Patience going with immature friend

[Spaghettihoops2026]

I have a group of about 5 friends who have all been friends for 20 years plus.

One of them has always been immature but over the past year it has for some reason really started to grate on me. We all turned 40 this year. The more the group grows up and moves to new stages of life the worse this one friend gets, but this week they did something that disgusted me so much I no longer know if I want to continue the friendship.

Examples of behaviour, but this behaviour is constant:

. We have a group chat for general catch up/ meet up arrangements/ kids birthday reminders etc. They text all day on chat then gets annoyed when people don't respond because we are at work.
. Whenever a serious conversation is being had ie: another friend was having some cells removed after a smear test and this friend in between our conversation with the others was saying things like 'ewwww you have to let someone up your vagina'
. Whenever anyone reaches a landmark- buying a house/ having a kid/ getting a promotion they change the subject back to themselves and start saying we are all conformists.
. I said the other day I was going to the garden centre and they started just repeatedly sending pictures of OAPs to my phone.
. Another one of our group befriended a single mum from school and bought her out for dinner and when she got home text my friend a genuinely lovely message saying how amazing it is we have a friend with learning difficulties, it gives her hope for her daughter. The immature friend has no learning difficulties.
. Had a tantrum two of the girls in the group went for drinks together and didn't invite the rest of us.
. I just took my youngest daughter to college open day and said friend spent the entirety of it texting me saying she needed urgent help until I left the room to call her and she went JOKING and hung up.

Typing this out it sounds insane, but it has unfortunately been normalised over 20 plus years, until now.

They live at home still, have a job which they keep being offered promotions in but won't take.

Half of the people that meet this person find them endearing in an entertaining way as it's like having a bouncy toddler around, the other half ask how we are friends.

This week she had a tantrum at a family members funeral because she wanted to cut a cake early, resulting in her mum crying.

I guess I'm looking for permission to end the friendship without sounding like a jumped up cow but I have had enough. I want to live my adult life with my adult friends.

Why is she still a friend? She doesn't bring anything to your life except drama and the annoying humour of a much younger sibling trying to spoil their big sister s social life.

I know exactly the type you mean, all "me me me" and "I m so quirky. I m such a laugh, you re all boring:. It's draining and exhausting and you don't need permission to drop the friendship. Just quietly fade her out, be too busy to meet up etc.

Or you could call her out if you don't mind a fall out.
"Sorry Holly but you re not coming along because you re really childish and we want an adult conversation ".

I could be being mean and she's got some serious issues making her act like it but I couldn't put up with it.

Anyone is free to leave any relationship if it isn’t working for them. This friendship has run its course. If you find her a drain, and who wouldn’t, drop her and move on. She sounds tedious.

Another one of our group befriended a single mum from school and bought her out for dinner and when she got home text my friend a genuinely lovely message saying how amazing it is we have a friend with learning difficulties, it gives her hope for her daughter. The immature friend has no learning difficulties

Or maybe she just hasn't been diagnosed with anything.

Or not leaving home she's stayed at a stage of maturity that should have been long gone by now.

It's easy to sort. Have the row, tell her what you think of her. She'll either flounce or she'll reflect.

I'm confused by the learning difficulties bit - what does that mean? Why did the other friend think that?

She sounds insufferable.

Your friend sounds completely tedious but the friend-of-a-friend sounds like a snide cow too. Why would you comment on someone having learning difficulties when there’s been no suggestion from them or anyone else that that’s the case? I would not go out with either of them again.

Sorry- one of the group of friends bought someone she had recently met for dinner as the lady doesn't have many people in the area. My immature friend behaved so weirdly - leaving to vape every three minutes, poking the waiter, shouting random things out that the new lady who had never met the immature friend before presumed she had learning difficulties.

I think a long standing friend deserves to be told her behavior is winding everyone up and if she doesn't wind it in she'll find herself with a lot more free time.

As poster above says, she'll either open up about challenges she faces that explain this behavior, flounce, or reflect and try to change. Any of which might help you all.

