What to say

Post Reply New Topic

Hi:
I have a close friend of mine who is very clingy to me because she does not have very many outlets or a job. She also lives a home with her parents who are quite protective of her next to not having any siblings. So she feels very lonely and bored most of the time. I happen to do the best that I can to keep her company. Then again I have my own life and that includes studying for a big exam next to going to college.

She gets mad at me and says that she wishes that I was not in college and that studying seems to be more important than she is. I have told her if that is this upset to speak with her parents about her situation. I have also offered to get in touch with another friend's mother that knows of some programs to help people with special needs be more independent. She likes that idea a lot.

The next time she gets upset and nags at me about studying what do I tell her? I don't want to get be too nasty but I want to be firm at the same time.

I would just be blunt and tell her that studying for an important exam and college are important to you, and that's something she just needs to understand.

I am also getting ready to go into a real estate career and I am prepping for two really big exams. She also said that she was worried about my choosing my career over her and rejecting her.

What should I say to that?

It really is normal for people and situations to change and to be "left behind" by people. It happens to all people and is just a fact of life. It's something she will have to get used to. I don't like it, but the fact is relationships change in quality and sometimes even die a natural death when you move away physically or mentally as in pursuing a career or other relationship. It's not like you are going to forget she exists, it's just that you may not be as "close" as you might used to have been. I don't know how to make this not feel like a rejection though. Could you mention this to her somehow maybe the next time she brings it up? I know it must be kind of awkward but she has her own priorities and you have your own priorities and you both have a right to those priorities.

As far as the career goes, have you tried explaining to her in detail why you want this particular career and why your job/financial independence is important to you? It may be a case that she just needs to hear that, even if she can guess or surmise the reasons. Maybe it's more to do with wondering and not understanding your motives or your "passion" for your chosen career. Hearing this from you may just clear some of the anxiety for her. I am trying to get at this: that maybe her anxiety and clinginess extends from not knowing your plans, basically and the reason for your plans so she can better understand and prepare for the change that is coming? It will be up to her though to accept what you say and to master her own disappointment and fear and there isn't anything else you can do about that. I speak from experience. I hate uncertainty in regards to other people and I think I can understand her point of view. From what you said in your posts, I gather you might be a sort of people-anchor for her that she depends on being in a certain position in her mind to orient the rest of her life around. I've had a lot of people-anchors myself, though most had/have no idea that I was/am so attached to them. I don't know that there is any way to stop the change from hurting. It's going to hurt, but that is just unavoidable and is her responsibility.

The main problem here is that her parents live in a more rural area were most of their neighbors are spread out. Then they also have a problem with seeming to let her go. She talks about me making her feel invisible.

I would go with this. Part of the responsibility is on her to respect her friends doing what's healthy for them and having a life of their own, and there's only so much you can say to make her see that.

That does sound like a difficult one, though. I think that sometimes people who are very lonely place an unfair burden on the one or two friends they have to be their everything. Having so little, they try to get as much as they can out of the people who are in their life which might be more than they're actually capable of providing. If she can find other things to do and other people to talk to, I think that will help.

The problems is that she does not know what she wants to do with her life. I have also asked her to speak with her parents and her pastor if she is this lonely and uncertain.

Sounds like change resistance: the prospect of doing anything other than what she has always done is daunting. A symptom of that can be "not knowing". Is there some activity or intellectual pursuit she is very interested in?