Handling friend's boring conversation

[Thaigal]

Everytime I see my friend she is continuously going on and on about her sister in law, how much she dislikes her, all the things she's done to her (like throw her christmas card away) laughing about how other people are reacting to her (leaving her out when buying christmas presents etc) and generally just slagging her off.

I've met her sister in law and she is annoying but surely she doesnt deserve to have her cards thrown away or to be left out at christmas etc...anyway that isnt anything to do with me really but friend goes on and on about it all as soon as she seems me all the time and never shuts up about it, I'm starting to dread seeing her as I know what she'll be going on about.

Anyone else got any experience of this? I'm quite an anti-social person anyway so it doesnt take much to make me go off someone but she's the only friend I've kept for this amount of time (sounds sad I know) and I feel a bit annoyed that it's starting to become a chore to see her.

Message withdrawn

Buy her this book "Dealing with Relatives" by Brinkman and Kirschner for christmas. It has lots of constructive advice about dealing with hard to handle relatives ( actually I think the title gives it away).

You can give it to her in a jokey fun way.If she then continues to go on about her sil you can ask her if she has tried any of the techniques in the book.

If this doesn't work change the subject every time she mentions her, this works really well as she will realise that she hasn't got an audience for her subject.

I do this because my parents go on and on about my aunt. Yes she can be a pain but my uncle has been married to her for over 30 years and nothing constructive is gained by constantly slagging her.