Give her a chance at least.

This has happened. We have suggested everything. She sulks for two weeks, comes back and apologises then 3 weeks later its something else.

You’re an adult, you don’t need permission.

In that case I'd absolutely distance myself with not a moment of guilt.

I'd have blocked her after the stupid nonsense when you were viewing colleges with your daughter.

Honestly just tell her she needs to grow up and stop the pathetic behaviour and that you will no longer continue to associate with her.

I would have lost my temper at her badgering me while I was on an open day to see a college with my child. That's actually important and she couldn't resist acting the fool knowing you were doing for your child.

In your shoes I think you need to step away from her.

The behaviour you describe at the meal sounds absolutely awful, I would be telling my 5 year old to calm down and keep their hands to themselves let alone a grown woman! What do the others in the group think?

Also are we really sure she doesn't have learning difficulties? Could she just be undiagnosed?

I was so confused by the learning difficulties bit but I understand now you’ve clarified. Not sure the new friend should be commenting on learning difficulties but it does sound like your friend is insanely annoying. I think I’d be at the end of my tether too.

Ah. Could she have a condition making her do these things? I don't really know what, but the shouting out made me think of Tourette's?

But even so, you're not unreasonable at all. I couldn't spend any time with her in public, and I'd have blocked her after the idiocy at the open day.

Just start a new group chat without her in it...

… how sure are you that she doesn’t have learning difficulties? Because it sounds like she does.

Enough is enough. She's not going to change. Start another group and ignore her childish texts. You've already pointed out that her behaviour is too much and she doesn't care.

You need permission to end a friendship?

Frankly she is not someone I would want to be around so yes, just do it.

Permission granted.👍

I would never speak to her again after the college thing.

This, the need to be centre of attention and be awful to people while expecting everyone to be lovely to them and not react!

@Spaghettihoops2026 she sounds EXACTLY like the immature, selfish, spoiled friend I cut out of my life 4 years ago after a long, continued series of events that stressed the rest of us out.

Reading your examples, it all sounds so familiar to me.

My ex friend did so many things that the rest of us (we were a group of 5 from school) would just ignore or try to excuse for 20+ years. No more though.

Examples:
-Got drunk and took drugs that disagreed with her and turned her violent when we were all at a party as teenagers and we had to call the police (in hindsight that should have been the end of the friendship then)
-Would phone us constantly at 2am 3am blind drunk hurling abuse at us if we didn't join her at whatever nightclub she was at (alone) and would say if she was killed it would be our fault.
-Laughed or would send laughing emojis any time we discussed anything serious in our group chats and say something like "that's just life".
-would lie about her life yet demand every single detail about our lives and have a tantrum if we didn't tell her everything.
-Would go no contact with us all for months on end and we would check in, hear nothing and then eventually she'd get in touch asking us for money for drink or cigarettes. If we said no she'd sulk and say we were tight.
-got kicked off her PhD programme for being drunk and abusive and ending up in a police cell one night (although lied to us that this happened and said it just wasn't for her - we found out it was due to drink driving, refusing a breathalyser and then being put in the cells).
-Cheated on her boyfriend with a real low life and then bemoaned that they'd split up and tried to tell me that my sister dying of cancer wasn't as bad as her boyfriend leaving her as my sister didn't choose to leave.
-Called me at 3am when I had a newborn.

The last one was final straw although I do wish I'd told her to go and fuck herself with the second last one. But hey ho. My other three friends have also seriously distanced themselves and one has cut her off like I have. She's a mess and it's all her choice yet she takes no responsibility and will blame others. I do hope she finds peace and happiness but it's not my problem anymore.

She really doesn't sound quite right. And I don't mean that in a mean way.

Very very sure. She's just very obnoxious and immature.

No, it really doesn't. She just sounds like an obnoxious attention seeker.

If it's been raised with her before and it's not improved I'd just stop inviting and involving her.

There's no way I'd be wanting to spend time or text with someone this obnoxious and I'd be telling them why and that it was a line in the sand for me that the friendship had run it's course.