Re: Friends or Frenemies?
^ Hmmm, Stardust, what do you mean that they bring up your past? Does it go something like this?
You: Talk to friend about them staying quiet and not reacting much to your good news.
Friend: Gets defensive. Starts bringing up mistakes you made in the past. Mistakes that might not be related to the issue at hand and took place AGES ago.
You: remain quiet because your friend won’t let you speak.
If that’s the case…then that’s not a very good friend. This sounds like a person who instead of being open-minded enough to reflect over her behavior and consider your concerns…would rather get defensive and distract from their mistakes by focusing ALL the attention upon a negative past.
OR…by “past”…do you mean that this friend gets defensive and reminds you about all the NICE things she’s done for you in the PAST??? If that’s the case…then even that is unreasonable. Because the issue at hand is her reaction to your CURRENT GOOD NEWS and not her reaction to some good news that you have a long time ago in the past. This means that this friend of yours doesn’t want to make any recent efforts to be happy for you…and has the “Oh I showed my happiness years ago and don’t need to show it anymore” attitude.
Again, what do you mean by past?
If you’ve tried talking to them…and they’re not understanding the problem…and if you don’t want to drop them as friends…just don’t share many things with them. Sometimes, Stardust, people think we’re being “needy”…and they enjoy the fact that we want their approval. It gives them an ego boost to think that we need their word of approval or blessings. So, if you act confident and tell yourself that you don’t need their approval and that you’re happy with how life is turning out for you…then maybe they’ll become curious about why you haven’t shared anything about your life with them. Maybe if you back off a bit…they’ll be more curious/interested in what’s going on with you.
^It’s sad that you should even have to do this. Sincere friends should make the effort to be happy for one another.