Friendship

When we are all dealing with our own unique condition, how does one determine whether a friend is toxic and needs to be eliminated, or if it's worth working on? Many blogs and articles claim a toxic friend should be dropped, and sometimes it's not as simple.

What do you expect from a friend and your friendship with that person? If you feel someone expecting too much from you, is it already "doomed" to become complicated if expectations are not in agreement?

Dealing with an overly sensitive and needy friend who is clever enough to figure out how she looks to others. In her eyes, she is a victim and overly sensitive to the status of our friendship. In mine, she is half manipulator, and when I'm feeling sympathetic, I second guess my assumption. I really start to wonder if she is just an innocent victim. Then I remember the parties and vacations she has crashed and dominated, and the stories of mine she's stolen. Always wrote it off on her self-proclaimed ADD, air-headedness, and anxiety.

In addition to the friendship questions above, how do you know if someone is manipulating you or if you are being paranoid due to fear of engulfment?

I really can't speak to the relationship you have with the woman you wrote about, but I can share some of the criteria I have regarding friendships.

I will go the mile to help a friend if they are having emotional problems or are needy in some way. However, if they don't seem to be helping themselves along as some point, I generally cool the relationship down. In my younger years I would help people and I found that they weren't doing much about their situation and as a result I was being used to help with the same thing over and over - which does no good for them or me.

At some point in my life I started to distance myself from childhood friends who were homophobic, racist, misogynistic, etc. And I certainly didn't hang with new people who have these qualities.

Maybe someone else does things differently, but as I got older I didn't care about having lots of friends. Those friends that I do have are good at give and take, and are generally down to earth.

Lastly, I tend to cool down relationships that I don't want to have in life - communicate less. Only once in my life have I ever told someone not to contact me and to stay away from me.

Otter.