8 Ways To Destroy Your Friendships
Dear Belladonna Rogers,
I don’t have as many guys as friends as I used to. Sure, some die and others move away, but I’ve been thinking that maybe I’ve played a part in getting where I am today. My wife and I don’t get invited places anymore. What makes people end friendships or drift apart? I know I’ve made my share of mistakes. What I’m wondering is: have I made them all?
Lonely Guy in Las Vegas
Dear Lonely Guy,
Friendships end in many ways, none of them pleasant. Other than the strains of geography or lack of any sense of commonality, friendships die when one friend reaches a boiling point, a point of no return, a point beyond which apologies and promises just don’t matter anymore.
To stay in a friendship after mistreatment that goes beyond one’s limits is to invite a tsunami of drek that even an ardent masochist would decline.
Some of us have lower boiling points than others, but under the following circumstances, almost anyone would say, “Basta! Enough!”
Note: This column concerns only friendships in your personal life, and does not apply to professional relationships in the workplace.
Here, then, are eight surefire ways to destroy friendships with your male friends. As it happens, they’ll work equally well with women. Few friendships will survive affronts such as these.
You forgot to include ‘Cut off all communication for a year or two because you’re too big of a coward to talk about your problems.’ Worked for me!
I have all the same friends I had when I was 10-years-old. The trick is effort. What happens is that when someone doesn’t hear from a longtime friend for a while, they start to resent the fact that they haven’t called. Pick up the phone — it dials out as well as receives.
I would write more, but I’m on my way to the house of a friend I’ve known for 30+ years. Tomorrow, unless he cancels, I am taking another pal, a man who has been my best friend for 40 years out to lunch. He took me out for my birthday in December, as did another buddy, who I also know for 40 years.
Well, at least now we know that “Belladonna” really is a girl! This is a guy question, and she doesn’t really get it. The cardinal sins she lists have nothing to do with guys who are aging and their loneliness, the lack of close friends. It’s…something else.
“Pot, meet Kettle.”
To the contrary, I actually think she’s right on the money. I’ve been on the receiving end of some of these behaviors over the years and sadly in my youth I’ve committed a few of these sins myself.
Yes, I should have been clearer. I agree with you that all of the things on her list will damage or destroy friendships. I just meant to say that there’s also an intangible thing that happens, something having to do with the male psyche. And maybe the human condition.
Thanks, Darcy. You, too, IMO are clearly on the money.
Men (that includes me!) often have either overt “training” program as youths, or no guidance whatsoever except a feminist single mom and the mysandric media, regarding how to have self-esteem that is not over-the-top, or how to be a reasonably normal human being with male qualities appreciated after puberty, or how to be remotely masculine.
Those same extremes make extreme friendships or no friendships at all. Unfortunately for relationships, how a man can be a best friend matters a great deal to those men’s wives, as well.
I loved your answer to the nosey neighbor in #2. You are far less evil than I. When asked “What about you?” and knowing the outcome, I’m likely to explain that I’m building a steam-powered ornithopter and planning to fly it to Uruguay to avoid any more alien abductions. Let her spread THAT rumor! (I am the guy who put the pink flamingos in his front yard just to needle the HOA.)
And now for the slow ways to kill a friendship:
You’re boring. You tell the same stories, the same jokes and always steer the conversation to your favorite topics. I’ve got you on tape, I don’t need you live anymore.
You can’t leave your politics at home. It’s unwise to talk politics and religion unless you’re positive of your audience and then it’s still unwise.
I have to do all the work. I organize the get-togethers, you just show up and mooch. Take up some of the load.
You’re no longer fun to be around. If you don’t like your company then why should I? Leave your misery at home because I’ve got enough of my own.
It’s easy to acquire acquaintances, just pick an activity and be an interesting and cheerful participant. But, friendships take a lot of work. Your friends choose to spend their precious time with you because you’re somebody worth spending time with. Your former friends choose to spend their time elsewhere because they got a better offer.
Good additions. I’ll add:
You go on and on about the latest list of aches, pains and ailments you’re enduring. Yeah, I know a lot of people get into that habit as they get older but it gets tiresome in a hurry.
You only come around when you need something. You’re never available when someone needs something from you.
My wife and I have lost more than one friendship due to gossip. In one case, we found out the wife was telling some serious lies about us to others. We never talked to them again after that. Gossip is evil.
Those lists of aches & pains,Larry, have a name: they’re called “Organ Recitals.”
