Selfish friend

Selfish friend

QUESTION:

your avatar   Confused (21)

Three years ago, I became very close friends with this girl (we will call her Shell). I met her through our job and we did everything together. I would see her more than I saw my boyfriend. Well she is almost exactly 1 year older than I am, and when she turned 21 she made a whole new bunch of friends and never called me. I would hear from her whenever there was a problem and she had no one else to talk to. My problem is now that I am 21, she is trying to come back into my life and I don't know if I should let her. I miss her and all the good times we had, but everyone tells me not to call her and that she is no good for me, and my family hates her.

What do I do? Do I call her or ignore her like she did me, and go on with my life?

ANSWER:

    Tony Schirtzinger,

The most important thing I have to say to you is that you need to make your own decisions rather than relying on other people's advice (maybe including mine...!).

Make your decision about this friendship based on YOUR feelings about this person. Think about the good times you had together in the past and about how she changed since then, and then make your own "best prediction" of what you think things would be like it you became friends again.

Your decisions about this friendship should be based on how you are treated when you are actually with this person - and you don't need to make any long-term decisions at all. If you think you want to give it a try, spend some time with her. If she treats you well, spend some more time with her. If she doesn't, the best thing to do would be to tell her you don't think you can be good friends anymore (and if you don't want to be so "blunt" about it I guess you could simply be "busy" the next few times she calls to see if she picks up the hint).

You said: "everyone tells me not to call her and that she is no good for me and my family hates her." I wonder if the problem you are having isn't complicated by your desire to please all these other people - rather than simply doing what you know you WANT to do and then trusting yourself to handle whatever comes up.

Please focus on how this person can be expected to treat you, and make your decisions based on this.

Thanks for writing!

Tony Schirtzinger, ACSW

This question was answered by Tony Schirtzinger. For more information visit: http://helpyourselftherapy.com/

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