What to do when you’ve outgrown a friend

[cheesysitwots]

I have a friend who I’m now finding it quite draining to be around. She has the same conversations every time I see her. She admits she’s massively insecure and I’ve noticed that everything she says is either to bring herself up or to bring others down. She will just talk at you about things that have nothing much to do with you. Half of the time I sit there wondering why she’s telling me.

we have family connections and have been friends for a while so wonder what I should do. I don’t want to lose her completely. But feel we have become different people.

I think friendships can be a bit like a bad marriage, it's easy to get stuck into patterns of relating that are hard to break. I've had a couple of friendships that I just completely let go of for a few years and then it all sort of organically regenerated itself later on when there was enough water under the bridge for us to have changed enough. One of them reminds me a bit of your friend, in that whenever I saw her she just moaned about work and how stupid people were. it got a bit tiresome. We're good friends again now and have fun together, but I think we needed that gap to grow a bit in different directions. I'd find a way to just quietly drop this and then just see what happens over time. Not answering calls, or being slow to get back to someone, usually does the trick. I'm not sure a frank conversation helps, since she is probably incapable of recognising or changing the things that irritate you about her right now, but if you feel you owe her that you could try.

Be too busy. If that doesn’t work, be too boring.