[Envious-Sleep]

Hello Soompiers. I come today to ask for your unbiased, neutral opinion on the best approach for my situation. It may seem melodramatic to you, especially compared to the heartbreaking experiences of other Soompi users, but it's still a very troublesome, emotionally frustrating situation, and I hope you guys can help.

The quick run down would be that I have this friend who I've known for years, and I guess since we're not that similar, we weren't as close with each other as we were with other friends. Nonetheless, I thought of her as, although kinda naive and overall, quite childish, a good friend.

And of course, I was wrong. So were about all of our friends. In the end, what we thought was a good friendship turned out to be a typical high school drama full of stupid rumours and...well, drama. And my question is what would be the best approach to tell her that we feel betrayed, irritated, frustrated, etc, etc, etc? You know, without looking like a-holes.

Now, for those interested, or those who want to provide a more..tailored reply, here's the full situation (beware of length):

As mentioned above, this was a girl that most of us thought was our friend. She was kinda shy, and a little uhm....fake, but we thought that she was a good reason. The main issues we had with her were really out of concern; for one thing, she tends to put on a cute act. Having known her for years, I know that this 'cuteness' isn't part of her natural, real personality. I understand that some people have self esteem issues, and so despite finding it very irritating, we all tolerated it. The concern we had with her in terms of this 'act' was that it was going to let people take advantage of her. Other than that, we tolerated it.

The other issue is her work ethics. She doesn't work as fast as most people, and she gets distracted easily. Because of this, she easily gets overwhelmed where other people with the same work load would only feel a little bit of pressure. I know many people think that that isn't something you can fix--but there's more to that.

It isn't that she's slow and can never finish in time; it's that she's slow, gets distracted easily, but still chooses to procrastinate. It's no excuse when you're given a month to do an assignment, and even though you know you're slow, decide to leave it to the last day. Not only that, but she goes and watches dramas online and surfs the net while doing homework.

The worst part about all this is that she keeps making excuses, and quits easily when she's 'overwhelmed'. University/college is just down the street and around the corner, and these excuses won't sit with the profs. As friends, this is definitely a concern, because not only are we paying large amounts of money for these classes, but post-secondary education can[ heavily affect someone's future. Besides, late projects and quitting classes won't be something her parents would tolerate.

And speaking of her parents, she had the bad habit of going out without their permission. We would arrange an outing a day or two beforehand to make sure everyone's free, has permission from our parents, had money, etc, etc. When we go out, we assume everyone's let their parents know. And then, just when we're too far from home to turn back, she reveals to us that her parents thinks she's at school, or that they're out and don't know she is out.

I know this isn't a big deal for a lot of people, but it is a big problem with us--especially me, because her parents know me and so trust me. I'm being selfish, but I don't want her parents to think of me as a bad person who kidnaps their daughter. That, and her parents sometimes find out about these outings and she gets into trouble.

And so, for a long time, we've been trying to help her. We've given her lectures about work ethics, avoided talking to her online because she probably had homework to do, and tried to bring out her real personality. We tried our best to keep her in the loop; she went out with us quite a bit, and when she goes out with me and my family, we usually pay for her expenses. When we do go out, we try our best to make sure that she let her parents know.

But starting from this year, everyone felt a little distanced from her; we just talk to her as much or go out as much with her as we used to (due to a variety of reasons). Although that was all very disappointing, it wasn't a huge concern with us. We're always there if she needed us. We also had constant interactions during class.

Recently though, these interactions have become strained, and many of us are seeing a totally different side of her. Her work ethics started getting in the way of our relationship with her; projects with her usually get frustrating. Partially because of another member of the group (who, if you're interested, is bossy, selfish and just...gjdfshgsdklgh), but partially because while the rest of us scurry to get things done despite the things that pop up but we still can't finish because she tends to do her part late.

This frustration was just the tip of the iceburg, though.

Now, I'm sure most of us, as much as we don't want to admit it, talk about other people behind their backs. Usually, it's just letting out frustration without having to confront the people in question; we don't really want to rock the boat. It's not right, but it happens.

The problem with it is that people start talking b.s. behind people's backs. I understand that she probably misunderstood or maybe in her eyes, things appeared to be a certain way, but some of it is just not justifiable. Then she would tell other people about how we are terrible people and as group members for projects, don't do our work. She complained to me about the work ethics of one friend online, while I was at that friend's house (and I did tell her I was at the friend's house when she asked what I was doing, at the beginning of the conversation; she just missed that line) and the friend (who I know is a TERRIBLE liar), told me that none of it was true.

At that point, I still partially believed that it was a misunderstanding. But things began to build up, and she turned one of our friends against another. The friend whom she talked to tries to appear unbiased and not taking sides, but it was clear that he was believing all that she said from the way he treated us afterwards. A year or two ago, that same friend had gotten pissed off at me about b.s. she had told him about me (she told me a 'secret' of his (it really wasn't a big deal, and I didn't really care about it), and he found out. She told him I 'forced it out of her', when I only asked once, and told her that I wouldn't tell anyone if she told me.) She told another friend of ours about how we were 'such bad people'.

I guess in a way this is like a typical high school drama....except the mean girl doesn't appear to be mean, but 'pitiful and adorable.' We honestly want to just cut her off from our group. We don't want to deal with it. It's frustrating and emotionally taxing, and personally, I'm tired of being betrayed (because things have happened in the past that had actually made me a little suicidal).

So my question is...what is the best approach? We know that if we actually just completely put a wall between her and us, she would only spread more rumours about how 'bad and mean' we are. On the other hand, though I can kind of take the emotional exhaustion, I don't think my other, slightly more sensitive friends can.

[StephyT]

Sorry if this is too harsh, but it honestly seems like you wrote a bunch of crap for nothing.

If you & other friends don't like her, then stop being her friend or just straight up tell her what your problem is with her.
If someone is treating you so badly, I don't know why you would keep giving them so many chances anyways.

[MNLV27]

I agree with the post above. If she's such a burden and a not so good friend, then why are you guys friends with her? So what if she spreads rumors about you guys, it's not like it's true and what will other people do about it? Nothing. So who cares. Either talk to her about it face to face or just stop being friends with her. Friends come and go.

[kuroimisa]

I could totally feel you, then I read the first reply and LOL'd. They are so right.

Nobody really likes her anyway. Who cares what she says behind your back?

Nobody ignores or yells at someone without a good reason - leave her be. Why even try to hard to help her - she's not appreciating it. Let her do whatever D: