Thursday, January 29, 2009

the evil one


what do you do when you have a friend who is somewhere in that zone of a little more than acquaintance, a little less than a friend, and you see that they have a toxic friend ?

i have a friend in this zone who has a buddy who is just evil and an awful influence. i would love to tell my friend to stay away from this creep, but i cant. we are not friendly enough for me to actually tell him this. it really makes me feel bad. it doesnt seem like my friend has channeled the evil one's persona, but it makes me feel bad to see him hang with someone with such poor character. i know that you could say that perhaps my friend could be a positive influence on the evil one, but im not convinced that my friend has a strong enough personality to transform the evil one.

3 comments:

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

its really interesting for me to read this now. It's the 3rd time I'm hearing about such a situation in 2 days.

Yesterday in my philosophy class on personal ethics, we each had to tell over a possitive and negative relationship story. So a lot talked about friends. One talked about this same exact situation, where they had a friend who was friends with a person who's not good for them, and they tried to explain it, but the other refused to see it. My professor said its good for the girl to want the best for the friend, but at the same time you have to be careful not to overstep the boundaries. So I see what your saying about you not being close enough to tell him, and that leaves you in a trapped position.

I think all you can really do is maybe mention once in some sort of indirect way about their evil friend. To see if they realize the evil of the other person and why it won't be good for him to remain friends with the other person. But if you do say anything, you should try to remove yourself from the situation, that he shouldn't feel like your saying your own opinion and invading his privacy, but rather as an outside observer that sees things as facts and has his best interest at heart.

The other time I came upon this, was the other night, a friend was telling me how this guy we both know is going to get engaged to this girl thats not good for him, thats bringing him down and causing him to do bad things. And what was interesting was, the night before that, the guy told me he was going to get engaged to a girl, and this friend was being jealous and telling him that she's not good for him. So they both saw it different ways, he thought she was just being jealous and he really loved this girl. While the friend thought he was doing something that was a mistake and wasn't smart. As a middle person I didn't know if I should interfere or not, cause I don't know the girl myself.

Mikeinmidwood said...

For me its easy to deal with these types of situations, ever since I was young, I just seem to know what to do. Even with annoying people that just dont get the fact that its time to separate, I just know what to do, lucky me. One tip I can say is, sometimes you have to say it straight out, though I dont know your situation so well.

frum single female said...

the problem truly is that i am not friendly enough with this person to give my two cents. and if i actually say something i will have to weigh my words carefully. not saying that i wont say anything, just not sure what exactly to say and how to say it ... yet.