Reply #9: I doubt the friendship was all that close - reality avoidance doesn't help [View All]

[Nothing Without Hope]

If this person is so blatantly avoiding unpleasant reality in politics, chances are there are other areas of her life where she's doing something similar. This produces a kind of determined superficialty, an "anti-wisdom." In my experience, these people can be fairly adept at clever chatter, but under it all there are huge areas that are closed off as if they aren't even there. Sooner or later, a long-term friendship needs to be able to go into those areas.

Easy for ME to say, but I tend to think you're better off without her, unless you work together and would face awkwardness daily if not on reasonable terms (not the same thing as friendship, more a social ease). There are so many better ways to spend the time and emotional energy otherwise spent on this dead-end relationship. I hope you now meet new people who have the capacity to be true friends. Not only is this a good thing in itself, but the best way to banish the hurt and anxiety (mild but probably there, along with some guilt feelings) left over from that relationship is to replace them with the positive emotions and excitement of new, real friendships.

Don't worry about your former "friend," I imagine she's already rewritten her script for "reality" to fit you into a role that promotes and reinforces her comfortable self-image. These people tend to be rather resilient that way, as long as the reality that they are so determined to avoid doesn't come crashing in on them.

I suspect that on some level you were totally fed up with her and what happened was an expression of that, a way to get her out of your life. Just my opinion.