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.

Frankly, I would lose the 'single mum' (a single mum! And your friend 'bought' her out for dinner! What a medal she deserves) too. Anyone who comments on someone else's presumed learning disabilities, let alone in such a patronising way, after one meeting, really doesn't deserve friendship.

But if you are finding this person irritating then yes, I wouldn't bother with her. She does sound annoying.

Sorry, She wasn't being mean- her daughter has some learning difficulties and she was basically saying it was giving her hope for her daughter to be included in the future to which my other friend had to explain this girl didn't actually have learning difficuties.

dont step away run
sounds like you are a least 40ish
stop wasting you time and life

I agree. She sounds very draining

Ok.

I still think she sounds quite rude, if she phrased it the way you say she did. Most people (especially most people whose family have learning disabilities, surely?!) would say something like 'may I ask if she has LD, because my daughter does, and ...').

I also really don't get why it's relevant she's a single mother, and it does sound a bit as if your friendship group see yourselves as people who are performing some kind of wonderful charitable activity in befriending the needy?

I think it's considerably odder how many Mners have longterm friends they dislike intensely. If you're all around 40 and have been friends for at least 20 years, you've been friends since your late teens or so -- none of her behaviour would have been normal then either. Why on earth describe her as a friend, keep seeing her regularly, and enabling this behaviour?

I don't know what she normally speaks like- I met her once.

Sorry- it's just because two of my friends are single mums as well and they always say- we have met another single mum!- not a charity thing lol.

She poked a waiter? She for sure has learning difficulties, or she is insufferably rude.

I would say anyone still living at home at 40 isn’t edging towards NT.

She sounds absolutely awful. She's not going to change at this stage, so there's no point in a last gasp message in the hope she'll see the light. You just need to decide how long you're going to let her encroach on your life and rip the plaster off.

Hopefully your friends feel the same way too and you can all just bin her off and block her at the same time.

I guess it’s possible she’s annoying AND has learning difficulties or is ND. I disagree with a PP that living with parents at 40 automatically means ND, but it’s definitely a sign of immaturity and/or codependence, enmeshment etc.

OP have you spoken to other friends in the group about her? I bet they find her really annoying as well. What is your plan to stop being friends if you’re all in a friendship group together? It sounds like you’ve been far patient than I could’ve been and I wouldn’t want to hang out anymore, but excluding her is also a bit mean

I think female friendships can be challenging at this age when everyone is at different life stages. It sounds like as the single one with freedom she has adopted this way of acting as a ‘personality’ perhaps as a defence or coping mechanism to the fact that you and your friends have loved ones such as children and partners that she doesn’t have. I would guess deep down she feels lonely, a sense of grief or very insecure.

Of course none of this is your problem, and especially after the phone calls at college I wouldnt be proactively contacting her. I would be creating some distance.

I don't know, I think almost everyone would assume a grown woman in a restaurant who pokes the waiter and repeatedly yells out has a learning difficulty of some sort.

If she's poking waiters, I really wouldn't be going out for food with her. I've worked in catering; be nice to the waiting staff. We have the last laugh.

This reminds me of my older sister and I really feel for you. It’s so difficult to be around her and it feels like nothing will change. I feel really embarrassed being around her in public so really share your frustration. I don’t have any advice but wanted to send some solidarity!

You really don’t need permission. She sounds like someone who is very reluctant to grow up and prefers to stay in teenager mode. Friends should bring something to your life and she clearly isn’t.

But would you say it?

I can imagine saying something like 'oh, DD has learning difficulties and I'm working hard to support her making friends into adulthood' and hoping these new friends I'd just met would bite and say 'oh yes, our friend so-and-so has a LD as it happens'. But I don't think most people would just jump in and say something like what the OP claims her new friend said.

Sounds more like autism to me. It’s social cues she seems to be missing, not reading, writing and math skills.

What are her parents like? Do they seem neurodivergent?

Her parents are not. They have however bailed her out of everything and if she falls out with someone her mother is very much 'oh don't worry, they're just jealous of you'. I would agree ordinarily, but as soon as something is getting more attention than her she's quick to point it/the person out.

Once again- it was a message sent to another girl in the group who had bought her out. I may not have the exact wording correct because I wasn't read the text word for word, just the general gist of it.

Is she Sarah Ferguson? Seriously though, you don't need this nonsense. Maybe she's jealous because she's a failure to launch.

I said the other day I was going to the garden centre and they started just repeatedly sending pictures of OAPs to my phone.

This is funny tho.

It sounds like she really might have some sort of difficulties.

Couldn't be doing with someone like this. She sounds an absolute walloper. Cut her loose.

I was going to suggest this. I would bet your other friends are fed up too, how could they not be?