Tag Archives: Friends

Oct 26 2011

Testing Teeenager Times


Daughter is 17. And she’s growing up into the world. So much that socialising is becoming more and more prevalent. Mostly we’re ok with it, we think we have a handle on here friends and what they are like, know of their parents etc. Not smotheringly, but just in passing. “We know of”

So she comes home and gives us this tale. Her friend MS.X. has asked her if 3 of her friends, who are boys, are all 19 and working, and are from a different part of town, can crash at our place after the party as they can’t get home. MS.X. says that here mother won’t allow them to stay at her place.

So we said no. This didn’t seem appropriate and that it was a bit odd that MS.X. would ask, and had asked because my daughter is a friend who would help.

Daughter is a bit miffed and feels like she’s letting her friend down “she’ll be so upset with me”, to which we pointed out that if that was the case then MS.X. wasn’t so much of a friend.

I think we’ve won this time but it is going to get harder to keep saying no. There is a line between prevention and obstruction.

 

Jul 11 2011

Bromance – How to handle the overfamiliar friend?


We change. We age. We spread out. Our tastes change.
The type of people we like changes, we gravitate towards those we like and similar to us, we avoid those that disturb on on some level or other.

What do you do then when a long time friend crosses over from the like side of the ledger to be in the margins. Now they’re just brash, rude, foul and annoying. You’d still do anything for them but just don’t want to spend time with them.

You could make excuses for their behavior, mostly it’s drink. Some of it is lack of respect. Some of it might be jealousy. It’s probably more the latter than the former.

What do you do though, in baulking you just move further away from the middle ground you have and base your friendship on.

This isn’t like the Odd Couple, were not joined at the hip, we don’t share events, locations or other friends. We have a habitual relationship based on my visiting them. And there’s the point where it goes wrong. They are a stay at home friend. They know my house, they visit to pick me up to go to their house. I don’t think they like my well ordered neat and tidy wife and life.

Or I’ve decided that 3 hours of beer on a sunday afternoon isn’t as much fun as it could be. Or that wii golf is pathetic and is just an excuse for boorish oneupmanship. Yet I’m avoiding telling them, the friendship is worth more than the not having them as a friend. Il avoid them by doing things I want to do, and the bored I’ll go back to letting them win at wii, it keeps them happy.

Dec 1 2010

Outrage as a defence


A feminist friend of mine constantly bangs on about how outraged she is about almost everything.

You can’t pick anything she says as repeat it back to her since this then is just an attack.

Yet she is by her own admission insecure and unsure about many things.

Everything “sexualises” or “denigrates” women.

I’d stop caring but as a friend she’s ok, I just wouldn’t go to her for advice