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.

This isn't just bad behaviour though. This is immature behaviour with a side order of no social skills. This is the kind of behaviour my hubby portrays and he is ND.

Perhaps as your own teen DDs grow and mature it’s shining more of a light on your mate’s behaviour because you wouldn’t tolerate the nonsense from them. Could you tell your friend that you wouldn’t accept those remarks/ behaviours from your kids when she’s being silly/offensive and start to fade/not respond to her. She won’t take the hint but at least you’ve explained why

Op you have outgrown her obviously. I’m up for the odd joke as banter but she sounds exhausting tbh. I would just not attend anything with her and if she gets a strop just say look I have 3 teenagers at home I’m not spending my time with a grown woman with the same bloody issues call her out like that hopefully you will embarrass her. She thinks she’s funny you just tell her she’s not and it’s exhausting not being able to have an adult conversation with her.

I’d end the friendship. Her behaviour is irritating and ridiculous.

The bits that fit less are the weird practical jokes but even there that could be MH issues.

No. Just no. MH issues do not make you a jerk and attributing behaviour like this is deeply offensive to people who actually have MH issues. This sounds like someone who is used to getting her own way, has not been set limits and has resisted growing up.

She sounds really bloody puerile and like she’s very insecure and envious of you all. It would test a saint. That’s not a friend. I’d have to have a private chat with her about it if I were you.

I’d start by asking if she’s ok, and then asking what makes her want to be part of your friendship group as you have noticed that she doesn’t seem to have much respect for you all. No doubt this will be met with, ‘’I’m just joking!’ To which I’d say, ‘’Well could you stop, please? We don’t find them funny’’

It’s a win, win. She’ll either stop (unlikely, as people like her can’t usually help themselves) or you can say, ‘’I’ve asked you once, stop!’’ and then end the friendship if she doesn’t.

Alternatively, next time she makes a stupid remark or does something, stare silently for five seconds and then say, ‘’What a stupid/shitty/strange thing to do/say, are you ok?’’ Repeat ad infinitum until she packs it in. You should be flattered she obviously thinks you have a better life than her 😃

So would your husband physically assault waiting staff by poking and prodding at them? Would you sit back and watch and say “ahh but…”
it is immature bad behaviour

No, but he would me and his friends, which show him up.
My point is, doing that as an adult to waiting staff is beyond bad behaviour, it's something underlying that the person thinks is ok to do (lack of social skills).

It depends on the mental illness but yes mental illness can very much make someone act “like a jerk” and it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Having worked in MH for 25 years I am quite aware that people with MH problems can have difficult and obnoxious behaviours. But if it is a result of their MH, it generally passes when they are better. If it is more persistent, it is not because of their MH but because of their personality and the conscious choices they are making. 10 years working on locked psych wards put me in the front line of some very challenging people. But many many more who were the loveliest people I have ever met.

It pisses me off when people jump to explaining insensitive practical jokes as MH problems - I feel the same when all violent acts are immediately labelled as MH. Its disrespectful in the extreme to people who have those problems. Sometimes people just do bad things. Or are spoiled and rude. Everything the OP has explained points to the latter.

This is so bizarre, I’d get a feel from the other friends in the group if they’d be happy to leave the friendship behind and maybe just stop inviting her to things. It sounds mean but what other option do you have?

It sounds to me like someone who has a poor theory of mind which forms the basis for empathy and effective communication, very poor social skills and awareness of social boundaries.

It sounds to me like someone who has a poor theory of mind which forms the basis for empathy and effective communication, very poor social skills and awareness of social boundaries.

If it’s down to neurodevelopmental disorders it’s not going to pass. Some serious mental illness is lifelong - if may ebb and flow but it’s not actually curable.

It’s concerning that someone who claims to work in mental health is jumping to such knee-jerk superficial conclusions on a forum.

We really have no idea what is behind this anti-social behaviour. It may be a general obnoxiousness. But the patterns are marked and strange enough to think it may be something deeper.

While ND may explain some of this presentation, nothing else the OP has said suggests this whereas there is a lot of information that suggests this woman has been indulged, sheltered and spoiled. Autism, ADHD and the like do not necessarily make you unkind - some of the most considerate people I have met have been ND clients. It may have been harder for them to learn how to be that way, or they may conceptualize it differently to NTs and have some blind spots, but being nasty and immature is not a given. Not everything has to be pathologized. Labelling it as having to be because of a condition is very rude to people with that condition.

Oh get over yourself. There is more evidence pointing away from this that toward it especially her reaction to feedback. And labelling everything as because of ND is a very common MN knee jerk reaction and its just wrong. ND conditions are not mental health problems.

Backactcha.

MNers tendency to attribute all kinds of arseholery to ND (and “diagnose” NPD at the drop of a hat) - doesn’t disaffirm its possibility here.

I well agree ND doesn’t make you unpleasant, and many can be very sensitive kind people, but you can certainly be both ND and obnoxious.

I wouldn’t even describe poking a waiter and demanding cake at a funeral at her age obnoxious it sounds disinhibited and disregulated.

I don’t agree there is more evidence pointing away than towards, her reaction to feedback and general lack of self-insight is a case in point.

So many armchair therapists and psychologists on here. If OP and her friends have had 20 years of this she's not going to change so does it really matter? . How many women post on here about husbands and partners who haven't grown up and behave as though they are still in their 20s? I don't see their behaviours being analysed in this way. Most people comment that he's a knobhead and advise ltb.

I had a friend who had a job, flat, relationships but despised anyone she felt was too socially conforming. It was her 'thing' and how she saw herself. Fine as an affectation when we were in our 20's and had few responsibilities but not so much when everyone around her was moving on with their lives. Saying we weren't going out because we were saving resulted in - you're so boring, what happened to you, comments about selling out and abandoning principles. I could go on. Her parents didn't help matters. Why grow up if you don't have to?
The car incident - On her 35th birthday she phoned me, crying so much I thought someone had died. Nope, her dad had bought the wrong car. She'd been dropping hints and he bought the wrong one.
The gig incident - I bought expensive tickets for DP's 40th birthday. All I got was crying and complaints about why she wasn't included, was he controlling me and how he was trying to break up our friendship. No, I had the audacity to buy my partner a birthday present that only involved me and him.
Sometimes people, even women, can just be annoying as fuck. You will find it incredibly cathartic if you reduce contact @Spaghettihoops2026

@Spaghettihoops2026

It’s ran it course, OP, let her go and move on. You won’t regret it.

To be fair the person who sent the text is the awful one foreign do fucking judgemental

I'm autistic ... the getting up and smoking is the only thing I relate to, id rather die than phone anyone asking for help let alone 3 in the morning and defo wouldn't be going out in large friendship groups .... ran away a long time ago from all that. I'm inappropriate though, have zero filter, but not in a poking waiter kind of way, or in a rude way like ur mate, it's just not like that

So am I, and don’t act like this either. We all present differently. If you’ve met one person with autism you’ve met one person with autism. The point was that missing social cues can often be a tell tale sign, as mentioned upthread. Not every autistic person will act the exact same way as you.

Honestly, OP, just block her. She is a drain and a complete pain in the arse. I have no idea how you have tolerated her nonsense for so long. Poking the waiter?! I'm amazed she wasn't kicked out.

Ugghh…if there is one thing I cannot bear it is immature adults, both male and female. I recognise so much of that behaviour OP. Often, immature people were spoiled as kids. Ditch them. Life is too short.