I’m a junior in college, and I have been friends with a guy since freshman year. He was one of my first friends in school, and actually introduced me to my boyfriend, who is now his roommate. He’s also a close friend of my roommate’s, and so far we’ve all been one big happy family. Here’s the problem: He grew up in a small town, and is now convinced that his time in college has made him all-wise, all-knowing, and terribly enlightened about any issue you would care to mention. Every conversation with him in the last year or so has turned into a monologue on his life — his lack of sleep, his latest herbal remedy for tiredness, his latest all-night coffee date with the girl-of-the-week, you get the picture — and the stimulating philosophical and intellectual arguments that we used to have now seem more like trials, with him as prosecutor and judge. We were recently discussing the relative fairness of the college system that pays athletes to attend a school and provides tutoring, housing, and food at no cost to them while “real” students work their butts off to keep their heads above water, and in the middle of a point I was making, he interrupted me with a fairly rude and off-the-point question. I ignored the question long enough to finish what I was saying, and he interrupted again with “Answer the question, please,” like I was on the witness stand or something.

He also works part-time (maybe two hours a week) at a health store, and considers himself the utmost authority on everyone’s health. My roommate has tendonitis in her hand (she’s a pianist), and he convinced her to ignore a doctor’s advice and prescriptions and instead use his herbal remedies, which turned out to have some rather unpleasant side effects. He constantly tries to assert his superiority in everything, including matters that he knows nothing about. More than once, he’s almost talked me into breaking up with my boyfriend over some small issue, until I realized that he was doing it because he was jealous that our relationship has lasted so long and he has never had a girlfriend for more than two weeks. Apparently, he feels that it’s his prerogative to break us up since he was the one that introduced us in the first place.

Anyway, my basic problem is that I just can’t stand to be around him anymore, but he lives with my boyfriend, three doors down from my apartment. Am I being a brat to be fed up with his behavior? Am I blowing it out of proportion? How do I deal with his crap without totally blowing up and making problems with the rest of the group of friends? It’s really getting to the point where I can hardly go over to see my boyfriend because I don’t want to get drawn into a “conversation” with him. How can I stay away from him and still keep the peace?

Frustratedly,
Trying To Get My Last Nerve Out From Under His Huge Feet

You probably can’t stay away from him and still keep the peace. But you can talk to him about his annoying behavior.

Sit him down for a chat. Tell him you have something to say, and you don’t want him to interrupt at all, and tell him what you just told me — that he interrupts, that he conducts conversations like a police interrogation, that he doesn’t let anyone else talk or have any sense of how long-winded he gets, that he’s waaaaay out of line butting into your relationship with your boyfriend. Tell him that his attitude lately is making it hard to stay friends with him. You can couch it all in terms of “when you do X, it bothers me because Y” and “I feel like Z” so he doesn’t get too defensive, and wrap it up by saying you miss the friendship you used to share and you hope the two of you can work it out. But…say it. Get it out there.

And, seriously, put conversations about your boyfriend off-limits. It’s inappropriate, and if he wants to stir shit up, he can take it straight to your boyfriend, because you won’t hear it anymore. Make him get that. Even if you don’t feel up to talking him about the other stuff and would rather just smile and try to ignore him, stop letting him bully you on the boyfriend front. It’s not his business. Shut his sense of entitlement down.

If you plan to clear the air with your friend, you should warn your boyfriend beforehand, but don’t let him talk you out of it. You have the right to insist on common courtesy from a friend. At the very least, get him to stop interrupting and butting into your relationship, and let him know that it will have consequences for your friendship if he doesn’t respect your feelings there.

[7/18/02]

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