I'm happy about her misfortune .. does that make me a bad person?

[dazegoby]

I am in my mid-twenties, fairly mature for my age, married, in a stable job and happy. I have no children and a wonderfully supportive family. My problem is with a 'friend' of mine ...

 

We've been on and off as friends for some time now. Every few months, she will do something completely rude and inconsiderate, and I stop talking to her for awhile. Eventually, she will come around and apologize, and we end up talking again. Even though I have known her for nearly a year now, because of these issues, we have never really become close friends. I believe she is a good person deep down, just very immature and spoiled. She's 23, divorced, 2 kids, who she rarely sees, as she usually 'drops' them on family.

 

This friend has never been able to hold down a steady job for more than a month. Her jobs, (of which she has had about 8 since last January,) usually last only a few weeks. She survives on child support her ex pays her, as well as living in a residence owned by her grandparents, to which she doesn't pay rent. She gets so excited about jobs, then after a few weeks she is either fired for not coming in, or she just stops coming to work. Lately, her truck was repossessed. This is the issue I want to discuss.

 

Her ex husband was awarded an SUV in the divorce. The payment was $450. He ended up not being able to pay for it, and as they were both on the loan and jointly responsible, she took the SUV to avoid a repo on her credit, even though she had no way to make the payments. She also has a terrible driving record, so insurance is extremely expensive for her.

 

Well, she traded in the SUV for a truck. She was 'upside down' on her trade-in, so they rolled an extra $6k into the new loan, making her payment $500 (!) . She was very excited to have the truck and bragged to everyone about it. Well, she never made any payments, never insured it, (as insurance would have been another $300/mo,) and so it was repo'd after 3 months.

 

This 'friend' also steals from local stores, rips off people on online auctions, and generally is a scam artist. Yet, even with this behavior, she always seems to 'skate by' and never has to pay any consequences for her actions. This makes me angry, as I work for everything I have.

 

My question is this ... when I heard about her repo'd truck, I had to choke back laughter. I was happy for her misfortune. Does that make me a bad friend? I do genuinely care for her, but I tried to tell her this would happen, and she was like a kid in a toy store ... is it wrong for me to want to say I told her so?

[ThisGirlNameKD]

You should never say I told you so in any relationship or friendship. However, if she's been treating people unjustly and her actions come back to haunt her, I don't think there's anything wrong with you feel that she got what she deserved.

[midori]

First of all, I agree with the above post.

 

Originally posted by dazegoby

 

This 'friend' also steals from local stores, rips off people on online auctions, and generally is a scam artist. Yet, even with this behavior, she always seems to 'skate by' and never has to pay any consequences for her actions. This makes me angry, as I work for everything I have.

 

I think the quotation marks around "friend" say it all.

 

I do genuinely care for her

 

That's nice that you care for her, but is she your friend? Do you see her as your equal in any sense? It doesn't sound like it.

 

My best friend of nearly 15 years is a dear, sweet soul who has made and continues to make some bad decisions that have major implications for her life. But she also has many fine qualities that I admire and I truly value her presence in my life. There are times when I'm hard-pressed to not say, "I told you so." In fact I probably have but she's so kind and lovely that she forgives me. Cos you're really not supposed to say "I told you so," but being self-righteous and judgemental are shortcomings of mine and fotunately my friends don't seem to hold it against me. Anyway, my point is this: if all you feel is a vague liking for this girl, she's probably not really your friend. She's just someone you like.

 

I had a friend I knew from summer camp, years ago. We stayed in touch through college and into our adult lives. But she made so many bad choices and evolved into a person that I couldn't relate to. It wasn't that she was specifically immoral or did things that I unequivocally condemned. But I knew she was making bad choices. And she'd whine about the consequences, seemingly stunned when her bone-head moves turned out to be -- surprise surprise! -- bad decisions. I just found that she wasn't worth the effort it took for me to bite my tongue. We no longer had anything in common, and I didn't want to particpate in her misery and chaos. I haven't spoken to her in a couple of years. I like her as a person, absolutely. But there just isn't a way for us to connect to each other anymore.

 

So: what do you really have in common with this girl? What do you get out of the affiliation? What does she get from you? If it's dramatically uneven, you need to consider whether or not it's really a friendship. You've known her for a year? That's not much of an obligation. I feel rather guilty sometimes about falling out of touch with my summer camp friend. But I've dropped other people from my life over the years, and I don't feel guilty at all about that. We just stopped connecting; they went their ways, I went mine. C'est la vie.

[dazegoby]

Originally posted by midori

I had a friend I knew from summer camp, years ago. We stayed in touch through college and into our adult lives. But she made so many bad choices and evolved into a person that I couldn't relate to. It wasn't that she was specifically immoral or did things that I unequivocally condemned. But I knew she was making bad choices. And she'd whine about the consequences, seemingly stunned when her bone-head moves turned out to be -- surprise surprise! -- bad decisions. I just found that she wasn't worth the effort it took for me to bite my tongue. We no longer had anything in common, and I didn't want to particpate in her misery and chaos. I've dropped other people from my life over the years, and I don't feel guilty at all about that. We just stopped connecting; they went their ways, I went mine. C'est la vie.

 

This is very much the same situation ... I feel virtually no connection to her, other than the fact that she is a sweet person. We have very, very little in common as far as everyday life goes.

 

The thing is, I've tried to (nicely, considerately, maturely,) sever the ties, and she always freaks out, starts posting nastiness about me on her website and harrasses me by phone and email. It's as if it is all or nothing with her, and we are either friends or enemies. Last time I told her (kindly,) that we just didn't have a lot in common and it would probably be best to part ways, and wished her well, her friend from high school called me up to physically threaten me!

 

I think it's necessary for me to just 'fade away' ... I hate to take that way out, as I feel it is only fair to be honest, but I just can't take the negativity that comes with it, and I feel bad feeling this way about someone I call a friend.