I have this recurrent desire to cut off ties with my friends as they are all bad influences in my life. I keep trying to wish my friendships could turn into something healthy but they just seem unable. We want different things from life and from social interactions and I keep making compromises to meet them wherever they are. They are a drain on my finances and I keep making poor choices around them in futile attempts to get the interaction to spark some excitement or reciprocity, without success.
Time and again my friends seem to be growing more selfish in our relationship from year to year and I wonder what’s the point of remaining friends when all I do around these people is sabotage myself and, despite making up my social life, these friendships don’t even provide social opportunities for me, which begs the question: why am I doing this?
The only thing I can come up with is “they give me a semblance of normality” or “I care about them” but in reality I feel like the true reason is that I am scared of ending up alone.
I don’t know what to do. On one hand I want to cut them off and no longer end up making poor choices as a consequence of their influence. On the other they aren’t just a bad influence on my life, they are my life. Without my friends I don’t even have a life and I would be utterly alone on the other side of this. There’s not somebody else there to take their place. There aren’t other activities I could do. This isn’t a matter of out with the old and in with the new. There is no new and there will be no new. I can either keep my friendships as they are, warts and all, or go through life alone, those are the choices.
I know I haven’t given you the tools to give me an informed advice, so I don’t expect one. I just wanted to vent and see if someone had anything at all to say. I already know I won’t be cutting off my friends, I am too much of a coward for that in my current situation and I think that despite the downsides that’s the correct move since I don’t think that whatever bad influence they have on me would match the damage being completely alone would do to me.
Thanks for your time and let me know your thoughts and experiences on the topic.
I have a few friendships i doubt.
Also positive ones.
I think its a hard situation, maybe set some boundaries, maybe confront them, maybe end it. Trust your gutfeeling.
Your not trying to “buy” them cos your lonely are you?
Sometimes - your just gonna have to learn be on your own - until you make new Friends. Sounds like they are using you. And if your coming away all worried about it - after meeting them, ruddy well bin them off.
Dont let your fear of being lonely - enable them to take the mick.
ALL of your friends are bad? Sounds like you got some soul searching to do, either why you’re around people like this or what you could change about yourself.
Ok, so I’d like to specify that my friends aren’t bad people, quite the opposite. They aren’t leading me down a dark path. I am simply not interested in the ways they have fun and I always end up having to choose between doing that or staying home and those activities often involve spending money, like eating out which has the added downside of being outside my diet.
There aren’t people that have fun in the ways that I would because I literally have the most fun when I am bored with other people. Almost everyone on this planet would end up categorized as a bad influence by me. I have been very clear that this isn’t a matter of out with the old and in with the new. My friends aren’t the issue, as people they are good people, it’s the ways in which people interact with each other that are toxic to me. That’s what makes them bad influences.
New friends aren’t the solution because I don’t have bad ones, the same issues would be present with almost any friend I can envision that’s a real person, not to mention that I don’t have a life that allows for new friends to come in.
The choice is between being alone and keeping my existing friends around because that’s the actual choice, not because I am being melodramatic and forcing a false dichotomy. I felt like that needed some clarification.
Not what I’m talking about in the slightest. That’s not the issue here and, even if it was, dude influences are bad on you but it’s always you making the choices… The point is that if they offer to eat at say McDonald’s when for some reason impulse control is reduced, say you are either drunk or high and then they don’t even finish their share and you feel compelled to not waste food, that’s not a healthy situation to be in. Or again if you only meet to eat out, you can be a little bird and eat seeds but at that point you are taking what’s meant to be a fun event and turning it into a drag and nobody is having fun, going out to eat with a male friend and they decide to diet on your ass is not social in the slightest and even makes them feel bad if they are overweight, truly a douche move. I don’t know how things are where you live but over here, in Italy, that’s considered very rude. One of my friends is overweight and rich and we see each other almost entirely when going out to eat together, he’s a busy man and that’s our space. The other one(I have two friends) is underweight and poor and if he is either going to go without eating or I am buying McDonald’s, I am buying McDonald’s.
It’s not however dieting the issue, I can just outwork any temporary social overeating with no issue whatsoever. The problem is that with the first I feel like our relationship isn’t going anywhere, we go through the motions every once in a while, tell each other the news, eat and then go our separate ways. With the other one I end up smoking weed way more often than I would like and our interactions tend to revolve way too much around what he wants to do. These are the issues, not that my diet takes a couple more months because it becomes less strict, which is annoying and a money drain, but it’s not an actual core issue.
Hey maybe it’s time to make some new friends when your goals in life change sometimes that happens. People have different values and have to move on from eachother
That’s not the issue Aziz, forget about food. That’s just the most common avenue in which I end up spending money I wouldn’t otherwise spend. If it isn’t food it would be a cinema ticket or it often is gas for the car. Seeing people costs money more often than it doesn’t. The issue isn’t the money going out, nor the food coming in. The issue is that one of the relationships doesn’t make me feel like we are part of each other’s life and the other always revolves around what they want or need and neither of the two has any chance of sparking new social opportunities. The question, if there is one, is whether it’s better to go through life alone than with others. It’s not about ways in which to fix my relationships or substitute them. Perhaps anecdotal wisdom about similar situations in your lives and how they played out would be helpful. Either way, thanks for replying to all of you.
Maybe find your soulmate so you can do things together and share time with. I have mine and he is the best husband for me. We budget too so we can afford nice things occasionally like a meal out or a drive to see relatives. Thats what i advise
I had a friend like that once. The thing was that we seemed to be friends on his premises 90% of the time. Also he did things that were socially wrong and put me in a bad light with other people. Like for instance he started telling another friend of mine at their first meet about explicit sex he had. One time he contacted a girl I was dating on facebook without even being introduced before. He put me in a bad spot, and it was hard to convince him to do things I wished for. So I decided I had to move on. No regrets.
I do have other friends though and I like them the way they are. Sure we spend money together on restaurants and cinema and what not, no problem. That’s just life.
Maybe you need to ask yourself what is reasonable to expect from a friend. If you are looking for something they can’t provide the answer might not be to cut them out, but seek out new friends that can fill that gap.
But if there is pressure to smoke weed I’d say that’s a unhealthy influence if you don’t want to.
when your goals in life change sometimes that happens. People have different values and have to move on from eachother