Succeeding Can Lose You Friends

It can hurt to recognize that a friendship is over. LOSING THE "FOREVER" IN BFF wrote in to Dear Margo:

I'm 21 years old and will be graduating with my bachelor's degree in chemistry, with plans to go for a master's, then a Ph.D.

Good for you!

I have a ring and a date from a wonderful man I have been with for four years.

Okay... so you've been dating while young and in school. Your relationship is likely not going to be the same once you are both done with school, and it sounds like you are going to be busy with school for a few more years. Are you going to have time to be a spouse? Anyway, that's not really want this letter was about.

I was very close to the same two girls throughout grade school and high school; now I can’t stand to be around either of them.

That happens. Nowhere is it written that your best friends at one phase of your life are going to be your best friends through all phases of your life. In the past, you had geography and age in common, and when you were a kid, that's a lot. But you're now at the age where priorities, values, and morals make more of a difference, because you are more freedom over your own life.

One drinks to excess at least three nights a week and always wants to "hang out" at gross backyard keg parties.

Drinking and partying is not bad per se, as long as your friend isn't forsaking obligations. Drinking to excess is a problem. But this isn't your scene anyway.

The other dates a deplorable stoner who treats her like a dog and brags about how much money he makes pushing drugs to the local teens.

Not the kind of people you need to hang with.

Not surprisingly, all they do is whine and cry to me about all their problems, and then try to find problems with my life.

They want sympathy – it feels good and it is easier for them than making good decisions.

I don't return their calls anymore and have no desire to speak with them. So now they leave me messages all day, drive by and "drop in" if they see my car, and try to guilt trip me about being a terrible person for "throwing away" so many years of friendship.

They are the ones throwing it away as much as you. And some things aren't worth keeping.

I used to try getting them together for lunch dates, movies and other non-boozing and drug-using things, but they always said I was no fun.

Drop them. They are losers. You have more important things to deal with. If you want to help someone, go to a shelter and help there. Those are people seeking help.

Margo pretty much agreed.

This reminds me a bit about what I wrote here.

Of course we should stick by our friends when they have suffered setbacks in life – illness, injury, death, job loss, divorce, heartbreak, etc. But when they are making their own lives miserable as a chosen lifestyle and they don't want to change, they become akin to vampires. Especially when you have a spouse or kids depending on you, it is best to cut them out of your life.

In this case, she may find that her "friends" may actively try to subvert her education and her relationship, because the more she moves forward in those areas, the more she is going to be different from them.