I never heard “organ recitals” before, Erin, but it fits!
all of the above….
although, I wonder, if this person is in Las Vegas, with the highest foreclosure rate in the country, if possibly the friends are in financial difficulties, and do not wish to expose their own personal flaws and failures to the world. I know I tend to disappear when things aren’t going swimmingly, or I’ve failed in some fashion or another.
Great Clips!!!!
What about the friends who never reciprocate? They accept your invitations time and again, eat and drink everything in sight, apparently enjoy themselves, and never invite you back. Then you hear they had a social gathering and you weren’t invited.
Those aren’t friends, Marie, those are people who are too weak to tell you they are not interested.
Here’s another category that comes to my mind: Users. I have a neighbor who I thought valued my friendship until she & her husband built their own swimming pool. Then all of a sudden we became “chopped liver” to her. I have also experienced the phenomenon Marie describes above. I think in some cases people just don’t appreciate the efforts you put forth to establish a friendship like they should (this seems to be particularly true of neighbors versus people you befriend through work).
what a brisk tour of epic social fails!
You’re right: I haven’t seen one friend since her husband laid his loathesome charm slime trail on me. She’s marvelous: I don’t want to be in the same room with him. She has friends, he doesn’t. And I haven’t managed to visit her independently since then. My bad. And you’re right- he hasn’t got any friends at all.
and I’m working on not having some spouses around, b/c they humiliate, right in front of me, people that I love. I’m hoping the famous arguments I’ve heard of means that the ones I love are standing their ground in private.
And these failings- aren’t just aimed at their spouse- they fail the people tangentially around them. The Bickerson will humiliate a waiter at a restaurant, will be an unsafe driver, will be a dangerous children’s volunteer league coach….
at least two family members have been alienated pretty thoroughly b/c they started in on the kids. The kids are turning teen, and they started ranting about how rude and unloving and disrespectful teenagers are. Well…maybe theirs…but statistically? 85% of teenagers say that they are close to their parents, respect their parents and are most influenced by their parents. My kids don’t need that sort of free-floating malice and character assassination within ear-shot. I live with my kids- I don’t live with them. I’m willing to cut bait and move on.
I wonder if there is a digital divide as well? I don’t keep up except by e-mail. The regular mail is a slow, expensive tangle of awkwardness.
I love the terminology! Definitely it’s more productive to “cut the bait” and move on. Some things just can’t be repaired.
So we go into new friendships with better understanding of people and better technique, and we meet roughly the same risks, rascals, and surprisingly decent people – so long as we keep a specific distance to guard our fragile natures from recording an observation, translating it into an assumption, and delivering that first insult.
Friends spouses are always X-factors; rare and super-fun when all four people like each other.
That was my post where I missed adding my name.
I’m working on a clearer understanding of this nasty loop: the observe, translate, and label loop. Every observation is an assumption that was translated. Something’s coming out of our mouths toward someone else. What was our latest assumption?
CSLewis talks about this. It’s not in screwtape, but screwtape is funny and takes on all the grintchiness of human relations..okay- the one where he goes on about ” love your neighbor like yourself.” and his take is that he can always find an excuse for his own poor behavior, and that’s the understanding he can extend to his neighbor. That they might have a sore mouth from a tooth-pulling, or their toast was burned, or they didn’t get any sleep the night before- that they aren’t actively malicious- just out of sorts and it ought to be forgiven.
and, honestly, for insults- either don’t say them in public, or write the person off entirely beforehand. I have an unlovely email where I say mean things about someone I will never talk to, in the first place, at all. They’d been rude to my friend. They will never be my friend, anyway. What sense of entitlement and ability to judge makes it easy to say rude things about people you care for? I have friends that do things I don’t understand- but that’s what I say ” I don’t understand” not- “you are so wrong and uncool about this.” I mean, I spend enough time being wrong and uncool and not-understandable, as it is. I’m lucky they give me enough grace-space to remain friends.
Bit I also have an “acquaintance” basket, for people I’m around, and am not necessarily always going to defend and choose their side for. But I also don’t speak ill of them. I don’t know how hard they worked to get to where they are, as it is. I’m usually amazed, when I find out. The levels of hope and joy and hard work and grace, in general, in this country, are amazingly high. Even my MIL, whom I’ve been trashing, has had to use great amounts of grace and discipline to get to her happy spot. I never credit her enough, which is my fault. She is usually very kind to me, even when I’m looking at her in a perplexed fashion. She’s from a place where, I think, most teenagers were rude,or she was so shy and tender that everyone seemed rude by just being brash and happy. I can’t tell.
