Friends with too much drama

I don't usually check in with romantic problems. I check in with problems with friends and family.

I have a friend who I think is looking for someone to take care of her. She is in early middle age and has never been married even though she has gotten her share of attention. She had a rocky relationship with a guy for a year or two who was a single dad who was successful in his field, got custody of the children, and I thought was pretty solid. It turned out that he didn't want to shoulder all her drama. She describes the situation as if he was the problem. I think that he got burned out on all the artificially created drama and walked away from it.

This friend is always going to the doctor and specialists for tests of every kind. This is every time I hear from her and it's always some "poor me" story. Nothing becomes of anything. I never hear of any diagnoses and bad results coming from anything. It's outright insurance waste and she doesn't seem to care. Well, I do, and I don't like it.

I bring this up because this is now the second friend I have had like this. The first was a woman who was overly delicate about everything, had all the similar artificially cooked up problems, and liked to yank my chain every now and then, but didn't succeed. I finally quietly walked away. With the first friend, there was trauma I knew of. I have a good sense there has been trauma with this friend as well.

When you first meet these people, they are mannered, presentable, agreeable, and want to get together to socialize. The sex and sexuality part as it relates to me doesn't even need to come into this. I am okay with this with both male and female friends if they're not too weird and don't drag you down. Listening to problems does not drag me down. Playing mind games and wasting my time and money does.

Is this about control and control issues? A therapist I had a while back told me outright that the first friend had serious issues with control. He zeroed in on that. Are control and trauma related? They have not had great relationships with men and I wonder if their not liking their fathers leads them to play mind and control games. Isn't it sort of sick to get a high from yanking someone's chain?

 

@Aspen

First, thank you for answering on this thread. I hadn't seen a response until today. I tried to keep the first post short.

These are two different people, both women, with the first one 10 years ago and the second one currently. The first, one who the therapist gave an opinion on, had a history of ghosting while I was in therapy. I know about her traumatic past. It wasn't only my therapist who gave an opinion, but also my parents who thought she was too "complicated" for no good reason. She liked to play the helpless role and it got annoying to me. Our friendship lasted years and years but she has gotten more difficult with time and we don't live in the same area. When I was supposed to go visit her in her area, she first extended hospitality (which she always has), a month later she pulled it, and a month later she came back with some other compromise scheme. I didn't book my ticket, decided I had enough, and walked away.

The more recent friend with the repeated doctor visits seems to have psychological distress, and tells me about what medications she takes, but none of them are psych related, AFAIK. She also tells me about all these medical issues with her parents, and makes them sound pretty serious, and nothing becomes of those, either. She has been on dating sites for 20 years and hasn't found anyone. She blasted the last guy she was with - who I know but am not friends with - because I think it could have solved her financial problems and she also wanted to have one child toward the end of her childbearing years. His kids are now older and he's on his way to being an empty nester. What she has done is surround herself with a bunch of male friends, some from the dating sites and some from other hobbies, who she socializes with and, when the restaurant check comes or you're at the box office, they open up their wallets and she so graciously accepts. I've done that, too. I have done favors for her such as giving her long rides for errands and urgent things, but when I finally needed something she could have done, she didn't come through. Lately, she has been texting for a favor every other day. My opening the wallet stopped a long time ago and now I have become tired of her neediness, which I turn down, and trying to snag someone. The added bonus is that she will tell you about common friends personal problems which I don't need to know about. This means you could never trust her with a secret or a sensitive issue.

Before I even saw your message, I had a long discussion with a woman friend I've know for a long time. We now live far from each other but talk once a month. She said that she and I never have problems because her approach to everything is way too practical. When the friend I spoke with today says she's going to do something, she sticks to it and always has. She has been aware of the situation and says that it's now too much. I am now returning texts from the possible hypochondriac, and a lot of them contain childish or religious attachments, with very short answers.

The common thing here is yanking the chain through manipulation. Some people will take it for a while because these women are so "sweet and feminine" and all that. Then, it gets old. A sucker will probably keep on taking it much longer, but practical people who try to keep their lives on an even keel will start to analyze the situation, what the other person really wants from it, and distance themselves.

I'm referring to any kind of drama people are pulled into. Some people seem to thrive on pulling other people into it. Some people like to manipulate other people using tactics such as helplessness.

I'd be interested in hearing from any of the members who people have tried to pull into their drama, yank their chains, or try to control and, most of all, how the situation went.

 

I probably should have added that this friend is a Trump supporter, is too religious and conservative, and is pro-gun. When I don't interact with her, I almost feel better. After periods of silence, the text to resume communication always comes from her end.

Right now, there is silence and I'm okay with that.