Ruining friendships by trying too hard

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone else have this problem? Like probably everyone here, I've never had "a lot" of friends, but always two or three people I considered good friends. The problem is eventually they all end up hating me within a year or so. In high school, I thought I had a few friends, but in retrospect I don't think any of them really liked me. We just happened to be at the same events and shared minor common interests. One guy who I got along with really well moved away my sophomore year, so I don't really know how that would've turned out.

While I was (unsuccessfully) attending community college, I was holding down a couple part-time jobs at the mall and got to know a lot of the kids (16ish) who hung out at the mall. I was around 21-22 at the time. One guy in particular I became very close with. We e-mailed daily, and later took to talking on the phone for hours at a time. He even admitted that at one point he "idolized" me. But my irrational fear of being left out and losing a very rare "real friend" caused me to start hounding him about doing things. I called constantly, and any time we did do something I'd practically not let him leave until we'd made future plans. I don't even know where he lives now.

A few years later I was working at a video game store and ended up befriending a group of guys who hung out there (all around 17-18). We all hung out quite a bit for a while and one-by-one they stopped calling. The last guy remained somewhat friendly and I latched onto him just like the last guy. Stood in the pouring rain once outside his car as he tried abruptly leaving when we had made plans (so I thought) to hang out. Offered to buy him a PS2 (which he desperately wanted) if he'd take me with him to a party he was going to. It wasn't long before he stopped answering my calls and blocked me from talking to him via AIM.

Well, I'm afraid it's happening again. Back in October 2002 I was again in danger of basically being homeless and a guy I really didn't know well at all invited me to live with him and his family (girlfriend, 5-year-old son) while I looked for a job. Job opportunities aren't plentiful when you live 15 miles away from the nearest city and have no transportation. It wasn't until December 2005 that I finally found a job. In that time span I'd become friendly with everyone in the house, and developed a strong relationship with his son. Before, children were something other people had. Through him, I learned how special and interesting they can be, and he became very important to me. He started introducing me as "my dad's friend, well kinda my uncle, well kinda my big brother."

In 2007 I was promoted and moved away to live on my own, but still visited them every time I could work in a weekend off. That job didn't last six months before I quit and moved back into their house. By this time they had a daughter, but she was still sleeping in her parent's room so it wasn't a huge deal. As time passed there was somewhat mounting pressure for me to move out, and I finally did find an apartment a couple blocks away. That first week my "nephew" practically lived with me, and I still was over there all the time just to "hang out."

Little by little, I think they're getting tired of me. The original friend ("nephew"'s dad) always seems happy to see me, but he's so non-confrontational I can't help but wonder if he's putting up with me just to avoid stress. The "nephew," who at one point spent practically all of his time with me, doesn't even text me anymore. He used to call me practically every night to come over and hang out. He used to always ask me to attend his ball games (football, basketball, baseball). The last couple of weeks he's stopped telling me where they are.

His birthday was a couple weeks ago, and his family was going out to Dairy Queen. He invited me along, and while I initially told him I didn't know if it was his place to just drop more people into a family affair, he was insistent that it's his birthday so he should be able to invite me. As we were about to leave, his mom went ballistic. To avoid a scene I simply walked away. Apparently I was quite the topic of discussion at DQ ... grandma even remarked that I need to "get a life." None of them have ever directly told me to back off, but I can't help but think they're just trying to be polite.

So again I find myself wanting to call or text one of them and/or just stop by. I always went by once a week to do laundry (I even bought them a new washer and dryer when theirs broke) and mow the lawn (because they'll let the grass get a foot high if I don't) in addition to other visits, but now I'm hesitant to even do that. But I'm afraid the damage has already been done. They're really the only friends I have left. I don't like being alone all the time, and as I'm sure most of us can relate to, I can't simply go out and make new friends.

Sorry for the long rant. Like many others (I'd think) I went through life wondering what the hell was wrong with me until I happened upon a description of AS and it was like a train hit me. I dug up all the information I could and have even been lurking here for quite a while, but only now decided it was time to register and start speaking up.

Does anyone else have this problem? Any insight, comments, or suggestions? Am I an outsider in that I have and/or pursue friendships at all? Thanks for letting me vent ...

Well, I don't really have anything constructive to say..
I totally relate.. but I wouldn't know how to tell how they feel about things. Can you ask your friend what's going on? Sounds like maybe he and his girlfriend (wife?) disagree a bit about you..
Maybe say something to your friend about how you don't want to cause tension in his family, and ask him what he thinks would be best to do for you to be able to remain friends without causing him family problems?

