Ditch your toxic friends

QI so agree with your advice about dropping friends when they reach their sell-by date. In my

mid-70s, I’ve become fed up with a lot of long-standing friends, even ones from my schooldays. They’re always trying to goad me into a response on political issues, or boring me with their health problems, though I never mention mine to them. They never ever ask after my children (whom these friends have known since birth) but I hear all about their boring, useless, scrounging kids, of course! I’ve supported them in bereavement, in illness, in disastrous second marriages and divorce; taken one or two on holiday when they were poorly; I’ve been a taxi, a nurse, but rarely got anything back. So, about five years ago, I decided to cut my address book in half, metaphorically speaking.

I now have more time to read the books I’ve got piling up and to go to concerts and theatres by myself instead of accompanying ‘friends’ who don’t seem to have the confidence to go alone to any function. They want to meet in car parks before going into restaurants because ‘People will look if I walk in by myself.’ So I say to your correspondent, ‘Get rid of them! You will never be happier!’ Mary

AI’m with you. I love going to things on my own. Then I can walk out when I want without having to take anyone else’s views into account. Or hear a friend bleating, ‘But we’ve paid!’

Please email me your problems at problempage@theoldie.co.uk – I will answer every email that comes in; and let me know if you would like your dilemma to be confidential.

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