Asking Eric: Friend wants to end friendship without conflict

Dear Eric I have a friend from college years ago who I m only now realizing is a needy self-aggrandizing narcissist In all of that time absolutely no one in my circle has ever liked her She has driven people away including her spouse but maybe subconsciously I thought with me it was different She has lived far away for the bulk of the time I ve known her and our relationship is mainly by phone Every interaction involves her sharing updates on her possessions homes cars wealthy people she interacts with how expensive and famous her children s universities are how perfect and accomplished her children are her amazing vacations and on and on The times she has visited haven t gone well Her children invariably tell mine how poor we are we re comfortably living a good life how everything they have is better and how small our house is My children hate them I m tired The latest is that she declared I will need to be available next year to spend time with her when she comes to visit relatives I explained that I cannot promise anything due to caring for my elderly parents and my need to be available She was furious it s a whole year away Can t you promise me that time and proceeded to berate me by text in all of the avenues I m a bad friend and need to evaluate whether I want to continue our friendship I don t I ve so far avoided her but is there a better way to end this I don t do well with conflict Stuck with a Bad Friend Dear Friend It sounds like she s provided you with an off-ramp She may have meant the comment about evaluating whether you want to continue your friendship as a threat to make you fall in line but you can and should take it at face value You ve evaluated and decided it doesn t work for you It sounds like it doesn t work for her either If you want to avoid being berated again write her a letter It needn t be vindictive or cruel Indeed you might find the majority peace in separating with love acknowledging the time you had together and wishing her well Dear Eric I have a close friend of more than years who lives in a very large and expensive city Whenever I excursion there I will often ask if my wife and I can stay with her She is acquainted with a number of our friends who live in this city but never sees them unless I come to town nor do they reach out to her if I m not there However when we are there and she joins us she tends to commandeer the conversation talking primarily about herself and her relatives which is off-putting to me and to our friends It makes it so that I don t really want to invite her along on bulk of these visits I do genuinely enjoy her friendship and her company but more when it s just us I do try to reciprocate her generosity by taking her out to dinner or cooking for her as well as spending time together during the visit I ve inquired other friends if I should feel obligated to invite her when seeing people that she also knows somewhat They seem to think I should not feel obligated I have a lot of guilty feelings about not asking her to come but I also would like to see my friends without her if I want to guilt-free I don t know how to address this issue as it s awkward to say to her that she can be self-absorbed in her conversation Any ideas I know I can pay for a place to stay but it s nice to be able to save money by staying with her Related Articles Asking Eric Family pressures sister to ignore siblings crimes Asking Eric Condo board bullying gets out of control Asking Eric Friend inevitably demands rides with no repayment Asking Eric Nice neighbors dog barks all day and night Asking Eric After illness social butterfly feels left out Grateful Guest Dear Guest I suspect there s a way to solve this without having an uncomfortable talk about her conversational skills Now was this an on-going issue with a group that gathered regularly I d suggest kindly bringing it up But it s simpler to just ask her if she minds if you have solo friend time on your next visit There are particular friends who hope and expect to spend every minute with their visiting guests but it sounds like she s a different type and might be totally fine with wishing you a fun evening and catching up with you afterward It s best not to make every friend visit off-limits to her From your letter it seems that you re making the rounds with different configurations of friends so perhaps choose one or two that you d like to see without your host friend Talk to her in advance to see if she has any strong feelings about it Hopefully she ll understand that not every outing necessities to be a group outing Send questions to R Eric Thomas at eric askingeric com or P O Box Philadelphia PA Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas com