bit of a long term friend whom I've questioned at times. She's got her great points though, she won't be getting ditched but my expectations have been tailored pretty sharply around her past behaviour and I won't be putting myself out for her again (unless it's an emergency which I doubt will happen as we live some distance away and she has family nearby).

I also get wanting periods of solitude.

But I think this is a good reflection opportunity rather than going back to 'shes a wrongun, I've been badly done to'.

If you posted in a meetup group that includes her then you were addressing her as much as the others. There is no reason she should assume otherwise . If you didn't want to include her, you should have started another group. She's not perfect but she's not a mind reader either.

Obv cut her off if you want but you mentioned not wanting to lose friends and it's quite clear why friendships are stressful for you so this will probably happen again. You have to express boundaries clearly, not implicitly. You can say a clear 'no thank you' politely but without brooking any argument.

It's a local FB group with hundreds so it's not like I can start a new one! But yes I get your point.

But yes you're 100% that I want my friends to understand me. We don't have a lot in common and most importantly I want friends to be there to listen. I like validation not advice.

And it's kind of exhausting I WFH, I don't socialise, I have really next to zero friends, but the only person that shares most my likes is my DH. I know that makes me extremely lucky, but I'd like to "share" my life with someone else too, I just haven't found the "one" so to speak.

I want to be able to go to a concert that I actually like, or a film and then go for brunch. Window shop. Have a bit of a moan about Alice from accounts. I think it's fairly standard? Yes, I might still like my post-punk/emo bands, and have thing for nuclear post-apocalyptic fiction but I don't think I'm that unique.

Yes, I'm a mother too and I don't like talking about my DC beyond a passing comment. I've basically gone NC with most of my family (apart from my DM), and have no relationship with my in-laws. Some of it is by design, some of it is just life.

I miss my two long-life friends. We've been friends for 20+ years, but given the distance I only see them maybe once every other year.

I think I'm kind and can be fun, but still haven't found anyone to have fun with.

With respect, OP, you're going to need to be way more flexible in your communication styles if you are going to live and make friends outside your home culture. Not everyone is going to understand things you think are obvious.

The kind of indirectness or 'subtlety' you seem to imagine you both view as 'necessary politeness' clearly isn't working here, if you continually fail to communicate what you actually want and don't want to her.

You think it's clear an excuse means 'no', but she clearly didn't get that memo. (And Latin American and Eastern European cultures are very different, and I imagine that they use indirectness differently, as even two neighbouring countries like England and Ireland use indirectness very differently -- an English friend moved to Ireland a few years ago, and despite thinking she was a comparatively 'politely indirect' person in her home culture, she's far too direct for many of the Irish circles she's moving in.)

Either way, your 'subtlety' isn't working. You are not communicating, and you are blaming her for not understanding what you mean, but have not said, the way you think she should understand.

You are currently blaming her for not understanding that your 'soft negatives' about your birthday in fact meant 'No'.

You're blaming her, or possibly her husband, for your husband not being clear about having already paid your part of the bill.

You're blaming her for not understanding that when you posted about sharing workspace to an MeetUp group you know she's a member of, that your open question about sharing workspace wasn't intended for her, and you actively don't want to share a workspace with her. Although she's a member of the group your posted on.

You're also blaming these friends for being 'too direct' in criticising other friends of yours, despite the fact that it turned out those other friends (whom you are not blaming) didn't like the friends you are posting about either. So both sets of friends dislike one another, but you're only blaming the ones who said it within a few months rather than the ones who waited two years to say so -- ie, in this case, you're criticising the friends for being too direct.

And honestly, OP, wouldn't you rather know almost immediately that two sets of friends don't get on, rather than spend two full years unknowingly inviting them to things together, only to discover they've hated every second?

I'd certainly rather know, so as not to inflict unnecessary irritation on anyone.

It was the tone and type of criticism. Saying that someone is a "Loser junkie/stoner" is not a nice thing to have said. Yes, the other friends called them "pretentious" but I don't think it's on the same level.

However they unequivocally knew I don't like football like AT ALL. Why on earth suggest to do that to celebrate that for my birthday at my home?

OP, you need to be asking these questions at the time and to these people, not on here. None of us know why football was suggested, but it's clear that you at least contributed in changing it from a short, efficient conversation about what you'd like to a saga that made nobody happy. Can you see that it would have been better all round to be clearer?

You have very high expectations of your friends to read between the lines, but want things spelled out for you. It is hard to realise that your formula for communicating and standards are not universally applicable, but you won't maintain the friendships you want like this. Nobody is going to be perfect, friendship is about accepting and loving people for who they are.

Agreed.

I also question the 'telling off'. She popped round, you started telling her about your problems, she started 'telling you off'. Is this another misreading of cues? Your interpretation of 'telling off' being different?

I was again, not looking for advice just validation.

If anything it was praise to my DH for being wonderfully understanding about how I feel. She told me "it was my place to be there.

To me it was a simple "well I don't want to" but she did make me feel like I was letting my DH down (and his family) but I wasn't!