I hate my friend,” as my daughter stormed into the house afterschool. I can’t imagine what happened today and who’s trash-talked whom. I looked up from my work computer and waited. A torrent of girl-bitch poured out, and in the end, I took away three things. First, a friend of hers keeps changing her mind and it’s having a cascade effect on plans made. Second, this friend wants my daughter to cover for her, in case her parents call on their daughter’s whereabouts. And third, setting aside the friendship, this friend wants everyone to fall in line without discussion. Hmm. I wondered if this kid is the daughter of some of the managers I know at work.
I let her exhaust herself as I listened and grabbed a cup of tea from the kitchen. About the friend changing her mind, I think she’s suffering from FOMO. “How do you know what FOMO is, dad?” Hello? Who taught you half the stuff you know? The other half you learned in school and schoolyards. I told her that the reason why her friend is changing her mind so frequently is because she has no plans of her own and she wants to trade up to a better deal when it presents itself. That’s why she’s so non-committal. Her perspective is only about what she can get. “Dad, you’ve totally described my friend.” I told my daughter that it’s not up to her to alter her friend’s thinking. And if this ‘friend’ comes into better and cooler friends, she won’t be one anymore! “That’s happened.” Well, I don’t want to say, ‘I told you so…’ “…But you told me so,” my daughter continued for me.
A friend asking you to lie is no friend.
What this friend wants from my daughter is unconditional loyalty even when—or especially when—she is reckless. So, I’m piecing together the scenario: her friend wants to trash the plans so she can sneak out with a boy; the parents probably don’t approve and; if they ask, my daughter is to tell the parents that the friend was with her. I paused, then said, ok, a friend asking you to lie is no friend. Setting aside the fact that the parents shouldn’t be calling you—they should be calling me. I told my daughter authoritatively that under no circumstances is she to lie to other parents. She must be upfront to all her friends in that if any of their parents ask her, she will never deceive them. It’s incredulous that this friend would sacrifice her integrity for selfish needs.
Finally, I asked my daughter why she would be getting upset with a friend who openly acts like a wrecking ball to friendships. People like this are a source of seismic stress. “Like plate tectonics,” she recalls a documentary we saw on volcanos. Exactly. Stronger, denser plates (egos) are always subducted under less dense plates. They literally undermine everything without being visible.
There’s probably not much you can do as friends like this are abound, I said to my daughter. Just like the natural world, subduction is a runway process and cannot be stopped. The same can be said for these types of individuals. The impact can only be mitigated based on proximity to these individuals and to the extent my daughter allows these friends to impact her. Even at the workplace, strong will individuals have huge impacts but ironically aren’t very influential.
