This could end up being a long rant, but I will try to not give TOO many details. Basically I have had this friend, let's call her Diane, for around 15 years. I first got to know her when I worked behind a bar, she would come in with her friends for lunch and we got chatting and met up for coffee and clicked.
We would see each other maybe once every three weeks on average, sometimes a lot less, it would depend a lot on family and work commitments. But we do talk a lot on the phone.
Over the past two to three years I have spent much more time with her and we have had more of a social life together. For the most part it is good and it is fun. But then she can really become quite cold, it's almost as if she flips and decides that she cannot be bothered with what I am saying or spending what she seems to define as her precious time listening to me or to other people. Listening, sharing and caring, though, are kind of prerequisites for most friendships. Or so I thought.
Some examples. We were out with a mutual friend for coffee. Mutual friend has fibromyalgia and another chronic fatigue problem, and I had read some useful information about it. So I was busy sharing that with her and mutual friend was very interested. Diane suddenly shouts, in the middle of me talking "OMG I was sunbathing naked in the garden and the neighbour SAW ME!!! OMG what do you think about THAT???"
We just sat in shock. Really bizarre. After derailing our conversation - in which she was free to contribute something relevant - and by no means excluded - she proceeded to bang on about herself. Something she seems to be rather fond of doing, as I am discovering.
She has also complained about this mutual friend behind her back and called her whiney, entitled and negative.
Last week I was really sick with a nasty bug and told her. We were talking on the phone. She changed the subject, spent half an hour complaining about her family, then talking about herself and how she needed to focus on herself more, then said she had been on the phone too long and had to go.
I did not hear from her for over a week. She did not ask me how I was, did I need anything, nothing.
By the way, she has zero commitments, no children, and does not work. Increasingly, I am noticing that the minute I bring anything up that is remotely negative, she shuts me down. The other day she did this as I was talking about a job offer which is really important to me and I have to make some major decisions. Actually a positive... But I have to fulfill specific requirements. As I was right in the middle of telling her about it, she shouted "ARGHHHH MY KEYYYYYYYYYYYYYS WHERE DID I PUT THEM ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..... oh THERE they are". Then started going on about something else... then stopped and said "Sorry, what was it you were saying?"
Variations of the above have happened so often, that I have started to pull back from telling her anything about my life. I have also noticed that she is crude and always turning every conversation around to either sex or something sex-related. She seems to want to cheapen every interaction using the word shag all the time. She also seems to think that everything can be resolved and attracted merely by simply positive thinking instead of getting off your arse and taking action.
I think the last straws came when I gave her birthday gifts and she did not thank me for them. She has not even mentioned them. I spent quite a lot of money (more fool me). Recently she also borrowed an expensive and rather beautiful book from me and has denied that I ever loaned it to her.
We had talked about taking a holiday together. There is no way I could face two days with her now, never mind a week - but we were on the phone and had spent over an hour with me searching for a deal because she is not computer literate. She announced she was "fed up, it should not be THIS hard, its doing my head in AND I spend FAR too much time on the phone and my evening is gone AGAIN. I realise I need this time for MYSELF if I am going to change my life". WTAF??
Whether this is abuse or not, there is something mentally wrong with this person. I guess I just wanted confirmation that I am not being unreasonable in wanting nothing more to do with her.