really demanding friend?

Lorne wrote:

I've been having this on going problem with a friend, who I even confronted a while back, but nothing seems to resolve this. I'm almost tempted to just end the friendship.

Ok, so I have this friend named Ed, who's a pretty cool guy, and I trust him pretty much in more ways than one. On the other hand, he seems to think that everything he does I also have to do as well. He recently moved out to LA (after his mother died), and says that since he moved out there it's been this wonderful life changing experience for him and would never go back to his home town again. He's also quit smoking and spends all his time and money focusing on some musician he knows, trying to get him noticed more I guess.

Ed has always had bad money problems though, to the point where he'll ask his friends for money all the time, and when he finally gets money he owes it all to his friends. There was a time in my life where I accepted help from him (cigarettes, food, minor things), thinking they were just small things, but in his mind they seemed more like some kind of investment or loan. Now, for what I thought were little things, have grown some kind of intrest to where I OWE him something all the time, but what exactly that is seems to change or vary all the time, depending on the need. So, no matter what could be going on in my life currently or whenever, it seems to be unimportant to him when he craves one of these needs. Almost like he keeps a book of "favors" around at all times, and has a list of numbers to call and rough up past aquaintances whenever he's in a bind.

He also wants me to move out to LA and do the same exact thing he did, and eventually be living out there to support him, as well as give up smoking. First off, I never said that I would move out there, and that LA was actually not on my favored list of places to move. Smoking is probably something I'll quit eventually, but not for him, I'll have to do it on my own time for my own reasons. Also, I've explained to him that I understand his life changing experience, because I felt exactly (maybe not exactly) the same way when I went to Alaska for a few months and camped, hiked, hunted, etc. Things changed so much in my life during that time, that it gave me a whole new approach to life, and allowed me to start setting life long goals for myself. So yeah, I do understand quite well how those experiences can change a person and their perspective on life and the path they're on. I don't feel that LA would hold the same opportunities for me.

From these things that I've mentioned so far however, he keeps sending me these "reminders" which he calls them. Saying I have to do something soon, or my life will go nowhere, and I'll end up dead if I don't do something about it. Just constant badgering, like I promised something that I don't remember ever leading into or saying I would do. If I don't do anything, then he just gets worse and worse, even to the point of sounding angry and giving me pissy phone calls and e-mails. So then I get angry, and tell him to go fly a kite (trying to keep it censored), or something to that nature. Then he reverts back to square one, and almost becomes manipulative, trying to change the reasons for me to do these things and comply. But his intentions seem rather obvious to me, so it doesn't work the umteenth time around, and I just get mad at him again for badgering me.

It just doesn't stop, and I've flat out told him I will not comply to his demands before. To stop badgering me, to stop sending his "reminders", to stop only calling me when he's depressed, to just accept me for the kind of person I am, and not who he wants me to be in the friendship. None of that works. He just keeps reverting back to square one again and again, taking another stab at me to try to get me to comply to his demands. Because I "owe" him I guess, or whatever. He'll bring up all the various ways that I owe him when he gets frustrated enough it seems, almost like he really didn't like me at all to begin with.

I really hate ending friendships with people over stupid trivial stuff like this, but it seems like it just won't be resolved any other way. I hate to lose a good friend, but more and more, he just doesn't seem like a good friend to have. If I did actually move out there and started supporting him (I'm pretty sure that's what he has in mind) my life would be miserable, and all about him from then on.

Dear Lorne

It isn't trivial, and he isn't a demanding friend, he's a bully and a jerk.

Tell him to drop dead, and if he argues, get a court order.

If he is your idea of friendship, then you have some pretty weird ideas.