I think what you're trying to explain is the definition of the fair weather friend. Those types of people stop being a friend to you when you are experiencing difficulty; yet they are only interested in being there for you when it's convenient and easy for them. If it's not convenient for them, they will ghost you; they won't respond to your texts, your emails, or your phone calls.

They will pretend you don't exist until they need something from you. That's how the fair weather friendship works. It's one-sided. You are the victim of a person who is manipulative and knows how to manipulate their victim emotionally.

It's a skill all manipulative fair weather friends have. What a fair weather friend resembles to the public; someone who is a social influencer; someone who has 4,000 Facebook friends yet maybe personally knows only 20 people intimately; someone who oozes charm, always has something pithy or witty to contribute to a conversation online or in person. Someone who appears to have it all, who can hook you up with important people, whom they schmoozed at some point for something that they needed.

Real people are not like this. Real people are genuine, have a few close friendships that are reciprocative, who are grounded emotionally, and who have healthy enough boundaries that they can easily thwart off any attack from a fair weather friend who is, essentially, an emotional vampire in disguise.

They are extremely insecure people who lack emotional depth. And any attempt to connect them to their emotional depth gets thwarted by their addiction or substance abuse so that they can avoid feeling real pain and healing to become whole again. That's the make-up of a fair weather friend. Avoid them at all costs.

I'm 49 and still experience this. The trick with fair weather friends is recognizing them. That is truly difficult. Because, in order to "hook" you, they start by mimicking signals of reciprocative friendship.

That is to say, they pretend to be a friend so that you will give them what they need. They have no intention of giving you anything and when the time comes for you to ask for something, they immediately turn the situation around on you, to avoid feelings of guilt for manipulating you emotionally in the first place.

Is that what you're referring to, rdgrad? Fair weather friendships? I have friends I can go to when they or I are in a bad mood and there's no boundary problems.

It's only when I sought emotional support from fair weather friends, did I learn that they were fair weather friends to begin with, based on the way they immediately reject and shun me and tell me "I can't give you what you need right now, best of luck to you." That's what fair weather friends will say.