I think that’s what made the Occupy camps so fascinating to some- this was one of the few outbreaks of sloth, decay and despair we’ve ever seen. Apparently, even Phish and Grateful Dead concerts are positive hotbeds of community kindness, capitalism, and personal journey joy. Who knew? An etsy seller making incredible sweater coats learned her sewing skills following the Grateful Dead. She’s now the main article in Altered Couture, and has bought a farmhouse with a workshop, to continue manufacturing her coats.http://www.etsy.com/listing/52563148/dream-coat-by-katwise-upcycled-sweater
well, that was talking about family members. The spouse and I finally came to an understanding. It’s really pretty brutal and unfriendly, all things considered. His mother is not invited to stay the night- we go visit her. The visits are pretty short, as well. My parents, likewise, have been told we are not up to hosting visitors. I love my dad, and he’s fun to be around, so it’s a pretty big cut for me. Spouse doesn’t care for him, so it was a hard trade.
It’s pretty basic logistics- our house is tiny. When someone visits it goes from cozy and cheerful to distressingly overwhelming crowded in about 15 minutes. That’s what we talked about- that there wasn’t room. But the real reason is that his mother, who has always unrestrainedly gossiped, started in on the kids. I don’t need my children hearing a license to behave atrociously. I always wondered why they behaved like maddened Dr Seuss characters after they’d been around her alone.
She’s now started on the obnoxious, heartless teenager bit. I’m enough pentecostal to not want curses uttered in my house, that are designed to land on my kids. The woman across the street pulled her kids from one school for exactly that reason, so I don’t think I’m over-reacting. My two oldest boys are within inches of my height- they’ll be taller than me by age 12- I don’t need them hearing that they are untrustworthy thugs who are cruel to their mothers, like all teenage boys. Or that they are violent, self-centered and untrustworthy, if they go into sports. They are already in sports. Or that they will be seduced by slutty tramps (direct quote)She called my husbands’ co-workers and classmates sluts, in HIGH SCHOOL, when nobody was doing anything- they just didn’t go to her miserable little church. He was a lifeguard, his friends were lifeguards, and they were in work-clothes, to their eyes, not sashaying around in lingerie. They were cheerleaders, he was in football, they were all studying for college, and nobody was dating anybody else. the boy got one date in high school- to the prom.
The lifeguards at the pool here are all VBS leaders. One is headed to the Army, one is headed to medical school, two are headed to nursing school, one is headed to the Marines. I know this, b/c they saw my oldest son’s “crew leader” VBS shirt, and started talking crew leader shop with him. Do you think my son thinks of himself as a mom-beater, slacker, self- centered, ignorant loser? He is already planning how to earn a scholarship, already planning how to handle AP homework, already planning on a high school job, already planning on how he’ll team up with his best friend for VBS crew this year, and doing push-ups so he can do piggy-backs for little crew-members more easily. He’s involved in church in other ways, too, around grown men, working with them. He’s a good kid with his own opinions and sense of how to do things. I’m proud of him already.
I just email my dad every day, to let him know that I love him.
But for friends? Honestly, if you only ever mention the good parts about your friends? People listen, and see if they match up or not, when deciding to get closer. If you are only around charming, kind, funny, smart, good people- people will see if they can fit into that.You don’t have to announce they are good people- just mention what they do, or what they are like. What pleases you will not necessarily please another, so they see what you value that way. I’m pretty fortunate that my friends are all really all-around amazing, so it’s easy for me to speak well of them.
If you only mention their flaws? People match to that, as well.
Who would hound a friend as they hounded Clinton? You see, partial truth may be more damaging than any lie.
The love affair with this sleaze just won’t ever end for some. He was a sleaze and a rapist as AG of Arkansas, he used state troopers to troll for women as governor and he was pure sleaze for eight years in the White House. Sorry to smash your dreams of him, but that’s what and who he was.
One sure sign, that a friendship is going nowhere is when your “friends” decide that you are an appropriate audience for their current multi level marketing scheme. I have had this happen twice in my life. It pretty much killed the friendship both times.
Here are a few to consider:
Took two to civil court to get money back I loaned, actually put a Sheriffs sale on both of them. One paid and the other kept moving, so I took a lose for a few thousand.
Many friends over the years lied and they were gone, and some have committed serious crime, which I DO NOT tolerate.
One took to regular usage of cocaine with alcohol and then died from liver poisoning.
One took to downer drugs for back pain from the service (NAM) and his heart stopped from too many, Zanex bars and many others. Family intervention failed.
