Letters to the Editor
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Everybody needs to clean house every once in a while
LW,
Don't take it so personally that your friends stopped listening. They say your taste buds change every 7 years or something, so wouldn't it be safe to say your friends should, too? Take it as an opportunity to branch out.
I've been in your (ex) lady-friend's shoes with one ex of my own, and it was totally healthy to cut it off. I mean, hey, she was going through tough times, you tried to get some support from her for your OWN tough times, and guess what? She doesn't have the patience to both listen to your shit and deal with her own. Maybe your friends are the same way.
Either way, find a new place. For some reason, people have a hang-up about helping themselves. You're narcissistic? OK - then helping yourself should be easy. Chances are, if your friends see you helping yourself, they'll come back to you (or let you back into their circle). Moping in your misery won't accomplish jack crap. Doing something about it will.
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Hey, me too!
I was a monster and lost most of my friends in an awful, friend-shedding six months a few years ago. It was absolutely terrible and devastating, and it wasn't completely fair--it was a perfect storm of awful events. I was very depressed about family and work and hence being difficult, whiny, boring and occasionally just a little crazy. My friends--or people I thought of as my friends--ditched out on me because they were afraid of the depression and the occasional emotional outburst. That's right, grown-ups, many of whom were nice liberal types in social services, freaked out because I was depressed and not myself. It really hurt, especially because it was perfectly true that I had really, genuinely been difficult and annoying.
I didn't talk to any of them for two or three years, even though this was hard because I was lonely and because I too have an appetite for drama. I spent time with the two friends I still had. I got my life on a more stable footing (better job, better apartment, better physical health) and stopped being so depressed. I was still angry at them and at myself.
What I had to ask myself was what I wanted from friends and friendship. Was I choosing friends with whom I could really be close and really build trust, or was I choosing friends mostly for glamour value? (In this case, sparkly intelligence, wit, culture; people I admired rather than people I could envision being close to.)
I think I had been picking friends more or less aspirationally. That sounds silly for someone in her late twenties, but it had been masked by the nature of the aspirations--I wanted friends who were smart and accomplished, not friends who were, you know, popular and well-dressed. But it added up to the same thing, friendships that weren't as close as I wanted them to be, friendships based on me pretending to be just as smart and accomplished as they were. Naturally, those friendships fell apart when the "real", depressed, anxious me put in an appearance.
All this is horribly cliched, one of those things you genuinely think will never happen to you.
In the end, I rebuilt the lost friendships, but they're much less important to me now than they were. I have other, closer friends who know that I sometimes get depressed and snappish (they themselves do the same thing).
You should probably look at your friendships. Did anything nag at you about them? Did you really feel you could trust your friends? Did they trust you? Did you and they only tell each other about things that showed you in a favorable light? (Or as messed up in interesting ways?) Do you share values? Are they headed for lives of much greater wealth and security than you are? (My old friends were always puzzled by my then-marginal life...not because they were bad people or because I was somehow more "authentic" but because we really didn't share too many goals.)
Although this isn't my particular problem, it's worth considereing: do you pick friends with whom you share bitterness or dissatisfaction and not much else? Watch out for that too.
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Questions & Answers for the LW
Q: Needy, whiny, goes to extremes, OK -- but is that reason enough to shun me?
A: Yes, absolutely.
Q: Why?
A: Because you're acting like an asshole.
You have every right to be an asshole if you so choose. But please know that your friends also have every right to choose NOT to involve a whiny, needy drama queen/king in their lives.
Q: So how do I rectify the situation/get my friends back?
A: Quit acting like an asshole.
Most drama queens/kings, in my experience, are self-absorbed, bored attention whores who don't truly care about anyone else but themselves. If they did care, they would realize that there is no reason to needily seek and create melodrama, when run-of-the-mill life and positive relationships are infinitely more fulfilling.
So how do you quit? Turn your gaze from inward to the outside world and the people in it. Stop asking what your friends can do for you and contribute to your life - and see what you can contribute to theirs.
Look - everyone has their dark days. And believe it or not, true friends will be supportive of you through such times...if you show that you genuinely care about them as well, and if they know you would return the support if/when they themselves were facing adversity.
But most people are perceptive enough to know that drama queens would actually get off on a friend's adversity, instead of being supportive/sympathetic. And - once more - a self-absorbed whiner can never truly care about someone else...and thus will always make a terrible friend.
So quit being an asshole, LW. Think of others, do good things for others, put your problems in perspective...and you will reap the rewards of companionship.
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life isn't a Friends episode and friends are nothing like "Friends"
Dear LW, what is happening to you happens to most of us in our thirties...suddenly friends start drifting away. It's okay it's just that you are getting older, they are getting older, and as people get older they weed out the annoying people. People weed you out, and you also weed people out. It's okay. You will will retain one or two worthy people and meet new people. You don't need an audience. Concentrate on your career for a while. I think you want to be in contact with these people so you can retain a link to the woman who spurned you. Move on. You will be okay.