#44 Drama queen is wearing out welcome—and friend's ears / Friend setting up friend to fail
Dear Tanya: In the last year, my friend has changed boyfriends like socks. That’s one issue, but the thing that aggravates me is I must deal with my friend’s dramatic productions. She falls for Mr. Dim-witted, Mr. Thick-skinned, or someone like herself who switches girlfriends like television channels. Her weekends go something like this: Friday, she’ll have Tyler take her shopping in Waikiki. Saturday, she’ll have James take her to a UH football game, and Sunday brunch is reserved for Cal and his family. She never makes time for her friends, except when the boys are busy or her paper heart is ripped out. I know she’s hungry for attention, but I don’t feel like feeding it in spoonfuls. Our friendship, although wearing, means more to me than cloth to a costume designer. However, she is the distance of a pinhead from pricking my patience bubble. What should I do? Better yet, what should she do? Growing up, although a possible solution, is not a quick solution. TIRED EARS IN KAHALA
Tanya replies: Well, I’ve been there myself, the listening ear for someone forever looking for a way out of a self inflicted crisis.
It’s like being addicted to a bad soap opera. You get so attached to the characters involved that you really want to know what happens.
If your friend didn’t confide in you, you’d feel left out of her life. Yet hearing about it can be so draining. It makes you wonder if letting her always play the victim is just indulging her melodrama.
Just like a bad soap opera, sometimes you have to change the channel. If you can’t take it, cut the conversation short and tell her you’ll call her next week to catch up instead of listening to her daily does of self pity.
This isn’t about what she should do, because you can’t make her grow up or change her ways.
This is about what you should do. You could tell her (in a kind way) if you think she’s acting childish, choosing the wrong men, or bringing on her own troubles.
It wouldn’t hurt to ask yourself if you’re jealous that she’s the center of attention.
The best thing to do might be to keep listening but take a step back. Even if it’s a close friend or roommate, and you can’t give yourself physical distance from her, at least mentally put it into prospective.
Consider it the finesse of friendship. If she’s the kind of loyal friend who is always in your corner and provides an ear when it’s your turn, then just letting her vent is part of the give and take.
If her friendship is so important, this is how you complement each other’s traits. Your ears will be tired sometimes, and it will be worth it because you are getting something out if it. That’s the price of a good friend. —Tanya
Gabby's Reply
Hi Tired: Who would say the same thing about you? Hint—you drove this person away very early in the relationship, and, they never told you why they stopped interacting with you. The reason I ask is because your letter reveals your own addiction to dramatization. Nowhere in your letter do you share your experience. It’s all judgmental mind stuff (“Dim-witted” “Thick-skinned”), cute and clever analogies (“…sox”. “…television channels” “heart ripped out”). My point being, your letter is a perfect example of communicating to be right, so as to have the same problem when you are through writing, as opposed to communicating responsibly to identify you as the source of the problem so as to disappear it. For example: "The way I have been communicating is producing an undesirable result and I can’t see how I am doing it. Coaching please."
In consulting it’s a given that whatever a client says is their problem, that’s definitely not it. Your letter does not address your problem.
For example: Let’s say you are at the very beginning of a conversation with your friend and she says sentence #1. It causes you to have an experience and most likely it triggers a judgment. Your experience is upset, or frustration, or confusion, and your judgment is that what she said was stupid. What you communicate next, your sentence #1, creates all that comes afterwards. You have been blaming her for the results of your #1’s. You have not been communicating from your experience with her.
For example: The first thing out of your mouth (your #1 sentence) after she says something that triggers upset or a judgment should be: “I’m not comfortable with that.” or, “That doesn’t feel good.” or, “I’m having an upset.” It's obvious that you have her in your life to support you in communicating openly, honestly, and spontaneously.
To begin with, you are dramatizing an accumulation of upsets. You don’t know how to resolve an upset through to mutual satisfaction and therefore you drag each unresolved upset into the next interaction.
Next: She reveals something about you. If you were being the person you think you are (or would like to be) you’d be having a positive effect on her life. As it is, she invalidates you. Quite possibly she is a source of embarrassment, that is to say, maybe others judge you for hanging around her. Perhaps others think you choose an immature friend so that you get to look like the better adjusted of the two.
True friends complement and empower each other. They facilitate each other though the pitfalls. Those stuck doing their imitation of communication cause (support) each other in remaining stuck repeating undesirable behaviors.
My sense is that there is fear in your relationship with her. You could be afraid that if you told her your truths, shared your experiences and your thoughts, that she’d get upset and stop relating with you. The tragedy is that without your honest and spontaneous feedback, she will have to keep doing all these things until someone else has the courage to tell her that her behavior destroys personal relationships. Actually it’s usually not courage that prompts the truth. Most often it’s triggered by pent up anger.
I don’t get that you have communicated directly to her all of what you’ve said here, especially, what her friendship means to you. I do know that friends who are whole and complete with each other (meaning that all withholds, truths, perpetrations, and acknowledgments, are verbally acknowledged to each other) do not treat each other as you two are. More specifically, something about how you have been communicating with her is causing her to treat you abusively. If you don’t see the abuse then you are in denial, which reveals a serious problem. The problem being, that you will hang out in your own personal relationship, unconsciously creating (intending) abuse and not extracting yourself from it—for reasons. It’s possible to love someone and not relate with them (interact with them) until they choose to heal.
How will you advise your child when she comes to you with the same problem?
Two more thoughts:
It could be said that you are setting it up for her to fail big time. It appears that she uses and misuses others, lest of course you know that she treats and repays her dates for their gas, expenses, etc. I mention this because your silence could have repercussions for you; others could be watching you being used and be remaining silent.
Quite possibly she is setting it up for you to parent her. Perhaps a parent said (and is being defied) or failed to say, “Pay your own way on dates or make sure you’ve spent as much on them as they have on you.” I know she knows this. So it's possible she is counting on you in supporting her in relating with integrity. Thanks Gabby