A 33-year-old woman has a best friend the same age as her named Claire, and they’ve been close for 5 years now.
She initially met Claire through a group meetup, and they instantly connected over recently leaving their group of friends that they each had been tight with for a while.
She really just felt that she drifted apart from that specific group of friends that she had, but Claire actually got asked to leave her friend group.
“She confided in me that the women of that group had called her incredibly judgemental and lacking empathy, and while I related to it in some way, I think I should have asked more questions at the time,” she explained.
Lately, over the course of a couple of months, the new group of friends that she and Claire share have approached her about having problems with Claire.
Her friends have mentioned that Claire is nasty, commanding, hypercritical, and not a nice person to spend time with.
Her friends then wanted to know if everything was alright with Claire, and while she did say that things were fine, she stopped to think about Claire’s behavior.
In the last year, she thinks that Claire’s behavior has been everything that her friends have said. Additionally, if she thinks back to what Claire had shared about how her former friends felt, she can see things from their side.
“She IS incredibly judgemental and controlling,” she said. “You can’t be emotional without her kind of being an ass with “comforting” you. One of our mutual friends slept with a guy on the first date, and Claire commented, “Seems like she lacked self-preservation if you ask me.” I didn’t say anything, as I was seething in my head.”
CandyRetriever – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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“I had slept on the first date with a guy months ago. She knew this. And so this is what she thought of me?”
Three of her friends suspect that Claire has Autism but that she just has yet to be diagnosed. One of these three friends is actually a therapist, and she feels this friend is qualified to make that assumption. These three friends also do admit that Claire is super smart, and they do adore having conversations with Claire, even if it is difficult to be emotional around her.
Claire just comes off as a jerk, though, and she really rubs them the wrong way a lot. She decided to confide in her therapist about Claire, and her therapist thinks that the next time Claire says something insensitive or mean, she should question her on if she’s alright before stating that she feels hurt by her words and suggesting she should speak to a therapist too.
She’s not convinced that is the best way to deal with Claire’s behavior because she’s honestly scared to confront her.
“I’m terrified of having a conversation with Claire,” she continued. “She is confrontational and goes from zero to 100 easily if she feels attacked. I do like our friendship for the most part, but this isn’t just a me problem anymore.”
Do you think she should handle Claire in the way her therapist suggested, or do you see another way to effectively deal with Claire?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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