Girlfriend. Shacked up for 12 years. They'll never be married, but they'll probably continue to live together and be irritated with each other.

I thought about talking to them about my "problem," but I'm apprehensive of their reaction. I'm afraid I may be labeled as "the guy with the mental problem." She's that shallow. The kids aren't old enough to really understand.

The other problem with talking to him at all is that he's so non-confrontational. I don't see him saying anything that I could possibly take negatively because he just doesn't like drama. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. She is to immature to tell me her real feelings. She'll make some awkward comments and tell me everything's ok. Sadly, the 11-year-old is my best shot to get an accurate picture of how they view me.

You lived with them for a long time and go round to do laundry and gardening now you don't live there. Give them some space dude. Overstaying your welcome is so easy for us to do so we need to watch ourselves carefully so as not to do it. Just imagine how you'd feel if it was your own private space and your partner brings a stranger home to live for 4 years?

Do your laundry elsewhere. Phone the original friend and ask if he'd like to go for a drink or some activity away from his house tell him how much you appreciate what him and his famiy have done for you and explain how you don't pick up on the non verbal signals (him and his wife will have been giving them out for some time) and tend to not realise when things go on too long, if you haven't told him about the AS now's the time.

Don't worry about his son he's at the age where he shuns adults it's also the age where he coud easily take advantage of you, sounds like you don't mind throwing cash around for your friends and a teenager coud have a field day so be careful.
Your friend sounds like a nice guy and he obviously likes you so you should be a be to keep him as a friend but it sounds like the wife and rest of family aren't so patient.

I used to outstay my welcome a lot but now try to be one of those people who leave early like they've something exciting to do when all I'm going to do is get comfy at home. As I say above when in doubt try to imagine how you'd feel if someone was doing the same at your house and act accordingly, for a young family like that they probably wouldn't expect to see you more than once a fortnight. Good luck.

Hmmmm said it all. I just want to add that the grandmother reached the same conclusion I reached even before reading about her comment. They see you as not having your own life. As Hmmmm wisely said, you should pretend to have a really full life as of tomorrow, even if it's just doing something nice for yourself at home. As time goes by, the pretending will become truth. You'll have a full life apart from them, and they'll start respecting and wanting you in their lives again. At first your life feels like a terrible void, but each day you put a tiny thing in it, and by the time you realize, you have a rich, full life (with people in it or not!). That's what happened to me when I went through something similar to what you describe. It's hard to give more advice when I don't know even roughly your age...

That's the story of my life, man. This has happened to me through out my school years and I just could never figure out why. I suppose it all began when I started to become socially impaired(that was about 7th grade). I didn't talk to most people, I would only talk to one particular person and that was it. At first, I'd become friends with this particular person and I'd talk to him all the time and we seemed to get along but as the months went on, for some reason, the person did not like me anymore and just blew me off. Some were pretty mean and said some hurtful things to be honest. I hate talking about these moments but it is what it is. Maybe I just become too annoying or just wasn't cool enough. I'll never know but this has happened to me with a cycle of three people. In 6th grade, I found a friend named Josh that I talked to all the time. He was never mean to me, but once I got to the next grade and we were in different classes, we just stopped talking and that was all. In 7th grade, I became friends with a person named Chris, we talked all the time at first and even laughed about things we didn't like and we'd hang out during gym, lunch ect but as time went on, he all of a sudden couldn't stand me, said very hurtful things to me(like how I have no friends and no life) and he just dumped me like a bad habit. He even tried to bully me the next year but things got so out of hand, that I smashed a glass bottle on his head and injured him and he never messed with me again. Then in the 8th grade, I started talking to a person named Ben. He had the same special interest as me, (videogames like The Legend of Zelda). We'd talk about our special interest all the time but once again, he eventually got sick of my special interests and ended up not liking me either. He started saying things to others like how I'm too obsessed with videogames. In the end, I can never grasp the concepts of friendship because my recent ones were one bad episode after another and I never really have had any real friends since. I mean, having things like that happen, how can I get friends again? I've grown up now but starting over will be difficult. Sorry if I rambled on, I just felt like typing this up because I felt like it but in the end, I know very very well about friendship failures and how people just kept growing to hate me over and over again.

wow buying peoples friendship. That must be expensive.

The kid probably doesnt hang around with you as much because he is growing up and making his own friends presumably. Its inevitable.