Never kept up with High School friends, moved too much through the years.
My best friend is my wife – END OF STORY
another home-run for Belladonna Rogers. “Doormats are like toilets: everyone wants to have one, but no one wants to be one. Friends don’t demean their friends with brusqueness and rudeness.” All my children will know this line by Easter.
You are without a doubt my favorite writer.
When you write your book, count me in
Dennis Prager has pointed out that one has to “date” for friends, just as much as for a lover or prospective marital partner. Expect to put as much effort into finding and keeping friends as you would lovers. Neither will just drop into your life, nor stay around just for the hell of it.
Great article. I would add tardiness and last minute blow-offs. I have dumped some friends because they are always late, and I do mean always, and a few that will make plans, commit, and then when something or someone else comes along that they would rather do they blow you off.
Last year I lost two really good friends of 30 years. I miss them and it’s sad but what is done is done and I don’t think there is any going back, the damage is done. Both parties played a role in it, it wasn’t one sided. The older friendships are the hardest to lose. In this day and age it is really hard to connect and make new best friend type relationships. The older you get the harder it is.
I know how hard it is as you get older. Women, especially, fall into the trap of structuring their friendships around what their kids are doing, and don’t maintain adult relationships with people of similar interests. Couples friendships can be unstable by definition since you have greatly increased the odds of one of the foursome not liking one of the others.
For the last four years, I have never been happier.
I found myself at loose ends when my youngest child left home. My husband and I tried to pursue one of our mutual interests as a couple but it didn’t work out. We weren’t meeting the right kinds of people. I ended up returning to a sport that I didn’t have the time or money for when my kids were small and now I have plenty of friends, none of which, have Obama stickers on their cars.
An interesting list.
Two things caused me to sever long-term friendships with two close male friends. First, I surveyed the landscape and decided that I was outgrowing the increasingly little that we still had in common. Whereas our time spent together partying was once a distraction from our professional responsibilities, priorities had become inverted. I simply didn’t wish any longer to join them in avoidance behaviors by doubling down on non-productive, adolescent excesses.
Second, they (perhaps as a result of the first cause) became consistently unreliable. No matter how far in advance we planned something that we all agreed we wanted to do together (the last straw was a summer trip to a lake with our meaningful others), they would invariably call at the figurative last minute to report that something (I suspect the compulsive partying, and the consequently intolerable labor of preparation) was going to prevent them from carrying through. I just walked away from the friendships and never looked back. Salud, guys.
So I might suggest adding two other factors that destroy friendships: failure to mature and flakiness.
It’s become increasingly difficult for Conservatives to stay friends with Liberals. They have opposing world views, constrained vs. unconstrained.
And so many of my Liberal friends are just plain nasty.
I’ve learned to watch the charges they make against the Right – for example, that we fail at being civil – and realize that THEY are the one’s lacking in civility. They think nothing of making the crassest of slurs and assuming that I agree with them Fighting back … turning the charge back at them is good sport … but it doesn’t make for many close friendships.
Great timing on this list.
I recently decided I had surrounded myself with people that I have nothing in common with. I have no opinions, interests, economic similarities, background or anything else in common with these selfish twits.
I twisted myself into knots over the last two decades trying to figure out what I had done that 90% of them hadn’t.
Their lack of empathy is attrocious. Their lack of knowledge is unforgiveable, their disrespect all-encompassing, but insulting my wife? That’s suicidal behavior.
No better friend, no worse enemy.
What a waste of time. Why does life seem to be made up of wasted time?
Just a couple more friendship killers—loan a friend some money, or hire one for your business. Won’t take too long and poof no more money, no more friend. And hiring one—nothing gains you more respect that to hire a barely competent friend who eventually you have to terminate because nobody can stand working with them, not even you.
Another good column BR.
In all of my frienships over my 71 years,I have done for my buddies and they have done for me without keeping a scorecard as to who “is ahead”. I liked it that way. I recently ended a friendship of 10 years because one particular big time consumming “taken for granted” favor made me stop and think. In all of my interactions with this friend, whether pleasure or business, I realized that I always came out with less skin than I when I went in. No acrimony, just dropped out.
Jim, I totally agree. You don’t want to be the person who is always keeping score in their head, but you have to recognize when you are approaching door mat status.
I occasionally will let someone nickle and dime me, if I think I am getting something I really want out of the friendship and the imbalance isn’t too glaring.
