Final straw - friend always pitying me for being single

[Hannahdreamer]

I’ve been single since my exH left me (cheated) nearly two years ago. All bar one of my friends seems to understand that I am currently happy single and in no rush to meet someone, but will when the time is right. I’ve two kids and am concentrating on them and my work.

One of my friends has always been a bit more forward in asking when I’m going to be dating again and seems to forget I’ve told her I’m happy single.

Anyway - I’ll get to the point. This friend and I went to a hotel which has a pool/spa yesterday. We had lunch first and I had a glass of champagne, she had two and was tipsy. She was saying over lunch that she bet she could find me someone at the spa and I told her clearly not to.

What follows, is her speaking to every man who happened to be sat near us when in the jacuzzi, steam room etc. Started along the lines of ‘can you believe she’s single and can’t find a man’ to outright asking someone probably barely older than 18 if he’d want to spend the night with me. I shut this down and apologised to him, he look petrified! My friend then said to him ‘actually, she’d eat you alive’.

I was really cross with my friend and got out of the pool area to get changed and go home. She has apologised to me over message today.

AIBU to consider ending the friendship?

She's no friend.

I never understand people like this are they so miserable in there own lives that they have so much focus on other people's.

If this is the only incident, annoying and patronising as it is, I would not (yet) end the friendship. I would point out that you were embarrassed by her behaviour and by her refusal to listen to you when you tell her you are happy single.

I can't stand when people think they know what I want/need more than I do so if it happens again I would back right away from the friendship.

Your so called friend doesn't abide by your stated boundaries and doesn't take no for an answer. Both are big red flags in relationships and a friendship is a relationship.

Yes, I'd end the friendship over those.

Ask her what’s going on. Is she unhappy in her own marriage and trying to live vicariously through you? Are there issues in your friendship as far as she’s concerned, and does she not really like you? Because telling all and sundry that you can’t find a man, and that you’d eat a man alive, is pretty aggressive behaviour, even given that she was drunk.

Honestly, it sounds to me like she’s got sex on her mind and she might be projecting.

I'd be furious too. You clearly stated your wishes and she completely ignored them. I wouldn't want to continue the friendship.

So she tried to embarrass you whilst smashing down your boundaries? Not a friend is she.

‘can you believe she’s single and can’t find a man’

I wouldn't say this (can't find a man) about my worst enemy (and I hated that cunt) let alone a friend.

She revels in and relishes putting you down.

End this friendship and never see her again.

Start doing the same thing to her. Ask her incessantly when she's going to leave her husband, is she ready to admit that the divorce is inevitable? When you're out in public together, accost random strangers and tell them your friend's getting divorced and needs some encouragement. Her husband's really got to go, don't they agree? Can you believe she's still married?? TOALLY missing out! Wouldn't they like to convince her to leave her husband? She'll "get it" when the rude, clueless , unwanted interfering is at HER expense.

She apologized, so I would be tempted to give her the benefit of the doubt, especially if she had been drinking. But I would be very very clear with her that you will not tolerate anything like this again.

That must have been awful for you. She’s a hellava lightweight if she’s acting like this after 2 glasses of fizz.

Jesus! You call her a FRIEND? Unbelievable!

Your friend does not pity you. She envies you! I would seriously re-evaluate the relationship.

Yes, she has always struggled with her drink and knows this.

She is never short on discussing sex however, and puts this down to being ‘sex positive’ whatever that means.

God, she sounds awful. .

She's either a) decided she knows better than you do what's actually best for you and is interfering on that basis against your wishes or b) deliberately embarrassing you just because she gets a kick out of it.

Either of those things make her a total prick, so yeah, I'd ditch her. I loathe people who behave like that.

I wouldn’t be able to get over that, despite the apology. That’s terrible behaviour, alcohol is no excuse.

Sex positive does not mean forcing others to listen to or discuss sex all the time.

Your friend sounds like an immature, unboundaried pain in the arse.

If you feel like giving her the benefit of the doubt I would message her back telling her how unacceptable her behaviour was and she is to never mention your relationship status unless you do.

Personally I wouldn't have the patience to wait for her to mature and I'd probably tell her she crossed a line and not to contact me again.

I'm also very happily single. If someone had done this to me, I wouldn't want to be friends with them any more.

Life is too short to suffer intolerable people like her. She isn't a friend.

Those "smug married" types make horrible friends.

I had a friend from age 13 - we grew up spending the night at one another's homes, roomed together at uni, I was MOH in both of her weddings, she referred to my dad as her "second father" and so on.

Then, 20 years into our friendship, during which I had also helped her enormously, both with logistics and financially as she exited her ruinous first marriage, drove her for a termination when she didn't want to tell the sperm donor, etc. etc., she was musing aloud about wanting to give a "formal dinner party." With people wearing evening dress, etc.

I was perenially single and she actually said "It's a pity you don't have a boyfriend so I won't be able to invite you, as this is for couples only..."

My entire view of the friendship shifted in an instant. There is no way I would have excluded her from such a party just for being single. What I thought would be a lifelong friendship pretty much ended there.

I didn't say anything but just withdrew and became unavailable. She moved a few hundred miles away (for her husband's work) and became a lifelong SAHM. About five years ago she moved back to the area and I got a card my birthday week; I thought it might be a birthday card but it was just an announcement of her new address with some canned verbiage like "we are looking forward to connecting with old friends." Bah.

I ran into her sister about three years ago, much to my horror; the sister said ex-friend was in the process of divorcing the second husband. Shrug. She asked me about the rift (now 20+years duration) and I said we weren't as close as I thought. Told her the dinner party anecdote and the sister (also a lifelong single woman) said "I'm embarrassed to be related to her."

Having done similar when I was unhappily married, I think she probably wanted male attention herself and was using your situation to facilitate that.
Tbh id forgive, she is probably just unhappy and a bit jealous of your freedom.

Awful behaviour from your so called friend. It’s people who can’t imagine anyone being fulfilled without a partner that I pity, how dull their lives must be.
Do you think she’s coming from a place of misplaced concern, or enjoying feeling “better than”?

'Sex positive' doesn't mean 'talking about sex all time' or 'embarrassing other people about sex' or 'trying to push people into a sex life they're not interested in'.

I'm definitely sex-positive and I don't a) tell other people they should be having sex, b) talk about sex with people who aren't interested in discussing it, c) embarrass people by mentioning it or d) overshare with randoms. The whole point of sex-positivity is not to judge/shame others for their consensual sexual interests and behaviour - if she's disrespecting your wish to be single and embarrassing you by trying to set up sexual encounters for you against your wishes, she really isn't sex-positive at all.

That's terrible form from a mate. It does say more about her than you though.

Possibly this, maybe before you end the friendship.