While some friendships usually go like a hot knife through butter, others aren't as smooth. Sometimes, to have this person in your life, you have to go through a rollercoaster of emotions caused by a variety of incidents. So, sometimes it makes you wonder – do I really want them to be a part of my social circle?
Like in this story, where a woman is forced to choose between her adult daughter and her decades-old friendship. And it's all because her girl decided to make a rather risky joke years ago.
More info: Mumsnet
While some friendships are easy to deal with, others can be quite a headache, at least sometimes
Image credits: Darina Belonogova / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Like in this story, where a woman had a decades-long friendship, but it was a pretty rocky one, to put it simply
Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels (not the actual photo)
This friend liked bragging about how long they were friends, but at the same time, wasn't there for the woman when she needed her
Image credits: Caio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
One day, this friend was invited to a barbecue, during which the woman's adult daughter made a little risky joke towards the friend
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The friend was so hurt by it that even years later she couldn't let it go and even urged the woman to kick out her daughter, because it 'would be in her best interest'
The OP has this, let’s call her an on-and-off friend, that she has known for decades now. Why are we calling her "on-and-off"?
Well, turns out this friend missed out on 10 critical years of the original poster’s life. During this decade, the woman got married, her kids were born, and her father died, so they were rather busy years, and her friend missed all of it. Still, she keeps calling her a ‘bestie’ and makes sure to let everyone know that she has known her the longest.
Doesn’t seem like the most genuine friendship out there, does it? In fact, it kind of sounds like one where the parties are staying solely because they know each other from way back and not because they genuinely like each other.
Sometimes people do this out of familiarity. Like you already know all about this person, and you have some kind of connection or history. It’s not a secret that it’s hard to make friends as an adult, getting to know new people, so keeping to those you already know sometimes is easier, even if the relationship is pretty rocky.
One day, this friend was hanging out at the author’s place. They had a barbecue, so meat was involved. This woman started messing with it and complaining that there was not a lot of it on the bones. This caused the OP’s then-23-year-old daughter to joke: “Well, if that’s how you feel, you can [go] home after that hotdog.”
At the time, when the joke was made, no one batted an eye. Then, after a few days, the friend phoned the original poster and told her that, apparently, she had cried the whole weekend due to that comment and how it made her feel. Yet, the author wasn’t having it – she kept telling her friend that it was a simple joke and that her daughter didn’t have any despicable intentions with it.
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But the friend didn’t let herself be convinced of that. Now, years have passed since that joke, and she still hasn’t let go of it. And it’s not only that she’s annoyed by it. She even goes as far as saying that the woman should kick her daughter out, as it would be in her best interest.
This leaves the OP conflicted between loyalty to her daughter and her friendship of many years. So, she did what many others do – turned to people online for advice.
Some netizens pointed out that the joke the daughter made was a little weird and maybe even disrespectful. She cursed at her mother’s friend, at a woman who was older than her. There’s a well-known notion that younger people should always be respectful towards folks who are older than they are.
At the same time, there are some who say that this social rule is nonsense – we should only be respectful towards those people who deserve it, and being older than someone doesn’t automatically make you a good person.
So, you might say that the reason why the OP’s daughter made her controversial joke was because her mom’s friend was being difficult and she wanted to express that somehow. But the reality is that we don’t know whether this was her intention or not. What we know is that the joke hurt the friend enough that she spirals about it even years later.
Besides the respect question, the rest of the netizens had a general consensus that the author should drop her friend. After all, she doesn’t even seem to like her that much, as throughout her post, she didn’t mention even the slightest positive thing about her. So, how can she throw out her daughter just because a friend like that wants her to?
What do you think the OP should do? We want to hear your takes in the comments.
This caused the woman to wonder what to do, but netizens told her that it's simple – ditch the friend, not the daughter
