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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 220005" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>klmno, don't respond again to this topic. Just drop it permanently.</p><p></p><p>That's not saying you can't be friends, but I think you may need to take a step back for a while and avoid certain topics.</p><p></p><p>A friend of mine (we're not as close as we were) is very NEEDY. I first got to know her through my writing group; she interviewed me for a book I published and her article was printed in the local paper. I thought she'd done a good job on the article and was glad of it. </p><p>Then I found that she had a lot of baggage - a country girl now living in the city, a toxic family left behind in the bush.</p><p></p><p>Over time I saw more problems but was prepared to talk to her since she didn't seem to have anyone else to talk to. She seemed to me to be very socially inept; she'd ring up and talk, often calling right on the half hour (which told me she was calling someone once her favourite TV show was finishing - calling out of boredom, in other words). Often as we talked I might mention that talking to this person or that might be a good idea, to find out more about something or other; she would often say, "I tried them before I rang you, they're not home right now." This told me that when she was bored (ie her favourite TV show finished) she would reach for the phone and ring A LIST of people, talking to the first one who answered.</p><p></p><p>I also found it hard to get her to hang up. "I've got to go," never worked. I found I had to increasingly resort to "there's someone at the door," which didn't work too well when she rang late at night. What she would do when I tried to finish with what we were talking about, was she would change the topic apparently at random. For example I'd be concluding a topic about public transport by saying, "I suppose that teaches us to plan our trip more carefully next time," and she would reply with, "I got a new catalogue from the mall yesterday."</p><p>Random.</p><p></p><p>Other things I found - she NEEDED to belong to any group that told her what to think. The church she finally settled into is Sydney-based and bordering on a cult; they dictate what to think on every issue; anyone questioning this is 'counselled' or eventually asked to leave, if they persist in a different view. I got really fed up with her calling me a heretic. Mind you, it didn't stop her complaining to me about how unfeeling her pastor was, and how difficult it was sometimes to follow the ridiculous rules he laid down for her. But if I ever agreed, "yes, those rules sure sound ridiculous," then again I was called a heretic, for daring to question</p><p>.</p><p>I was asked to speak in our church - she told me that was directly against the Bible. Her statements to me became increasingly wild and very personal, of the "when did you stop beating your wife?" type. "How can you call yourself a spiritual person when you refuse to read the scriptures?" to which the automatic initial response is "what on earth makes you think I don't read... oh, what's the point?" (how dare you, was also springing to mind. How would SHE react if I said that to her? was something I never challenged. Maybe I should have).</p><p></p><p>Her need to be told what to think diverged into politics (ultraconservative). So if I ever seemed to criticise our country's former leader (then the current leader), I was not only a heretic but a traitor. She would pound my brain and our email in box with her political propaganda (somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun) but if I ever dared to reply with, "I don't share those views, the picture is much more grey than that, it's not so black and white," I got accused of shoving my political left wing views down her throat. If you replied by saying, "I only made a gentle suggestion to please stop sending me that material; I was not as blatant as you have been," it triggered another flame war and more accusations of political bias and being brainwashed.</p><p></p><p>I finally walked away, when I got a vicious diatribe simply because I replied to one of her eternal "isn't the military wonderful?" propaganda pieces with agreement but a request for balance. She was really unpleasant; she had sent me the email as "FYI only - you're not meant to reply to FYI."</p><p>That's when I began to hear the theme from "Twilight Zone" playing in my head.</p><p></p><p>Over the years of our friendship she had picked my brain for information about Asperger's and at one point finally got a psychiatrist to diagnose her with it. At another time she confided in me that she had a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder which frankly seems a better fit.</p><p></p><p>The time she offended me so badly for the last time, she had offended a lot of people. She had been sending a lot of "Isn't the military wonderful?" type of emails that were REALLY over the top. Now, I do value our military, but the Aussie military is not the US military. What she was sending us was originally written for/about the US military, but had been re-worded to use the word "Australian" instead - not necessarily changed by her, but sending this sort of thing on is fraud, in my book. I'm a long way from anti-military - husband was in the military for a while - but I DO believe in being truthful about it. And balanced. There is stuff being sent around out there that is very offensive in how it's worded ("if you don't immediately feel moved by this then you are directly culpable in every soldier's death in Iraq") and very incorrect in the claims made, especially if ascribed to Australian soldiers. Our troops are doing a different job in different places.</p><p></p><p>So I talked to husband and other members of our writing group - we were losing members, they were leaving because when they handed over their email addresses they never expected to receive this sort of stuff, it was only supposed to be for newsletters. </p><p></p><p>husband agreed to answer the phone in the evenings, especially when it rang on the half hour. And I think she had got fed up with me at about the same time - she stopped telephoning. From her telephoning several times a week and especially on holiday times (during Christmas dinner on a couple of occasions) I have only had her ring me once since then - to get me 'on side' with a writing group coup she wanted to run on the group president. In other words, she only rang me because she wanted something from me.