Do You Have a Vampire Friend?

Do you have a friend who's sucking the life and energy out of you?

It’s 3 a.m. and the phone rings. You look at the call display and your stomach sinks; it is her calling again. Let’s call her Jane. You pick up the phone and brace yourself for a good two hours of Jane’s whining, crying, complaining and analyzing of everything that has to do with her. Then, you proceed to spend another hour trying to give her good advice. By the time the phone conversation is over, it is already bright outside.


I like to call people like Jane vampire friends. How do you know if you have one of these friends? Well, how can you not? They suck the life and energy out of you! Generally, the symptoms of such friendships are annoyance, frustration, anger, stress and fatigue. All of these symptoms lead to the eventual avoidance of all the Janes of the world like the plague.


Vampire friends love attention and sympathy. They think that the entire world revolves around them and everything is about them. They make everything a personal problem then go on for days talking about it. When they ask for advice, they never take it – ever! They only hear what they want to hear.


There are ways to deal with vampire friends. You can continue putting up with them and giving them half-hearted attention. You can ignore them and say that you “didn’t get that text.” You can tell them frankly that you don’t care about their particular problem of the day. You can even give them a taste of their own medicine to help them realize how annoying they are.


My top suggestion though: end the friendship! Vampire friends are not your real friends; they care too much about themselves to truly commit to mutually enjoyable and healthy relationships. True friendship consists of both give and take. That may seem to be the case in the early stages of the friendship with a vampire friend because he or she is always so open and willing to trust you with all their doubts, worries, insecurities and so forth. However, in time, you start to realize that you only talk about his or her problems.


Still not sure how to end things? Here’s an idea as suggested by a clever blogger friend: you can always cut out this article and put it in one of those “I saw this and thought of you” cards… along with a giant bulb of garlic and a bottle of holy water.