I became friends with Alex over a year ago. I invited him to join our pool team with my close friends, and he became an active member of our group. He’s admitted without that invite, he would still be struggling to make friends.
There are a few things about Alex that makes me question if IATA in this situation:
1. He has major trauma around being rejected; he constantly makes statements about how we all will be done with his friendship soon.
2. He avoids difficult conversations at all costs.
3. Instead of being emotionally able to have conversations, his friendship style is to do over the top but very kind actions.
Back in November, Alex invited a new woman to our pool team without asking. She then invited her friends to join. Those of us who started the team have felt uncomfortable and pushed out.
Around the same time, I realized I was taking on the emotional burden of playing peace-maker between him and others. I made it clear that I’m not doing that anymore.
In the new year, the original members of the team had a conversation about the extra players. I started and said I felt uncomfortable. As the person to invite her, I thought Alex should be the one to talk to her. He immediately said no. His solution was either I be uncomfortable on my team, I be the bad guy by uninviting these ladies and he would tell her he didn’t agree with them being asked to leave, or I should start a new team.
I said multiple times that I was hurt because he’s telling me that I should leave my own team or be uncomfortable for his comfort. The team agreed he should be part of the conversation with her and her friends. He doubled-down and said it wouldn’t matter to him if I joined a different team because he has other friends now.
The day of pool last week, Alex let the team know he wasn’t going. Privately, he told a mutual friend that this would mean I was forced to handle the awkward conversation without him.
It turned out to be a non-issue because the ladies he invited decided to make their own team, although Alex didn’t show so I’m not sure if he knows what the final outcome was.
Alex has since been acting like everything is fine and normal between us. To a mutual friend, he said the issue was an insecurity on my part and he refused to believe I am hurt because he told me to leave my own team or be the bad guy. He told them I’d get over it soon.
WIBTA if I dug my heels in and make him approach the subject and apologize to me rather than call him first? And WIBTA if I asked him to play on a different team for a while? I wouldn’t be ending the friendship, even if he will immediately think that, just enforcing a consequence. But would that be too far?
NTA.
While the issue with these specific women is over since they decided to form their own team, in reality the bigger overlaying issue isn’t solved or over. Alex invited people without checking with anyone, and then refused to talk to them over a situation he created. He also asked you to leave your own team just so he wouldn’t have to have a grown up conversation. None of those issues have been solved, and history will probably repeat itself if you just shrug and say/do nothing.
NTA I think you should uninvite Alex at this point.
So Alex has no issues telling you no, band doesn’t worry about you rejecting him? I would wager his rejecting sensitivity isn’t as huge as he says it is. NTA but also he is not apologizing. If you go this route anticipate the issue blowing up
Yeah, Alex isn’t a good friend, and he’s leveraging his social standing against the group. OP needs to read up on the [5 Geek Social Fallacies](https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/). Just because someone is awkward doesn’t mean they can’t be toxic, and it doesn’t mean you have to forgive/overlook their bad behavior.
There’s lots of advice over on [Captain Awkward ](https://captainawkward.com/category/geek-social-fallacies/) about how to recognize this type of behavior and how to handle it.
NTA
Alex sounds exhausting. If he’s not willing to carry his own emotional labor, there’s no point in maintaining this relationship. Chances are he’s expecting you to dump him soon anyway.
NTA. A good exercise i think is to read that back to yourself, except pretend it’s a text message from your best friend, what advice would you give? To me personally it sounds like hes a user through and through, he used you to make the friends he ACTUALLY wanted and now he clearly doesnt care how he makes you feel, I get that hes awkward due to past trauma (same here) but that doesn’t excuse him basically trying to take over something YOU started with your friend group before you even knew he existed.
Hinestly, I have a more than slight suspicion his lack of friends might not be from past trauma as he claims, I think he just pushes peolle away by being a dick, exactly like hes doing to you now.
Nta. He isn’t being a good friend. I honestly have no patience for people who whine and cry about being so sensitive and traumatized by rejection and then turn around and act like shitbags to everyone. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy and exhausting to be around. He needs to take his head out of his ass.
NTA. This issue isn’t really resolved. Talk to Alex about it. If he brushes it off as no big deal, I would reconsider having him as a friend, as friends don’t put each other in uncomfortable positions such as this.
Info: do you want to repair the friendship with Alex or not? If yes, being avoidant (new team without him) or aggressive “make him apologize” are asshole moves. A non asshole move would be to ask for talk, to dispel the myth that he thinks you’re not struggling, and tell him it’s not something you will just „get over“ without talking about. it sounds like he has a lot of attachment trauma (fear of rejection and abandonment, and is also highly avoidant, given his red flag comment ‘you’ll be done with me in a year) so best to also start the convo with „I care about you and want to make this work“ and then go in to why you are upset. However if you do NOT want to repair this relationship (also valid) then yeah, NTA, best to stop hanging out with him, you’re not responsible for him. Or if you don’t know yet if you want to repair or not, you could at least have the conversation, and based on his reaction, go from there. Best of luck
Alex is minimising his responsibility in this situation and passing the buck over to you. Not sure why? Are you the team leader? Suggesting you leave the group is unfriendly imo and he seems to have had no problem with that difficult conversation in front of everyone.
I think the whole group need to have a boundaries setting conversation….like what are the boundaries for inviting new folk into the group, whose responsibility is it if things go awry etc etc. Setting clear boundaries might make Alex more accountable or, even, leave the group!
NTA.
NTA. Yes, the immediate problem resolved itself, but the bigger picture problem still exists. Alex not only refuses to fix the problem that he created, he refused to talk about it. I would recommend at least talking to him about the fact that friends may run into issues, but communication is the only way to resolve them. I don’t know what is best, as it isn’t often adults have these issues, but I would try to at least bring light to the issues at hand.
NTA.
> I wouldn’t be ending the friendship
Its not already ended?
I think the reason Alex has a hang up about friendships ending before he’s ready is *possibly* because he takes them for granted and doesn’t do the work to be a good friend, and thinks the big, over the top gestures are the way to make up for that.
My friendship would be over with him after he said that he didn’t care where I ended up, since he had new friends.
Info: why are you friends with Alex? Alex sounds exhausting. Whatever his trauma, he’s turning his fear of rejection into a self fulfilling prophecy by making everything about it, and by being inconsiderate and unkind to the people who have been trying to be his friends. In fact, aside from your comment about him making over the top kind actions, there’s nothing in this post that suggests he’s worth spending time with. And honestly, that kind of thing, in the absence of a willingness to have the hard conversations, reads more like love bombing to get back in good graces than it sounds like a healthy form of attachment/engagement. He does something over the top so you feel guilty about considering the impacts he has on you more generally, and you back off until the next time he pulls an Alex.
There’s no virtue in proving you won’t abandon him just so that he won’t feel retraumatized. He seems bound and determined to make folks abandon him, but he’s not a child who can get away with that kind of boundary pushing. And it’s still not cute or acceptable, even when it’s a kid with abandonment issues. He needs therapy, and to seriously work on his ability to communicate and deal with challenging issues.
You are being TA to yourself, really, by tolerating this pattern of behavior and letting him avoid the consequences of his actions. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep a dude warm when he’s opening the windows and doors during the bitterest days of winter and complaining about the cold. He could, you know, close the windows and doors and put a sweater on himself. He’s choosing not to.