</p><p></p><p>She's been very prickly to deal with in person at times; at other times, she's sweetness and light, all the world is lovely. Twilight Zone theme playing again. And now we haven't seen her for most of the last year - she seems to have moved on. No more emails (husband set up a separate in box to handle her emails, most of them go unread). From what I've seen of her, she has retreated even more into a world of narrow-mindedness in every possible aspect of her life. Especially when someone else is telling her what she should believe - about politics, about the military, about her favourite TV stars, about her faith. She has moved in with a new set of friends who are probably trying to help her as I was - only they are telling her what she wants to hear now. If they don't, she will hurt them too.</p><p></p><p>We have a few other people who email us regularly, who could be in the same category. </p><p></p><p>Why do we keep allowing them to communicate? Because a lot of the time, the jokes they forward are worth it. </p><p></p><p>But when it stops being worth it, we ask to be taken off their mailing list, or we just stop responding.</p><p></p><p>If a topic comes up that we find contentious, we've found that it's best to not respond at all ON THAT TOPIC. If the person comes back and says, "Why didn't you respond?" you can say, "I choose not to, for the sake of our friendship," and continue from there to fail to respond. If your correspondent won't let this go, then you have to make a choice - ask her to stop, knowing this is likely to offend (but hey - YOU are already offended, aren't you?) or put up with it because there are still aspects to the friendship you value, that outweigh the disadvantages.</p><p></p><p>Why is it that we put up with what seems to be appalling rudeness from others, but will either apologise or defend ourselves when accused of the same unfairly by people who tramp over our feelings? Maybe it's because written communication is more difficult to assess in terms of the other person's feelings; but then, we used to have no trouble with it, in the days when we always communicated by snail mail. Why should the Internet get the sole credit for being difficult to assess a person's real feelings?</p><p></p><p>We all have friends/contacts who have strong views about something. Chances are we each individually have a topic that would have us reacting strongly. Maybe that's why we tend to be so tolerant. </p><p></p><p>We don't need to be rude or mean about it - we can just walk away and ignore all correspondence if necessary; or all offensive correspondence if we have the stomach to screen it. Maybe by not responding roughly, we can reduce the total volume of offensive material being spread over the 'Net.</p><p></p><p>And one last thought - if you suspect that your correspondent isn't the most stable rocking horse in the shop, then why give her any more copies of what you have to say, for her to use and abuse by possibly sending to other people ad infinitum?</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 220005, member: 1991"] klmno, don't respond again to this topic. Just drop it permanently. That's not saying you can't be friends, but I think you may need to take a step back for a while and avoid certain topics. A friend of mine (we're not as close as we were) is very NEEDY. I first got to know her through my writing group; she interviewed me for a book I published and her article was printed in the local paper. I thought she'd done a good job on the article and was glad of it. Then I found that she had a lot of baggage - a country girl now living in the city, a toxic family left behind in the bush. Over time I saw more problems but was prepared to talk to her since she didn't seem to have anyone else to talk to. She seemed to me to be very socially inept; she'd ring up and talk, often calling right on the half hour (which told me she was calling someone once her favourite TV show was finishing - calling out of boredom, in other words). Often as we talked I might mention that talking to this person or that might be a good idea, to find out more about something or other; she would often say, "I tried them before I rang you, they're not home right now." This told me that when she was bored (ie her favourite TV show finished) she would reach for the phone and ring A LIST of people, talking to the first one who answered. I also found it hard to get her to hang up. "I've got to go," never worked. I found I had to increasingly resort to "there's someone at the door," which didn't work too well when she rang late at night. What she would do when I tried to finish with what we were talking about, was she would change the topic apparently at random. For example I'd be concluding a topic about public transport by saying, "I suppose that teaches us to plan our trip more carefully next time," and she would reply with, "I got a new catalogue from the mall yesterday." Random. Other things I found - she NEEDED to belong to any group that told her what to think. The church she finally settled into is Sydney-based and bordering on a cult; they dictate what to think on every issue; anyone questioning this is 'counselled' or eventually asked to leave, if they persist in a different view. I got really fed up with her calling me a heretic. Mind you, it didn't stop her complaining to me about how unfeeling her pastor was, and how difficult it was sometimes to follow the ridiculous rules he laid down for her. But if I ever agreed, "yes, those rules sure sound ridiculous," then again I was called a heretic, for daring to question . I was asked to speak in our church - she told me that was directly against the Bible. Her statements to me became increasingly wild and very personal, of the "when did you stop beating your wife?" type. "How can you call yourself a spiritual person when you refuse to read the scriptures?" to which the automatic initial response is "what on earth makes you think I don't read... oh, what's