view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

share/SpamAssassin/easy_ham/00548.120e45c5d33311bc09e844bf236521d2  view on Meta::CPAN

romantic partner, as recently happened to one of Dr.
Lerner's patients. "I would not encourage her to hang in
there and work this one out," Dr. Lerner said. 

A third type of bad friendship involves someone who insults
the other person, Dr. Yager said. One of the 180 people who
responded to Dr. Yager's most recent survey on friendship
described how, when she was 11, her best friend called her
"a derogatory name." The woman, now 32, was so devastated
that she feels she has been unable to be fully open with
people ever since, Dr. Yager said. 

Emotional abuse may be less noticeable than verbal abuse,
but it is "more insidious," Dr. Yager said. "Some people
constantly set up their friends," she explained. "They'll
have a party, not invite the friend, but make sure he or
she finds out." 

Risk takers, betrayers and abusers are the most extreme
kinds of bad friends, Dr. Yager said, but they are not the
only ones. She identifies 21 different varieties. Occupying
the second tier of badness are the liar, the person who is
overly dependent, the friend who never listens, the person
who meddles too much in a friend's life, the competitor and
the loner, who prefers not to spend time with friends. 

Most common is the promise breaker. "This includes everyone
from the person who says let's have a cup of coffee but
something always comes up at the last minute to someone who
promises to be there for you when you need them, but then
isn't," Dr. Yager said. 

Some friendships go bad, as some romantic relationships do,
when one of the people gradually or suddenly finds reasons
to dislike the other one. 

"With couples, it can take 18 to 24 months for someone to
discover there's something important they don't like about
the other person," said Dr. Rose of Florida International.
"One might find, for example, that in subtle ways the other
person is a racist. In friendships, which are less intense,
it may take even more time for one person to meet the
other's dislike criteria." 

Whether a friendship is worth saving, Dr. Lerner said,
"depends on how large the injury is." 

"Sometimes the mature thing is to lighten up and let
something go," she added. "It's also an act of maturity
sometimes to accept another person's limitations." 

Acceptance should come easier among friends than among
spouses, Dr. Lerner said, because people have more than one
friend and do not need a full range of emotional support
from each one. 

But if the friendship has deteriorated to the point where
one friend truly dislikes the other one or finds that the
friendship is causing undue stress, the healthy response is
to pull away, Dr. Yager said, to stop sharing the personal
or intimate details of life, and start being too busy to
get together, ever. 

"It takes two people to start and maintain a friendship,
but only one to end it," Dr. Yager said. 

Friendship, because it is voluntary and unregulated, is far
easier to dissolve than marriage. But it is also
comparatively fragile, experts say. Ideally, the loss of a
bad friendship should leave a person with more time and
appreciation for good ones, Dr. Lerner said. 

"It is wise to pay attention to your friendships and have
them in order while you're healthy and your life and work
are going well," she said. "Because when a crisis hits,
when someone you love dies, or you lose your job and your
health insurance, when the universe gives you a crash
course in vulnerability, you will discover how crucial and
life-preserving good friendship is."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/health/psychology/10FRIE.html?ex=1032684795&ei=1&en=2a88a6d1b985c977



HOW TO ADVERTISE
---------------------------------
For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters 
or other creative advertising opportunities with The 
New York Times on the Web, please contact
onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media 
kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
help@nytimes.com.  

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company