Self-Centered Friend

[Inconceivable]

My friend, lets call her Meredith, gets on my nerves sometimes. We've been friends for three years and she's almost exactly the same kind of person that I always make friends with (losers, very smart, incredibly weird, etc...). But lately she has really been getting on my nerves. Whenever she's with me all she ever wants to talk about it herself.

 

Like earlier today she was talking about something she and her friend did. But when I started talking about how my brother lied to me the entire time she kept interrupting me, trying to change the subject back to her and her friend. This isn't the first time this has happened though. She ALWAYS does this. Whenever I start to talk about myself she cuts in talking about herself.

 

I'm getting fed up with it. *I* want to be heard too! but I'm afraid of telling her because I really don't want to lose her friendship because we do have a lot of great memories and she's almost exactly like me. But I'm tired of always talking about her and her family and her friends and her aches and pains.

 

Anyone have an opinion on this?

[SilenThunder]

I know EXACTLY how you feel!

 

My friends do that as well and i'm beginning to get extremely pissed off at them. They are also just overal annoying lately, but the two of them just keep going on and on about their own problems or something they feel they need to b***h about.

 

I'm interested in comments to this post, please people... advice...

[Tinkerbell]

You need to tell her, this is not a healthy friendship. Relationships go two ways, so she needs to be prepared to focus on you sometimes as well. Next time she interrupts something important you have to say to babble on about her own life, say something like "Do you think we could please talk about me for a little awhile? It seems like lately all we've been talking about is you, and that's not very fair to me...I have a problem/situation that I need to deal with, and I'd like your input."

This way, you get the point accross without being too harsh about it, and even if she does get offended, chances are she'll cease this behavior as she won't want to admit to herself that she's been such a lousy friend.

[avman]

You have to set boundaries sometimes. A friendship is supposed to be give and take. I had this experience recently too with an online friend. It got to the point that she only talked about herself and it was the same issue over and over again. If I tried to say something she actually dismissed it and went back to talking about herself.

 

Finally I just blocked her and ended things. It just didn't have value to me as a friendship anymore because I got nothing out of it. I had tried to talk to her about things but she wouldn't listen. So I was done.

 

Try having a serious talk with your friend. Maybe she doesn't realize what she is doing. Hopefully she will modify her behavior before things get to the point of no return.

[sisterlynch]

Sometimes it is good to have a back up plan so maybe you could find someone that is a little more easy going to talk to.

 

Do the same thing back to her, when she tries to tell you a story interrupt and say, remember yesterday when I was trying to tell you something important and all you could talk about was your friend? Now you know how it feels.

[Celadon]

Yeah, I agree with the other posts. And also I wanted to say, just because you had good memories with her doesn't mean you have to be such close friends now. People do change, and so do friendships. It's a hard part about life, but it's happened to me many times.

 

The good news is, even if someone isn't your very best friend anymore, she can still be a friend. You should talk to her, and if she gets mad, just trust that she will come around.

 

In the meantime, start spending time with some of your other friends. If your self-centered friend does cut you off for awhile, you'll still want to have friends to hang out with and stuff. Good luck!