the point?" (how dare you, was also springing to mind. How would SHE react if I said that to her? was something I never challenged. Maybe I should have). Her need to be told what to think diverged into politics (ultraconservative). So if I ever seemed to criticise our country's former leader (then the current leader), I was not only a heretic but a traitor. She would pound my brain and our email in box with her political propaganda (somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun) but if I ever dared to reply with, "I don't share those views, the picture is much more grey than that, it's not so black and white," I got accused of shoving my political left wing views down her throat. If you replied by saying, "I only made a gentle suggestion to please stop sending me that material; I was not as blatant as you have been," it triggered another flame war and more accusations of political bias and being brainwashed. I finally walked away, when I got a vicious diatribe simply because I replied to one of her eternal "isn't the military wonderful?" propaganda pieces with agreement but a request for balance. She was really unpleasant; she had sent me the email as "FYI only - you're not meant to reply to FYI." That's when I began to hear the theme from "Twilight Zone" playing in my head. Over the years of our friendship she had picked my brain for information about Asperger's and at one point finally got a psychiatrist to diagnose her with it. At another time she confided in me that she had a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder which frankly seems a better fit. The time she offended me so badly for the last time, she had offended a lot of people. She had been sending a lot of "Isn't the military wonderful?" type of emails that were REALLY over the top. Now, I do value our military, but the Aussie military is not the US military. What she was sending us was originally written for/about the US military, but had been re-worded to use the word "Australian" instead - not necessarily changed by her, but sending this sort of thing on is fraud, in my book. I'm a long way from anti-military - husband was in the military for a while - but I DO believe in being truthful about it. And balanced. There is stuff being sent around out there that is very offensive in how it's worded ("if you don't immediately feel moved by this then you are directly culpable in every soldier's death in Iraq") and very incorrect in the claims made, especially if ascribed to Australian soldiers. Our troops are doing a different job in different places. So I talked to husband and other members of our writing group - we were losing members, they were leaving because when they handed over their email addresses they never expected to receive this sort of stuff, it was only supposed to be for newsletters. husband agreed to answer the phone in the evenings, especially when it rang on the half hour. And I think she had got fed up with me at about the same time - she stopped telephoning. From her telephoning several times a week and especially on holiday times (during Christmas dinner on a couple of occasions) I have only had her ring me once since then - to get me 'on side' with a writing group coup she wanted to run on the group president. In other words, she only rang me because she wanted something from me. She's been very prickly to deal with in person at times; at other times, she's sweetness and light, all the world is lovely. Twilight Zone theme playing again. And now we haven't seen her for most of the last year - she seems to have moved on. No more emails (husband set up a separate in box to handle her emails, most of them go unread). From what I've seen of her, she has retreated even more into a world of narrow-mindedness in every possible aspect of her life. Especially when someone else is telling her what she should believe - about politics, about the military, about her favourite TV stars, about her faith. She has moved in with a new set of friends who are probably trying to help her as I was - only they are telling her what she wants to hear now. If they don't, she will hurt them too. We have a few other people who email us regularly, who could be in the same category. Why do we keep allowing them to communicate? Because a lot of the time, the jokes they forward are worth it. But when it stops being worth it, we ask to be taken off their mailing list, or we just stop responding. If a topic comes up that we find contentious, we've found that it's best to not respond at all ON THAT TOPIC. If the person comes back and says, "Why didn't you respond?" you can say, "I choose not to, for the sake of our friendship," and continue from there to fail to respond. If your correspondent won't let this go, then you have to make a choice - ask her to stop, knowing this is likely to offend (but hey - YOU are already offended, aren't you?) or put up with it because there are still aspects to the friendship you value, that outweigh the disadvantages. Why is it that we put up with what seems to be appalling rudeness from others, but will either apologise or defend ourselves when accused of the same unfairly by people who tramp over our feelings? Maybe it's because written communication is more difficult to assess in terms of the other person's feelings; but then, we used to have no trouble with it, in the days when we always communicated by snail mail. Why should the Internet get the sole credit for being difficult to assess a person's real feelings? We all have friends/contacts who have strong views about something. Chances are we each individually have a topic that would have us reacting strongly. Maybe that's why we tend to be so tolerant. We don't need to be rude or mean about it - we can just walk away and ignore all correspondence if necessary; or all offensive correspondence if we have the stomach to screen it. Maybe by not responding roughly, we can reduce the total volume of offensive material being spread over the 'Net. And one last thought - if you suspect that your correspondent isn't the most stable rocking horse in the shop, then why give her any more copies of what you have to say, for her to use and abuse by possibly sending to other people ad infinitum? Marg [/QUOTE]
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