Cutting ties with an old friend?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>This is a somewhat long post, but i'd really like some advice from some impartial parties.....</p>

<p>I have this friend, who I have known since the beginning of High School (were both 22 now, I just finished undergrad in the spring). This friend (lets call him P, for the sake of simplicity) went to school considerably further than the rest of our group of HS friends (about 18 hours from our hometown). During his Freshman year, P told us that he hadn't been doing to well in classes, which we didn't think too much of, because he had a difficult major (engineering), and he admittedly partied too much, and probably had some trouble adjusting to college life, two things which happen to many, so no one thought anything of it. Sophomore year went by, and everything seemed normal with P. Anyways, in October of Junior year, I had heard through the grapevine that P was back living at home, which seemed odd. It turns out that he had been suspended for the rest of the academic year from his college due to the fact that he had hit a girl. We were all somewhat surprised, because P was always a low key kid, the kind of person that you would never think to do that. He appealed to get reinstated, and eventually was, but his parents decided that they didn't want to pay out of state tuition anymore, and he enrolled in the local state school during what would have been his senior year. It was at this school that he seemed to fall in with a bad crowd, got involved with drugs and stealing things. My group of friends also had learned that he had multiple run ins with the campus and local law officials at his old school, and the girl he hit, she had a restraining order against him. Anyways, in the past few weeks, we have been going out with him, and he refuses to pay, says he has no money, but he'll pay us back when he makes the money (this bothers me, because it bothers me when people dont pay back, and I know he wont pay back)...But tonight, he told us that he had gotten suspended from his current school (the local state school), because he had been stalking girls, and he was on the verge of getting kicked out of his apartment because he played music too loud, and the thing is, he didn't seem ashamed about it (like he had when he got kicked out of his first school, when he broke down crying), he had this attitude of "this makes me so badass" </p>

<p>Anyways, i'm really wondering what to do about this friend. Part of me wants to just cut him out of my life, because its to the point where ive tried to help, and he makes the same mistakes and doesn't get it, but at the same time, I feel like i cant just sit around and let one of my friends ruin his life.</p>

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<p>You have made an effort to stick with him and try to help him out. Sounds like he might have some psychological problems and some addiction issues. Do you know the family enough to talk to his parents to see if there is anything you can do? Probably not… If an opportunity comes up, I might talk to him to tell him that everyone is pretty worried about him, and see how he responds. Truthfully, it sounds like he might be one of those people who needs to hit rock bottom before he realizes he needs to make changes to his life. It is great to be a good friend, but you can’t let him drag you down, especially if he is not willing to make changes to his life. Most of us drift away from our HS friends after graduation, because everyone changes so much at that point. Sounds like you are going in very different directions.</p>

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<p>This is funny because almost the same exact thing happened to me. The kid went from everyone thinking he was the coolest guy ever to having barely any friends because of how much he changed.</p>

<p>One thing I can tell you is that don’t try to interfere in his life, if he’s like my friend he’ll prolly just get mad at you and won’t listen. You gotta let him make his own mistakes and learn from it.</p>

<p>It’s up to if you wanna remain his friend or not. Me, I feel like I was his boy from the beginning and everyone needs someone to have their back so I still chill with him. Everyone else cut him out of their life though so it’s all up to you. The truth of the matter though is that this dude will probably never change so if you’re gonna remain his boy don’t expect him to change.</p>

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<p>I have a friend with a story similar to this, who I recently cut ties with. We had been friends since middle school. In his case, he had started doing drugs sometime in high school (I think, maybe sooner) and it just got worse and worse. For a long time we were still friends but I had to cut off any emotional connection I had with him, because he wasn’t capable of being a good friend. He would disappear for months, he would do something really ****ty, he would get sent to jail, and had I remained emotionally invested in him it would have driven me nuts to continually watch him fail like that. So I still cared about him as a person but had to stop caring about what happened to him. Last I heard he wasn’t going to school, wasn’t eligible for financial aid because of drug convictions, couldn’t get a job for the same reason, had no car, no place to live, and very few friends. So we talked when we had the chance and had a good time but I tried not to care about where he was in life because there was nothing anyone could do to help him, he has to help himself and he’s not willing to do that right now. Some friendship, eh? That was just the best as could be done at the time. But recently he got really mad at me and said a bunch of mean things and now I am just done. If he wants to implode there is nothing I can do about it, and if he is going to be unkind to me then I have nothing left to get out of this relationship. Sounds like you may be in a similar place if all your friend is doing is screwing around and borrowing money he won’t pay back. You have to consider how much you’re willing to put into this guy to maintain the friendship. When someone falls off the track that badly, they don’t have it in them to put in what they need to to maintain relationships. And there is nothing you can do to help him have that capability, only he can get himself back on track. And in the meantime, he has the potential to become a constant emotional strain on you. It’s up to you to figure out where you draw the line. I was okay with hanging out with my old friend when he was around as long as I distanced myself mentally from all the trouble he was in, but I could only do that for so long.</p>

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<p>Only you can decide whether or not the friendship is worth it.<br>
Personally I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who is apparently that much of a creep (hitting and stalking girls?), but you’re the one who knows him.</p>

<p>However, if I were in your situation I’d do what was in my power to be done- stop enabling him. He can’t make you pay for him, and it will only get worse (with that issue) if you continue to do so.</p>

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<p>His problem is he needs friends. If you were his good friend, then you should help him cause thats what good friends are supposed to do. But i wouldnt tell his parents. That wouldnt be cool.</p>

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<p>Err, well, as other posters have said, this is up to you. I think some kind of discussion needs to take place before cutting ties with him though. Like, it wouldn’t really be fair (in my opinion) to stop being friends with him without telling him that he’s changed and that you don’t like it, and referring him to places where he can get help with these sorts of things. Maybe a good way to go about it if you have already tried to get him help is to say that unfortunately he isn’t the person you know so that you can no longer invest yourself emotionally in him. But, if he picks his life back up or starts making efforts to change, then you can still be on good terms and possibly pick up your friendship.</p>