I do always call before going over to do laundry and I think they appreciate the mowing since they've stopped getting letters from the city about the lawn (heh). It's such a weird situation. What really set it off was that the boy had stopped officially inviting me to his games. They had a big tournament last weekend which I'd loved to have seen (I'm a big fan of baseball in general, not just his team) and no one bothered to let me know when his games were, if their team made it farther, etc. Edit: it wasn't just this event, that is, it's not that everything was great until I didn't get invited to one event and I went postal. This just intensified lingering feelings I had already been feeling.

So I've taken the advice and made a conscious effort to lay low. I even changed my daily walk route to avoid their house. I'm not taking grandma's comments too personally as everyone generally agrees that she's a royal b***h, but I know there's some truth to it too. Lo and behold, this morning I get a text about tonight's game. I think I might pass though; the last couple of days I've started to feel better about the situation and I don't want to get dragged down again if things don't go well. Edit: I wasn't trying to suggest here that since grandma is a b***h her opinions are incorrect or unjustified. Just saying that she's known for making inappropriate derogatory comments about everyone, not just me.

I feel like I'm getting mixed signals too. The guy has been "shacking up" with the woman for 12 years. Seriously. She's been on a mission recently about wanting to get married, and he's absolutely not doing it. Not possible. That combined with some other problems they're having (which are way too long to get into and not really relevant here) ... he confided in me that he's giving serious thought to breaking things off for good and suggested that I should move back in when he does. Now, that'd be extremely advantageous for me financially, but given all the circumstances I don't know that that's a good idea. I was elated that he even suggested such a thing, as maybe it indicates that I'm overreacting to all this, but again, grandma's comment had to come from somewhere.

Oh, I entered a birthday in my profile but never noticed my age wasn't displayed. Sorry, I'm 32.



You didn't ramble on half as long as I did, heh. I even deleted a good chunk from my original message before posting because I know how my eyes glaze over when I see posts that long. I appreciate your story though, it's good to hear that I'm not alone. Hopefully everyone can benefit from throwing it all out in the open.

Last edited by nightwulf on 23 Jun 2009, 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know that I'd go that far. The washer/dryer was necessary as theirs was done for, and I knew I'd be using it too. Plus, these people let me live in their house for over three years rent-free, so there's definitely something owed for that.

I did imagine you were in your early thirties...

Your friend is amazing, there are no people like that anymore in the world. And the son is his or hers? Maybe he's being negatively influenced by his mother...

The son is "theirs." The daughter is "hers" from a short stint where she moved out because "she didn't love him anymore." Amazing how quickly she remembered their love when she tried to survive as a single mother making $9 an hour with an infant.

The boy has some attitude problems, and given my unique perspective of them (given the time I spent in their house), I can definitely say that he's picked up a lot of it from his mother. All of it, no.

Sounds like you've been more of a constant in the boy's life than his own mother. Sounds like your friend has his priorities in order regarding this, which is an extremely rare thing to find among humans. Usually people will side with any useless romantic partner they have and thus lose their loyal, caring, forever friendships...only to regret it tens of years later when it's too late.

I think your laying low is probably a good thing at the moment.

If he is thinking of breaking it off with the mother and moving you in with him, then I'd be very very careful not to look like you came between them (it doesn't sound like you are, but if they start flinging mud, you don't want to get caught in the middle).

This is how I end up ruining romantic relationships too.

It can be a tricky balance. Call too little, they think you don't care. Call too much, they think you're clingy.

As a general rule, people don't like to be in a situation where they are someone's only friend. It doesn't necessarily have to do with the amount that the person calls. But if they are seen associating with someone who has no other friends but themselves, it makes them look bad. THAT, and they feel a sense of distrust towards people who have no friends. "Why do they not have friends? What's wrong with them?"

People who have large social networks tend to be even pickier. "Why does this person only have four friends other than myself? What's wrong with them?"

This can lead those people to put the other person's flaws under a microscope, and come up with a justified reason to "dump them". If this person had more social contacts, the other person wouldn't care so much about their quirks. Because then the person seems more trustworthy. "Well, these people are their friend too, all of those people can't be wrong".

The thing that the OP seems to have happen throughout his life is that he focused all of his time onto either one person, or one specific group of people. If people see that, they will come to the conclusion that the person has no life outside of the people they're focused on.

Diversifying is the key to filling out your schedule in a productive manner. Make yourself occasionally unavailable. Take up other hobbies. Meet new people while taking up those hobbies. I assume your main issue is appropriate reciprocation, not social anxiety?

great advice Katie.