So i met this guy through another mutual friend and in the beginning he did show some signs of being attention seeking but lately it’s been accentuated.
He definitely has self esteem issues because he is always talking about how he is poor although he can afford decently expensive cars, good college education and lives in a two story house. He talks about how he’s ugly and constantly asks for reassurance and no matter how many times you tell him he’s not he won’t believe it.
If he sees anyone is being upset or sad (even nauseous) he will copy them instantly and he isn’t even creative with the reasoning. (Ex friend was nauseous from drinking on an empty stomach and he was chirpy and happy but once he found out he became nauseous all the sudden too) He doesn’t even have reason to be sad and when we ask him why he’s upset he stutters and makes up excuses. Everyone can tell he’s pulling it out of his ass. He begs for hugs and constantly asks for reassurance if we’re close friends or not.
We’ve talked to him multiple times about it and he says he’ll improve everytime but he doesn’t.
It’s really frustrating and is there anyway to get him out of it? He refuses therapy, what can we do to help him. It’s getting really exhausting and this has been going on for years. How do we convince him to go tof therapy?
TLDR: friend is really attention seeking and insecure and it’s starting to ick everyone out.
6 comments
I think you all should ignore him for a few incidents and see his reaction. If he makes a scene then there might be something wrong with him, so some kind of treatment is recommended or if you want you should cut contact. But if he stops/reduces this type of behaviour, it means he is conscious of his behaviour and does understand that he is being attention seeking (this may sound weird, like if he is conscious, then why does he involve in such a behaviour). So for the latter, give him some time and continue ignoring his attention-seeking behaviour and observe the changes (if any) and if there aren’t cut contact with him.
You can’t help someone who doesn’t want it. Just call him out on the behavior or ignore him. Distance yourself and tell him exactly why. If you don’t follow through on up holding your boundaries he won’t respect them.
Your friend sounds exhausting to be around. If you’ve politely expressed your frustration with his behavior, which he seems to have acknowledged, and he still doesn’t want to take real action towards change, then you might be stuck with having to accept him as he is, or reevaluating whether you really want someone like that as a friend.
You can’t change other people if they don’t want to change themselves.
Good Luck.
The only way to help someone like this out is to completely ignore their attention seeking antics. If even one person gives them a drop of attention they will double down and do it longer.
More practically you may want to put some space between you and him for your own mental health.
Stop rewarding his behavior with your attention. All you’re doing is feeding the beast.
Call it out as it’s happening. “You’re doing it again, that thing we talked about”