After a year and a half, estranged from my best friend

[Pekka]

Why do you think he doesn't realize his bad situation though? Or why do you think you need to teach him anything? You've already tried to free him. There's only so much you can realistically do.

You'd prolly make him more miserable by trying to just pound this into his head. He might be very aware of his situation. Why do you think he is spineless. To me it seems like he is being manipulated. How does that mean spineless, you agreed he is a victim earlier.

Why are you seeking for gain? Why isn't it a goal in itself to be a friend, even if it means being one-sided for a long time, especially when he is in distress? What kind of qualifications do you have for friends? Sounds to me he was a good friend to you from the get go. Sounds like a qualifier to me. So now, it's bad, so you're just going to quit on him? Why? "because he's an idiot" is not really the answer now is it?

[Alinestra Covelia]

First off, you seem to think that being spineless is mutually con=====\\

Crap,l where the hell did my backspage key go?

I'll type mroe later. The keyboard has bene damaged

[-Jrabbit]

I'm curious about the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The one no one is talking about: the fact that AliCo is very likely considered a threat by the mother-to-be, due to her gender.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Okay, fixed my keyboard.

First off, you seem to think that being spineless is mutually inconsistent with being manipulated.

I disagree. I think most people who are spineless are extremely vulnerable to being manipulated. It's entirely possible for a person to be both. Manipulation implies some degree of sympathy (it's not their fault) and spinelessness implies some degree of contempt (they could get out if they wanted to). Both of these apply to my view of HK.

You ARE correct in saying that I feel both contempt and sympathy for him. Originally more of the latter. Nowadays much more of the former.

Second point: I agree with you that it's no longer my fight. He's made his choice and nothing else I will do will be constructive, either to him for getting him out of the situation, or for me for regaining a friend I trust and respect.

Third point: Why do I limit the extent of my friendship? Plenty of reasons, none of which are honestly yours to judge. I'm in law school. I'm broke. My life is busy enough as it is without me having to spend time with a hopeless case like HK. Either way, this is not within the scope of the discussion and if you try to make my own life the focus, I will not follow you there, at least not in this thread. This is about HK and BPW and our responses to it.

Do you let your friends do whatever the hell they want to on your time and on your resources (material resources as well as emotional)? No - you don't. Or at least, I don't. There's a balancing test of how far my patience extends before it's broken, and once it's broken, it's costly to repair.

For an extreme example, if your friend starts using drugs and is destructive to himself and to you, you cut the cord, right? You don't just keep dropping time and energy and resources into this black hole of hopelessness, do you?

Sure, he's still a victim and all that, but I'm not a trained doctor. I'm not a psychiatrist. There are people in society who are trained to do things to help in that situation, and for me to get involved when I'm not qualified is rather like jumping into a lake to save a drowning child when you yourself can't swim. It's not brave, it's not charitable - it's just downright foolish.

It sounds like you've been through something similar yourself and you have taken a different tack from me. You do deserve respect for how far you went to support your friend, even when he had fallen so far that nothing you did really helped. As for me, I've got goals and objectives of my own life purpose and it's not my duty to sacrifice those for somebody else, even if he's a victim. I've done my best to help him and now it's time for somebody with more effective means to try their hand.

Philosophically, I've already mentioned I don't make friends indiscriminately. There's a sort of minimum requirement before I'll consider somebody a friend. (And I'm not saying this is a scientific checklist either - it's a floating target of unconscious and conscious judgments... because this person is likely to become somebody who will be a part of my life and I want to make sure they can contribute to me and vice versa.) HK has fallen below that requirement.

From a purely social viewpoint, he is simply no longer the person he was when I met him and thought I'd enjoy his company. He contributes little to me and I clearly can contribute very little to him.

[DanS]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
I'm curious about the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The one no one is talking about: the fact that AliCo is very likely considered a threat by the mother-to-be, due to her gender.

I bet the mother-to-be is an equal opportunity threat considerer.

[Japher]

I want to hear more about the gorilla please.

[Pekka]

"For an extreme example, if your friend starts using drugs and is destructive to himself and to you, you cut the cord, right? You don't just keep dropping time and energy and resources into this black hole of hopelessness, do you?"

Wrong. I didn't. Did it suck? Yes. for him it sucked. And I never really understood the whole drug thing, as if it makes a person disgraceful, as if they have a virus or something like a plague. As if they become filthy and dirty.

"and for me to get involved when I'm not qualified is rather like jumping into a lake to save a drowning child when you yourself can't swim."

So you compare talking with your friend over the phone to jumping etc..?

"As for me, I've got goals and objectives of my own life purpose and it's not my duty to sacrifice"

Sure, but how is your friend baggage to you? It is as if there is some cost-benefit analysis going on, where you invest certain amount of resources, ????, profit. Come on, how are you sacrificying your life?

I'm not judging you. I'm not saying you should now call him back. I figured talking to the guy if he calls isn't that much of a deal though. I mean seriously, how big of a deal is that?

[DanS]

Personally, I don't buy the victim schtick too much. He probably thinks it's all good, since he's getting laid. Of course, that may become few and far between.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Pekka
Sure, but how is your friend baggage to you? It is as if there is some cost-benefit analysis going on, where you invest certain amount of resources, ????, profit. Come on, how are you sacrificying your life?

This is exactly what's going on. Thanks for putting it so succinctly. It's a form of cost benefit analysis and I've looked at what's gone on before and decided it's no longer a cost I'm willing to pay for a benefit that is negligible to me.

Viewed through this lens, the difference between you and me becomes clear. You have a greater tolerance for something with a higher "cost" and lower "benefits" (at least in the short run). I have lesser tolerance and have decided to stop this relationship because it's become too costly and I'm getting nothing out of it.

This is not a judgment on you or a glorification of me (or vice versa). We're just different in this respect, as any two people will be.

[Pekka]

Sure. But not so much different, I have very short tolerance for people who aren't my friends. Incompetence is something I despise. However, the few good friends I have, resource is not an issue.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by DanS
Personally, I don't buy the victim schtick too much. He probably thinks it's all good, since he's getting laid. Of course, that may become few and far between.

Once the baby comes he may just as well be dead.

Under that theory (which has a lot to recommend it) the only thing keeping his arrangement bearable would be the sex. I wonder how he'll cope with the sofa.

[Japher]

Incompetence is something I despise.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Edit: LOL at Japher!

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
I'm curious about the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The one no one is talking about: the fact that AliCo is very likely considered a threat by the mother-to-be, due to her gender.

I am not a threat to anybody. I am peaceful and kittenlike.

Proof:

[Japher]

It's weird how you got your left hand's fingers at just the right angle that with a quick glance it looks like you are mising your fingers above the first knuckle.

[Pekka]

oh that's right Japher, freaky AND kinky.