What are best friends for if not to tell the truth no matter how ugly and horrible it is. Like the wise and very old King Solomon once wrote: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." Wounding your friend with reality they really don’t want to hear - a cheating fiancé or that 'Juicy' Couture tracksuits went out of style ages ago - takes guts. Not surprisingly, it also makes you feel like a real jerk.
As in the case of a 26-year-old South Carolinian who felt awful after confronting her best friend about her never-ending moaning that she will never find her Prince Charming. As the author of the story tells it on the 'Am I The A-Hole' subreddit, no matter how much she tried to help or put things into perspective, her best friend's naïve understanding of principles of attraction was "not very realistic."
And so one day, hearing the same spiel, she ran out of patience and told her friend what everyone was thinking but couldn't really say... Here is how the whole story goes.
Being a best friend means that sometimes you have to be a jerk and tell the bitter truth to your bestie
Image credits: Alexandre Dulaunoy (not the actual photo)
One redditor shared how and why she had to tell her dear and lonely BFF that no guy will be interested in her
Image credits: cainsk
While it's been a month since the author's decision was deemed healthy and justified by the panel of 'Am I The A-Hole' members, it's often the case these at-the-time difficult cases lead to better things. That's why Bored Panda reached out to the author to see if things took a turn for the better.
"The last conflict did not have a huge impact, at least not on her end," Bored Panda was told by the author. "But it has made me a little less sympathetic and she knows it." As many would have guessed, resentment that her best friend "Kim" radiates has turned many away, including most of their shared friends.
This is what the internet had to say about the drama
"The "jealousy" (her words, not mine) and the words of frustration that she uses when the females around get all the attention but not her is too much for a lot of our friends to handle on a regular basis. So, I get hit with it the hardest since I am the only one in our friend group who is married and she really wants that."
Despite doing everything that was in her power - washing and styling friend's hair, taking her shopping - nothing helped. The situation seemed irreparable, unlike her friend's damaged hair. "I feel she may still be in the denial phase of weight gain and would rather just lose the weight instead." The problem? Her friend doesn't show any signs of appreciating the support, thus prompting that self-sabotaging may be at the stake, as some users suggested.
However, Sheila Robinson-Kiss, an MSNBC-featured mental health expert and award-winning author, founder of 'Rebalancing America and Beyond Initiative' has a slightly different take. "As unsavory as her position may be to some, if this is truly how her friend feels - she should be left alone. I guarantee she will find a match," Robinson told Bored Panda, adding that low self-esteem or self-sabotaging don't have anything to do with this woman's dilemma.
On the contrary, despite what her best friend or the internet thinks, Robinson believes the problem lies elsewhere. "It's her friend whom has the problem. This person seems somewhat content outside of her complaints about the partnership," we are told. "If this person was my client, I would not try to convince her of how beautiful she is and what she could have if she spruced herself up." Instead, Robinson would deal with this specific case from another angle - one that becomes obvious and empowering once you read her Psychology Today blog 'They're Not Coming'. "What do you get out of NOT caring for yourself?. That's what I would try to work out first," Robinson wrote in an email. "I would tell her to stop complaining about what she is creating because if she does not stop being a victim, she will be a friendless victim soon. No one likes a whiner." Tough love.
We don't doubt Robinson has a point. Still, it's always for the best to approach such complex cases from various angles. And the one Yaela Orelowitz, a practitioner of Dramatherapy who specializes in women and self-esteem issues, oftentimes applying Jungian theory, brings up makes a whole lot of sense. "It sounds to me this person may be coming to terms with her own understanding of what it means to be a woman and her own resistances towards the feminine," Orelowitz told Bored Panda all the way from Mexico. "From my understanding she's unable to enter into a stable relationship as a whole person because she's dealing with an internal conflict."
Learning that this problem started right after the author's friend turned 30, both mental health experts we spoke with had different opinions. From her experience, Robinson claims age has nothing to do with self-esteem issues. "All ages and stages encounter this kind of mindset. Ultimately, the quality of our quest for love and acceptance is a reflection of the tenacious fight we wage to love ourselves." Orelowitz agrees with Robinson that the laws of attraction rely greatly on the love for yourself. Yet, she also thinks that age might be a far greater factor in this situation. "She's over the age of 30 which is an especially pivotal time for most women. Something switches at 30 where women say, 'now I'm in charge of my own life'," Orelowitz said. "This resistance that the author is describing makes sense at the age of 30."
Finally, Robinson presents us with a silver lining. "It's much better if she will wait and meet the person who accepts her in her baseball cap, baggy pants and half-eaten pizza crust, on the living room floor - the way she truly is. Believe it or not, there is someone for us all."