Feeling Finished With My Socially Stunted "Friend"......

[MollyMurphy]

I have known this friend for 20 years but if I?m honest we have had very little in common for a long time. At 36 she seems to have made little social progress from when we were in high school - keeping with the whole mopey introverted teenage angst persona?.which has only been getting worse in the last few years IMO.

She and her husband had a son a year ago though and I thought that parenthood might bring her out of her funk shell and that it might finally give us some common ground again.

We've seen her and her husband a few times (always at their house) but overall I'd say she is just as hermit-like as she was before. Still, I just started maternity leave with DS2 and hoped that we could get out a bit together. So I instigated a get together with her this morning ? we arranged to take the kids for a walk. I agreed to come to her place on the other side of town because I know she loathes leaving the house. I jovially cautioned her in advance that a walk with my 2 year old will involve a lot of standing as he explores puddles and pokes this and that with a stick.

So this is how our walk turned out: I pushed a double stroller around with one hand through half melted spring snow (I?m not in the UK) while shepherding my energetic 2 year along??and she walked over half a street ahead with her sleeping child. WTF!? I could have walked with my kids alone in my own neighbourhood.

She did not ask me even ONE question about myself or the kids in 2 hours aside from a cursory ?how are you?? at the start. I felt like a Spanish Inquisitor whizzing questions at her in vain attempts to start a conversation.

She offered me no assistance whatsoever with the kids ? not even to hold my screaming baby while I fumbled to make his bottle with one hand. She didn?t put any of her sons few toys out to share with my toddler. I just gave up at a certain point and I wonder if she even noticed we only spoke to our respective children for the last 40min.

So as it stands parenting only serves to highlight how vastly different we are. I don?t care what her issues are at this point and am tempted to call her out on her constant sullen behaviour. Thank goodness for her son that her husband has more social skills because really, as much as she loves that child, she does nothing but sit around in her spotless house with him.

Don?t know why I?m posting really ? I guess I'm just disappointed want to vent. What my DH and I need is to meet some people we actually enjoy spending time with instead of hanging onto friends we have long outgrown. I can?t be alone in thinking it?s hard to make friends in your 30?s though?

Exasperated.

Does she invite you to do things or is it always you?

I ask because I'm pretty sure I'm a bit like your friend sometimes, I get depressed and want to isolate myself - BUT I would never ask someone to do something with me if I knew I was feeling a bit unsociable. But when people invite me to things, I would feel rude to constantly turn them down so I end up agreeing and feeling awkward the whole time.

I also have people who probably think they are friends but are actually arseholes, who I don't really want to spend time with at all. But I tend to ignore them and hope they get the message rather than agree to spend the day with them and behave like a twat.

If I don't contact her she always eventually contacts me.

I just though since we were both home that it would be an ideal time to reconnect, help her get out if confidence is part of the issue and allow our children some time to get to know each other - no wierd alterior motive really - I take my kids to various local playgroups and such so am not desperate for her to hang out with me.

What I do reflect on from responses like Spirited's, is that I need to accept her mental health (I know that is a part of it) and who she is or accept that I am not a good friend and drift off.

Go to toddler groups and chat, anyone has to be better than this silly woman!

Bless you Molly, It is hard to be a friend to a person with MH trouble If you have toddler and baby on the way it may be just it isn't the right time for you to be spending the time needed with her.

I think ignore curryeater's nasty post and yes, totally agree about the possible MH issues. Seems to me that MH issues or not, you don't need to put up with this crap. When my aunt was sectioned the dr told me, "Don't put up with her rudeness, it doesn't help her get better. And it is no good for you." In essence you become an enabler. If she does end up isolated possibly she will think to seek the professional help that will allow her to be a socially functioning person.

Can you discuss it with her DH?

Offer support, without being pushy?

Molly, perhaps I am taking it a bit too personally because I do find it hard to assert myself with some people. If someone said to me "let's go for a walk!" I might say yes, and then be a bit taken aback that the next bit is, "but, really slowly, at the pace of my two year old." - with no discussion about how that works for me or my child. I would find it hard to say "my baby needs to sleep at that time, and I have to push the pram at a certain pace to get them off, if I potter with your two year old my baby will grizzle". But ultimately it is my job to look after my baby so I would think "well she needs to potter with her 2 year old, she will surely understand that I have to walk at a regular pace with my baby" and then I get a bit upset when it turns out that some people think not doing what they want, or not doing everything together, is rude, or "socially stunted".

I am a self-sufficient person, I rarely borrow things or ask for help and am happy to do things like go alone to the cinema if it seems that no one else wants to see that film, so I am always a bit confused when I realise that others are expecting to bond into a little unit all the time. and also I get very very tired with people who have to talk all the time.

For me, that is not what friendship is, and I am quite happy to be silent some of the time with good friends because the more interesting thoughts and observations often follow silence rather than a rigidly maintained rhythm of question and answer about trivial factual things. While you were thinking, "will she never speak?" she may have been thinking "if only she would stop asking me when we bought the book cases and who did our drive and crap like that we could get onto a real conversation".

I know all this is pure speculation and the reality might be quite different, but I find your assumption that you are better than her and have skills that she doesn't have rather offensive. I am also offended by your implications that in some way she is failing her child by not being like you. In real life I think I would find you really hard work actually, which is maybe a bit blunt, and I am sure you are a lovely person in your own way - but I am just telling you for your own information that your social "skills" are probably as difficult for some as her "stuntedness" and it would be useful for you not to judge everyone as if there is a hierarchy.

I don't know why you've posted here, I really don't. You clearly don't like her and possibly the feeling is mutual. Like curryeater I would find you hard work in some ways.

Toomanyfionas, how was curryeater being nasty?
Jeez.

Pressed send too quickly.
Molly, I don't know you, only what you've written here, so you're right, people should not judge you.
But I think you have to be more honest with yourself. You're just fed up with her. If you're fed up with her - be frank about that and don't see her.
Don't try and justify it. You can't justify it. You feel angry with her for not 'manning up' - well, ok, man up yourself - admit you don't have the patience.
But then you have to accept that some people won't like that. You can't try to wash that away with 'I'm the reasonable one and she's the mental one'. You're not in sixth form now.

Curryeater you make some great points- I think we could be socially stunted friends together

If you don't want to be friends with her don't be friends with her no need to slag her off on an Internet forum

I knew something was bothering me about OP and after reading curry I realised that was what it was. I would find it hard work as well and have in the past had 'friends' like molly that seem to think I should be like them. Well spotted curry.