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Longtime friendship comes to an end
I've been friends with "J" since I was 14. We were best friends in high school and ever since. I've been there for her through a lot of ups and downs in her life, dysfunctional family stuff, job troubles, boyfriend troubles, etc. And she's been there for me with the same. All through our friendship she has had an issue with being late when we get together. Not 20 minutes late, but 4 or more hours late. I'm talking like nearly 100% of the time.
When I was younger this wasn't such a big issue because I had more free time. Now I do not, and I have other obligations, less free time, etc. She recently moved out of state, and so I haven't seen her in nearly a year. She came to visit for Thanksgiving and we made plans to get together. Once again she was 4 hours late, leaving me stranded and unable to do anything else with my time because every hour or so she said she was on her way. I was really ticked off because the things I was hoping to do were time sensitive (see a comedy show, or go ice skating or something). I got frustrated and tried to cancel on her after 3 hours, and it turned into a big fight. I caved in, and we met at 11 oclock at night, and though I told her I didn't want to be out all night, we ended up being out til 4 in the morning at some ghetto dance bar she wanted to go to to talk to guys. I was really uncomfortable (I'm married and didn't feel like having dudes grinding up on me all night, which is what ended up happening). It was NOT a fun time.
Afterwards I tried to bring up this lateness issue with her, and told her that my time is important, as is hers. And that I need her to have a little more respect for my time. Next time we hang, could she please commit to being on time? I told her that she's my best friend and I want to rely on her. Well she flipped out, became extremely disrespectful and hung up on me. She says I am beating a dead horse by bringing up the lateness thing again after we already fought about it the night of. I'm sorry, but I won't put up with it any more or be a doormat for her disrespectful behaviour towards me.
Now she's been texting me all kinds of crazy things saying that she sees it now, that I don't want good things to happen to her in her life. That I am not a supportive friend. Trust me when I say at times I have been the ONLY person there for her. This hurts me so badly. I told her she is not thinking clearly and that she should save these texts. That now we have a bigger issue than her just being late, now this is about her lack of respect for me in general.
I don't really want the friendship to end completely, but is there any way to get her to respect me? I am not going to back down and apologize for anything when she is in the wrong. I just don't know how to make her see that she is being completely unreasonable and selfish. She told me I'm being selfish and passive aggressive but honeslty I'm just trying to express that I won't be able to wait four + hours for her every time anymore. I'm sad to see this long friendship end but I guess its' not worth it if she is going to treat me like this.
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Re: Longtime friendship comes to an end
TTC since September 2012
What are the general reason she is so late (just curious)? Four hours is a very long time to wait around.
It's doesn't sound like she thinks logically to be mad at you for pointing out her bad habit.
So agree. I've seen this a lot on these boards and have also experienced it too. It's easy to latch on to "but we've been friends for SOOO long!" as a reason that you can't let a friend go.
And 'history" aside - what I've learned in my 40+ years is that some friendships are meant to be only for a certain period in your life. Situational, I guess you could say. And I think that friendships born when we're younger - well, when we're younger, EVERYTHING just seems so much more serious and "bigger" than it really is. And in a sense, friendships from our youth somehow become these things in our lives that we feel we have to hold on too - but a part of it is situational, a part of it is growth and maturity. As we grow and change, it's very, very possible to outgrow longtime friends.
It's not necessarily easy to see this or accept it. Trust me - I get it. DH and I ended a friendship w/ a couple where I have a lot of good memories with them, but then I remind myself of what utter assholes they became once they started having kids. While it was hard at first and while I, at times, would think "i miss them" - 6 years later.... our lives are so much easier and more peaceful w/o them in it. I no longer miss them.
As a follow up, my friend came into town for Christmas, and we texted a little. But apparently she changed her flight to go back earlier than expected. So I didn't see her. I'm both relieved and sad. I think with her living out of state now it may actually help our friendship because we can talk on the phone without any issue. And I don't have to worry that she will be late. I'll see how her attitude is when we talk again.
For the record, I'm 32, and definitely too old for high school drama. But I'm also at a stage in life where I find it hard to make new friends and hope this friendship can withstand these bumps.
I know I'm late to the party, but had a friend a lot like that. She never ran 4 hours late, but she was a couple hours late a few times with no good excuse. It was just boggling.
One time, it was an event SHE wanted to go to and I didn't especially, but some other people had backed out and she didn't want to go by herself so I agreed. The event, an organized block party put on by local galleries, ran from 6-9 PM. One of the things she was really looking forward to was eating at the food booths. The food tends to be local, high end restaurants. At 4 PM, she told me she was shopping for a purse to wear with her outfit and would call me when she was on her way.
She calls me at 7 PM, tells me how hard it was to find JUST the right purse...went to two malls, multiple stores in each...but she is home now and just needs to get ready and will be on her way. I know my friend. She takes a minimum of one hour to get ready. I reminded her the food booths usually run out of food a good hour before the event ends and encourage her to hurry, if she wants food there. I, myself, immediately went into the kitchen, made dinner, and ate it. Because I knew there was no way in hell food would be happening that night.
She finally calls at 8:40 that she is leaving her house. I ask if she even still wants to go, because the event will be over long before we get there. Yes, she wants to go because there will still be people milling around and it will still be fun. We arrive at about 9:30 and she starts complaining about how hungry she is and "she can't believe they already stopped serving food". Ummm...WTF? Yes, it's shocking they stopped serving food WHEN THE EVENT ENDED (sarcasm).
To be fair, she was right in that we still had fun and there were still a lot of people milling around. It just would have been a lot more fun to have had the opportunity to stroll through the galleries. But, of course, they also closed at 9 PM
.
I'm glad to hear you all worked things out. She probably is a better "long distance" friend for you, since it will naturally cut down on how often you all are meeting and thus cut down on how often she runs hours late.
For when she's in town, I'd try to arrange things where she'll meet you at your house when she's ready to go out. That way, if she's hours late, you're still comfy and cozy at home. Or, if you all are going out with a group of people, no one waits for her. You all just proceed with your evening however it flows and she can text to find out where you all are when she is finally ready to meet up.