How should I handle an ex friend who feels like he needs to bully me to raise his own self esteem? (We're adults)
How should I handle an ex friend who feels like he needs to bully me to raise his own self esteem? (We're adults)
I went to college with this guy 10 years ago and I considered him a friend up until this year. Something changed in him, and he constantly needs to put me down and I don't know how to handle it.
We're both 28, for reference.
Last year, he reported me to the college because I was doing students' homework for them for some extra cash. He said that what I was doing was depreciating his Diploma. I guess I get it, but what kind of friend would try to get me in trouble for something as harmless as doing people's homework? He didn't ask me to stop first or talk to me about it first, he just flat out reported me. Some friend.
Edit: I'm not saying what I did was not wrong. If he valued my friendship, he would have talked to me first. And I would have valued our friendship enough to stop.
I ended up dropping out of the program because of stress. He graduated this spring. I congratulated him and genuinely was happy for him. He then sends me this really childish text, bragging about how he graduated and I didn't. Here's a quote from part of the conversation. No joke, this is word for word:
"Hey [my name], just letting you know that I am an engineer now and you aren't. Also I just got hired at [his work] and am making $34 now just to start. There will be a party at [local bar] to celebrate my graduation. You should come. There will be resumes being taken, you should submit yours, because people like me always need assistants. Even though you are not an engineer by any means."
I thought, maybe he's being intentionally arrogant as a joke that I'm supposed to get. But that's not the case, this kind of talk continued for months. And he means it to be hurtful.
I couldn't take it anymore, so I blocked him on everything I could think of.
A little bit of background information, I recently started my own business making custom tools. This quote was a part of what he commented on my Instagram picture of one of my tools yesterday:
"You should stop posting these online, it's really embarrassing because your [tool name] is such a failure. I should redesign all of it for you because I'm actually an engineer at [company name] and have a lot more experience. I could actually do it right, unlike you. I just might help you if you ask me nicely."
Like, what the hell did I do to deserve that? I don't know why I let it even bother me because of how obviously immature he is being.
I didn't respond. I blocked him on Instagram too, but now he's trying to message me on LinkedIn. Blocked him there now too.
I'm still friends with his brother, so it's impossible for me to completely block him out from my life unfortunately.
I almost want to explain to him how narcissistic he is, and how his messages are an obvious cry of mental insecurity. I know that that would just be fueling the fire though, and would solve nothing.
He deserves to be put in his place. I don't know if that's possible though without me becoming just as petty as he is.
How should I handle this? He's bound to see me in the future, so there's no avoiding his bullshit.
Thanks
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Something similar happened to me just last month with the person I called my "best friend".
He had been having personal issues for the past year that he can't figure out on his own, but he's generally someone who can't honestly take responsibility for himself and regards his opinion as the word of god, basically.
He has been putting me down often in the past, even though he said he "always looked up for me for the peace I found". I never really cared much for those words of his because I knew they came from a place of deep hurt.
However, he has not apologized once and at some point I started asking myself why I was calling this person my (best) friend. Well, after his last lashing out I just gave up and cut contact. I was trying a lot to help and understand him, but how do you help someone who went to 4 different therapists and called them all incompetent?
You don't. They have to figure out that they don't live in reality themselves, and I was not going to tolerate his disrespect anymore - I have enough other friends who treat me well, and my life honestly has not changed at all. He is not an interesting person anyway, all he can talk about are games, his pain and his delusions.
So what I'm trying to say is - cut your losses. This person, for whatever reason, does not want to gove you the respect you deserve, and that is alright. There are a lot of others who will, and those are the people you should put your energy into.
I had this same thing happen with a friend of mine, he was being manipulated by his partner at the time, 1 slow motion train crash later, he got diagnosed with bipolar, medicated and stabilized. We talk a bit again, it’s nice to see him in a stable place. But if someone refuses to hear what the therapist says and dismisses them or hides information from them they aren’t really going to be able to get proper help.