My friend (Shanice) and I are childhood friends. Her mom is best friends with my mom, since high school.. so you can imagine how close Shanice and I are.
Shanice has this problem — boys. Whenever she gets involved with a guy, she’ll make her entire life this man. She’ll start dating a guy, and by month 1 or 2, she’ll talk about marriage with this person, moving in together, kids, etc. Everything she’ll talk about, will be about the guy she’s seeing/dating. Everything. She’ll start buying the guy everything and then eventually, the guy will treat her like shit and break up with him. She even does this with guys she’s not dating, but getting to know. She’ll put the guys on a pedestal for just doing basic things i.e “he told me i can’t sleep over in his dorm room but he asked me what movie I want to see when I come over! 😍” 1-2 months in with a guy, she’ll say “I’ve never felt like this before..”. She just has terrible taste in guys.
She started dating this guy (Sebastian) in August. He seems like a pretty good guy. I have no complaints about him… *yet*. I genuinely just hate how she behaves with him. It’s like her common sense just goes… disappears when she’s with him. She had a pregnancy loss the first month of them dating (they had unprotected sex and she *told* him to finish inside her), she failing 4/6 of her classes because she stays at his frat house DAYS at a time and doesn’t go to class, she buys him $300+ gifts (even though she’s strapped with money)… this isn’t even all of it.
I know at the end of everything, it’s her life and her decisions but I’m tired of feeling like a bad friend because I try to disengage whenever she brings him up to me. How can I handle this situation by not wanting to speak about Sebastian with her anymore? I feel like a terrible friend because I’m not as excited that she’s dating this person, but I just don’t want to see her get hurt, like she has in the past. He could be a really nice guy and I’m just picking him apart for no reason, but I’m not sure. What can I do to be a good friend to Shanice?
TLDR; my best friend lets guys treat her like shit and makes her boyfriends her *entire* life and personality. How can I disengage with her speaking about her boyfriends but still be a good friend to her?
7 comments
She doesn’t have terrible taste in men, she’s a pick me girl.
Your friend has anxious attachment style, she needs to work that out with a therapist. You may give her that advice, but apart from that there’s little you can do.
You can say something to Shanice and recommend that she seeks help with a therapist but do you think she’ll be receptive to it? It’s highly likely that she sees nothing unhealthy about her behaviour so is she likely to listen?
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>How can I handle this situation by not wanting to speak about Sebastian with her anymore?
It’s really tricky because people like Shanice are so wrapped up in their relationships that if you say anything slightly negative (like not want to talk about Sebastian all the time), they’re likely to take it really personally and possibly even fall out with you. So you could go the direct route of telling her that you’re happy for her but you don’t want to talk about him all the time or you can just steer to conversation away from him.
But, my question is this. What are you getting out of this friendship with Shanice? It sounds as though she spends all her time chasing after one shitty bloke after another and then non-stop yacking about them. And you spend your time listening to her talking about them or worrying about her. Does she ever ask about you and your life? I’m just wondering how one-sided this friendship is.
Frame it around the way it’s affecting her life. Like, instead of talking about the guy, talk to her about her classes (which she’s failing) or her money situation (i.e., she hasn’t got any?)
A good friend would encourage her to finish school and take care of herself by looking after herself financially and looking after her physical health. A bit of hard truth might be what she needs: “Shanice, I love you, and I’m saying this because I care: you seem to disappear every time you have a new love interest, and you prioritise their happiness over your own happiness and goals, and as your friend, I’m concerned that this will stop you from achieving your own goals in life.”
She might not even be conscious she’s doing it, but if you point it out to her, she might. You could frame it in terms of, what are her long-term goals? Does she want to be able to have a good career? Afford a place of her own, without necessarily relying on a guy?
“I feel like a terrible friend” being a good friend doesn’t equal being an enabler. In fact, being a good friend sometimes means tough love. The problem here is in your friend. The behavior you’re describing isn’t the guys, it’s hers. SHE is throwing her live aside to revolve her existence around them. And a good friend is a friend who doesn’t encourage self destructive behavior. If her best friend can’t be honest with her, then who can? Sometimes they don’t want to hear it, but sometimes it helps to have someone hold up a mirror. Honestly, she needs therapy, or at least some introspection. Who’s paying for her college? The fact that she’s failing because she’s too busy obsessing about boys is appalling, honestly, and this needs an intervention, not encouragement. Thousands of dollars in the trash for some guy she won’t even remember in a few years. I don’t even know what to say about the pregnancy, would she have kept it? Because I’ve gotten pregnant from being stupid too, but I aborted it and learned my lesson, but she sounds like the kind of girl that would use it to try to keep her flavor of the month guy, and that would also derail her live. Your friend need help before she ends up a single mom dropout living with her parents. She doesn’t need an enabler friend. She needs someone who can raise the alarm that this ship has veered off course and is heading towards an iceberg.
First I’d recommend you take the long view–you are young and she is likely to grow out of it!! But it will probably be painful in the meantime.
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If she does break up with this guy I’d sit down and talk to her about it between relationships–like, there’s this pattern I’m seeing is there anything I can do to help you with it? A “code word” from your best friend can be so helpful. But she has to agree to that when she’s not in the thick of things.
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While she’s with this guy, I think generally the key is to be excited that they are happy and try to not judge the guy unless there’s something really horrible going on, but also to be a reality check when she’s really missing important stuff–so, for example, no man is worth failing 4 classes college is expensive. If he is really a good guy he doesn’t want her to be failing either!
Just don’t talk to her about it. It’s that simple. Continue your friendship with her, let her live her life and do her thing. Evidently she won’t listen to your concerns anyhow so there’s no point in trying. She’ll have to learn her own lessons in her own time (and she will.) Don’t enable her poor choices but don’t try to dissuade her from them either because, like I said, she won’t listen.