Breaking Off Ties with a Friend

[pianoperformer]

Hi,

When I went to college last year as a freshman, I met a lot of new people, but there was one person in particular who really helped me a lot and was really there for me. I did return the favor though by being there for him as well, as he was often depressed or discouraged.

However, as time went on, well he became more and mor negative. He would blame everything on other people, things, or events, and never take responsibility for it himself. He said he had a certain psychological disorder, which he was diagnosed with, but it just affected him socially, and he used it to excuse his poor performance in school. He got on average around a 1.1 or so. Well it kept going down every semester, even since he was a freshman (he was a sophomore this past year). It started at 2.8, then 1.8, then 1.1, and I don't know what it was this past semester, though he did get some help, dropped some classes so that he only had 9 credits, and moved home so his parents could motivate him to do his work.

Basically this person is the total opposite of me. I am rather positive, well am working on becoming more positive. I am more social now that I am at college, and I am a 4.0 student. I don't mean to brag, honestly, but I just feel like he is blaming everything on everyone and everything but himself, while I feel that I have much more reason to complain if I wanted to, and I don't.

Anyway, in general he is very negative, and for the last semester I have been pulling away from him a bit because of it. It made me feel bad because of how much he helped me in the first semester, but sometimes it felt like he would hold that over my head, or brag about it to others like he was so compassionate and selfless for helping a blind person. I told him this bothered me, and said I thought he did it as a friend.

Anyway, some things happened this summer that was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. We are both in a social fraternity, and I am the scholarship chair. A certain individual, who is my friend's friend, (also my friend though), did some things that violated academic integrity. Before we continue, let's call the primary person of this discussion (the negative one) person A, and the one who violated academic integrity, person B, just to avoid confusion. Someone approached me about it, since person B is on our exec board and so represents us. I reported it to our academic adviser. I felt guilty about it, because I am friends with this individual, but I did what I had to do. It turns out person B's grades were too low to be on the exec board, anyway, so I didn't have to pursue it further, though I was prepared to.

Anyway, person A found out that this person was reported, though he did not know by whom. We argued over it, because I felt it was the right thing to do, and he thought it was not.

We stopped talking for a while. We are both very stubborn people, lol.

Anyway he kept trying to contact me again, so I contacted him finally to try to work it out...but he still seemed rather angry, and I guess I was as well.

So, in the end, I just cut off ties with him. He's been so negative, and I am trying to get past that. I really tried to help him in the past, but he refuses to listen. He even yells at his mom for trying to help.

Anyway, I feel guilty over it, because of what he's done for me in the past, and he even said "good luck getting someone to bend over backwards for you next year." I said that I was just fine on my own, and that if I did need help, I could ask one of my brothers in the fraternity, and I'm sure any one of them would be happy to assist me. It bugs me that he holds this over my head.

also I'm afraid he will try to turn people in the fraternity against me. The fraternity is rich with drama, so I'm sure something could get started if he really wanted, though in general everyone there respects me. But hey, I'm a new guy in the fraternity, so who knows.

Basically I want to know, do you think this is an OK thing to do? I hate to hurt him, but need to look out for my own development as well. lately, any time we would meet, we would soon be arguing over something, and he discards all rationality when someone disagrees with him, saying that his point is the valid one, but not giving any reason.

Anyway, i'm tired of it, and just wanted to end it, because it's certainly not helping me at all.

[Amadeus]

The one sure way to keep someone away from you is to let them borrow money, then you'll never see them again. So try some way to get them to borrow money. It would be worth a hundred bucks to get rid of this person right?

[pianoperformer]

Hahaha, I laughed at that one.

I don't think I'll have any trouble with him staying away. he was pretty upset. I tried to keep it civil, though, but his side degenerated rather quickly.