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I had 3 online friends who wanted to dictate to me exactly how our communications should go. Must respond by such-and-such a time. Only certain topics...on and on.
It's not just the statement, it's her requirement that YOU also not speak to those same people, when YOU don't have an issue with them. That's what makes it controlling, and why Alice is a problem.
She seems to have issues with many people. You know the old saying? If you think everyone else is an assh0le, you're probably the assh0le. Alice is an assh0le.
And you must wonder though..what caused her to change and become like this?
Well, it's well known that tendencies (habits of thinking?) we may have shown in our younger years tend to get magnified/clarified with age. I've thought quite a bit about her personality since all this happened and realized she has always exerted more control over details of her daily life and had fairly rigorous beliefs that influence the people she tolerates. She's always lived without much if any support from anyone, single, run her own business, needed to control every penny.
Well, it's well known that tendencies (habits of thinking?) we may have shown in our younger years tend to get magnified/clarified with age. I've thought quite a bit about her personality since all this happened and realized she has always exerted more control over details of her daily life and had fairly rigorous beliefs that influence the people she tolerates. She's always lived without much if any support from anyone, single, run her own business, needed to control every penny.
Yeah. I had a friend I had to drop because, oh my gosh, she changed so much when she stopped working. We'd been friends for years, but I never noticed her control issues until after that. Everything I said or did or told her about, she started telling me I "should" feel or do or react differently from the way I actually was. I tried to tell her what she was doing, but she got so offended that I would see her behavior as anything but beneficial to me, we hit an impasse and I had to get out of it. I just got so tired of being told how to feel.
I wondered if she had always been like that, but she got it out of her system at work, and when she stopped working, it all got turned on me.
Actually I've had two friends I had to let go for that reason. The other one was a cyber friend, and not for as long a duration, but it was the same thing. Whatever I said about myself, she had to, just HAD to, tell me I was wrong and should feel some other way. Again I tried to resolve it but she wouldn't see it.
I just can't stand that. Being told how to feel. I've never had one like Alice though, telling me who I can or can't be friends with based on how she feels about them. That would not last I can tell you.
My other friends are lovely people who allow me to be myself.
I’d tell her, “It is very much about control since you’re telling me who I can converse with. You absolutely don’t have to talk to him, but you absolutely cannot tell me who I can talk to.”
You don’t have to agree with her assertion that it’s not about control.
True, but there's a huge difference between telling a friend:
"When you talk about such and such it makes me uncomfortable."
and
"If you insist on talking about such and such this our friendship is over."
There is nothing to disagree with here. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to make rules and stick to them. It doesn't make me the warmest person to be around. I probably wouldn't provide this alternative way to problem solve and just allow the words to produce their exact meaning.
True, but there's a huge difference between telling a friend:
"When you talk about such and such it makes me uncomfortable."
and
"If you insist on talking about such and such this our friendship is over."
I think it depends on the situation, tbh.
I was in a position a few years ago where I did the latter. The friend was bombarding me with complaints about a toxic relationship he had. He would send me texts, tell me all the crazy things she was doing, etc. and expecting me to provide advice. He eventually broke it off with her and I told him that if they got back together, it would be best for us to part ways because I did not want to be his mental garbage dump when things inevitably went wrong again. They ended up getting back together and we split ways. After that, she apparently went through his phone and sent me a totally unhinged message about what I loser I was. I had never met her and was only going by what she and other mutual friends told me about her.
After I ended the friendship, it took a while (we had been friends for years), but looking back, I got immense relief from ending the friendship. AFAIK, he did not end up staying with that woman, but either way I would not want to resume the friendship.
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