If anyone has any comments about this post, I'd love to hear them. I have a long time acquaintance (sometime-friend) who is very obnoxious. I tried and tried to keep her as a friend, but she just argued with me and challenged me for about 100% of everything I said. I felt like she was sabotaging and undermining my entire belief systems and points of reference. She claims it's because she is very intelligent, has a PhD and takes a scientific questioning approach to everything in life. She also says she is always bored. She's told me for years that people -- everybody -- bore her. She now says that she has learned "everything" that "there's nothing new." She is a fine, fine musician, but has for years not wanted to play or jam with me or with me and my friends. She plays computer solitaire a lot. I have a dx of bipolar disorder. Two months ago, I suffered through two whole months of major depression, when the meds I'd been taking failed. Now I am on new meds, and doing totally excellent. When I was depressed, though, I saw a lot of this person because I was lonely and blue, and so was she. (I'm usually not lonely and blue, but we here at PC probably all know this can occur with depression.) But finally, I made the decision to just drop the friendship altogether. Her worm-words, I call them, wormed their way into my mind and bugged me a LOT of the time, even at night. This is the third time I have broken off with her. The second time was over 20 years ago. We've known each other 40 years, and it's just gotten to be too much for me. But I just looked up some info on personality disorders, and she fits about 2-1/2 of the 4 criteria that qualify for one. Namely:

To meet the diagnosis of personality disorder, which is sometimes called character disorder, the patient's problematic behaviors must appear in two or more of the following areas: She has #1, #3 and to a certain extent, #4. She is sometimes very cranky and caustic at very inappropriate times, like on stage when playing before an audience, she frequently "puts down" herself and the whole band's performance. Stuff like maybe asking the audience, "Are we bad enough for you yet?" or "Are you ready to leave yet?"

• 1. perception and interpretation of the self and other people
• 2. intensity and duration of feelings and their appropriateness to situations
• 3. relationships with others
• 4. ability to control impulses

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Pe...disorders.aspx

I have tried asking her to be more positive towards me. She's told me in the past that other people have dropped her because she was too negative. She had taken to asking me "Am I offending you in any way?" like she was trying to get along, and I really appreciated her efforts, but you know, it's just HER. Her personality, her nature. There's no escape from it when I am with her, because she is very subtle.

I feel bad about how lonely and - what? confused? I don't know -- she is. But, honestly, I tried. It's been over a month since I told her I could not be around her anymore. I do know that she has two VERY close friends, who love her, so that's really good! One is a scientist, too, and I know he likes to banter with her. As for me, I feel tons better spending time with my fun friends. I have plenty of cheerful musician friends who appreciate me, and I appreciate them, too. And a wonderful boyfriend, and close sister, too. I feel somewhat guilty about dropping her, after so many years. But her personality has changed at least to some degree, since she is even bored with music, and has stopped practicing. I've suggested that she get into something new -- perhaps a new instrument (she plays 5 well already!), or a new musical genre, or take up painting or learn a foreign language. She refuses. A long, long, long time ago, she painted ONE picture. She's very proud of it, and has it framed on her wall. ONE. Only ONE. And she won't do any others, even to try to get a handle on her boredom. I could go on even longer, here, but you get the idea....

[sideblinded]

flowerbells, Wow you sound like a very dedicated friend to even write so many details about her. Sometimes people change and we have people in our lives for awhile and it was meant for a purpose. Sometimes our brains are wired differently and we have a hard time relating to different people. She and you sound like you have some similar interests but maybe the way each of you approach things is very different and this leads to further confusion with your friendship.

No one here can really tell you whether she has a personality disorder or not. I am not a mental health professional so the things that I picked up on were her ways at approaching things. You say that she is very scientific. There you go, scientists have a very methodical way at approaching things. I used to be married to one. He was very methodical and without very many expressed emotions. I was the opposite with depression and very much sentimental and into music and song writing.

I tried to do you justice with the limit of my scope. I hope this helps in some small way. Regards.