I did run into a situation a few months ago where a “friend” put me in an almost impossible situation by passive aggressively leading me to assume that this friend would be sharing the driving on a rather long trip. When I found out, at the last minute that the “friend” had decided to go with other friends, and I was left with no good alternative but to drive myself, it just became more prudent not to forgive and forget, least I end up in another situation that would either be horribly expensive, if I had to fly or dangerous, if I had to drive 2000 miles by myself again. Call me “done”, as I have plenty of real friends who would not do this too me.
I have to say that over time – a good 60 years – the one thing that has caused me to move away from a friendship is self-absorbtion. It’s not narcissism precisely, but that undying sense that the other person knows everything, has all the answers, and that the world is all about him. One of my colleagues calls these people “oxygen suckers,” because they suck all the air out of the room, leaving everyone else gasping for breath.
I suppose that as we get older, none of us is totally immune from this disease. Experience sets us in our ways. But there comes a point when I lose interest, find myself drifting off, and engage less and less. Lack of oxygen makes one sleepy.
Here’s a slightly different spin on #8: When your friend gets married and the new spouse disapproves of you. This is particularly pernicious when you and your friend are of the opposite sex.
My (alas, former) male best friend and housemate, who I loved like a little brother for many many years, was delighted when I got married — he simply welcomed my new husband into our little circle.
But when HE got married, it took only a few brief encounters to figure out that his new wife thought I was the Daughter of Satan or some such nonsense. So I backed off, on the theory that a person’s spouse is their highest loyalty and I didn’t want to get in the middle of that even though it was through no fault of my own. (“Appearance of impropriety,” anyone?)
Over the past eight years our contact has been limited to half a dozen emails. I even had to quit Facebook completely to avoid the wife’s attacks.
I REALLY miss my friend. I don’t make friends easily, and I really thought this friendship was one which would last most of the rest of my life
That’s what makes it hurt so much – the hope of a genuine friend for life. Most of us understand this pain. Really sorry about that!
Does anyone find it curious that every time Belladonna gives an example of someone violating these principles it’s a man doing the violating. Kind of a theme throughout her articles. Hmmmm.
Does anyone find it curious that Dave can’t be bothered to read? Belladonna is answering a man’s question about mistakes he may have made, meaning that the point of the column is to address mistakes men are prone to make.
Secondly, she could not be clearer than she is in this column that both genders make all these mistakes. Dave, is there some reason you chose to ignore this:
“Like all offensive conduct, this one’s an equal opportunity friendship-ender. Both married men and married women put the moves on the spouses of friends. ”
You read what you want to see, not what’s in the column. Prejudice or reading problem?
I don’t think this time Dave. You may have to let go of the her recent cheating article which drew several positive reviews and blinders from all female readers (startling, glaring absence this time) who missed the lack of mention of husband’s grave pain if wife cheats – in his condition of ED, no options, and no likely new spouse option. If I recall there were 5 paragraphs of male faults if that woman were to cheat – as motivation not to – and a few other reasons that might help (Shakespeare, I believe – which was nice, true, interesting). I thought it was a simple integrity issue and caring about devastating her husband issue. Close to the same issues that would be raised should a husband write in “suffering” with a desire to cheat (“What about your wife’s feelings, you pig!”). It would have denigrated to worse comments and harm coming to the male. Ms. Rogers warned in a quick follow up to be thoughtful to wife and HUSBAND who might read it (the only mention of his pain) – But no, he’s unaware and that’s not the thoughtfulness that mattered the most. It’s an impossible scenario where the husband would read about his wife asking advice about cheating – she’d not seek advice where HE read advice articles.
But we’re way off subject. That was one article. Ms. Rogers rocks the house most of the time. So be cool this time around. You’ll see. A lot of bull comes at men but really seeing more than is there is tough. Seriously, that’d be overwhelming, and I’m not faulting you if you’re testy. I just believe Ms. Rogers is pretty awesome 95% of the time. Add in posters such as Ari, and all is well at PJ Media.
Here are reasonable people who know getting along really “isn’t that hard” as would the elitist-or-raised-poorly-Democratic-advocates-of-violence-against-all-males-and-crying-racism try to make you believe. Even they have common sense every few millenia.
Moving away from the old stomping grounds works well, too. Especially if you decide your new location is much better than where the ex-friend lives. Of course, you shouldn’t rub it in, and that’s just what I unwittingly did. My friend from high school still lives in the house he grew up in, just he and his wife. It’s in Southern California, and boy am I glad to be out of there. I live in the mountains near Sacramento, and love it. Evidently, I made that too plain to this person and he got so tired of hearing it, poof!, no contact. Oh well.