If you ever be in the situation, what did you do and how did it end for you and/or your friends?
How do you handle being caught in the middle of close friends fighting/clashing?
r/AskWomen
If you ever be in the situation, what did you do and how did it end for you and/or your friends?
Comments
Depends on what they are fighting about, really.
If one friend truly did something heinous, I would definitely side eye my own relationship with them.
If one friend is definitely in the wrong but not necessarily a bad person, I will try to talk to them about it and see if I can get them to see reason.
If they are having a long time coming blow out due to clashes in personality, I let it play out and don’t take sides.
I’d be Switzerland, unless one of them was very clearly out of line. This happened with my friends a lot during high school, and I’d just hang out with them all and try not to comment on anything.
Unless one was obviously in the wrong, stay the hell out of it.
Like, if Stacy slept with Kate’s boyfriend, yeah, I’m going to be on Kate’s side and give Stacy some tough love.
But if Kate and Stacy are just bickering about something that doesn’t have a clear correct answer, I’m staying out of it.
Unless they ask my opinion or for my intervention I’m not getting into the middle of it. Especially if I don’t know what’s going on or if I feel equally about both of them.
There’s one specific friend, I have zero shame in calling him out directly. I do try to avoid publicly shaming friends unless it’s completely unavoidable. Most of my close friends I feel comfortable pulling them to the side and talking to them about it. But at some point you have the line of. You have to let people fuck up and make their own mistakes.
I played mediator way more than enough back in high school. I’m not doing that again, my friends are adults, they can sort out their conflicts like adults.
Depends on the context. If it is relevant to the character of either person, I’ll pay attention. If it’s meaningless squabbling, I’ll ignore it and stay out of it.
I exercise the better part of valor and retreat. If they need a 3rd party to intervene it needs to be someone outside the group.
Depends on what they’re fighting about but I will always stay neutral and I didn’t wanna take sides. I will try to help them talk it out.
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I am totally Jackie from Roseanne. I will get right in the middle of it. Because its probably stupid.
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I usually mediate. Being the eldest brown daughter, I have a lot of experience in that and can’t stop myself from “solving issues”
Personally I’d like to get involved and solve their differences by hearing both sides. That’s what I’d like people to do for me too. But often, this hardly happens as one side is very stubborn and so its always better to maintain a neutral stand. But if the dynamic becomes insufferable, then I’m definitely getting involved.
I start agreeing with both sides like a confused therapist
Avoid drama number 1 but be a peacemaker if you can help in that way
Oh hey that actually as me in one of my friend group of 3 (including me). I was trying very hard to stay neutral and out of it because it seemed like a THEM argument which didn’t include me. I was trying so hard for them to just sleep on it and continue the conversation when emotions have calmed down…
But then one of them DM’d me and manipulated me into picking her side. She cherry picked words from messages and changed the narrative to something that made sense to me. She managed to convince me that the other friend just wasn’t putting effort in maintaining the friendship anymore and I should stand up for myself. I had a gut feeling that something was off, but she kept convincing me otherwise. But I always saw her as the smarter one, so I thought I was just missing something.
How did it end? Manipulative friend became a hypocrite and did the same thing she complained about, and worse. I saw her pull the same victimising scheme against someone I for a fact KNEW did not do shit to her. The way she changed the narrative was insane. I also found out, for the better or worse, that I was only her friend because she saw me as lower than her. She dropped me the moment I threatened her insecurity.
For my other friend? A little over a year later, I reached out to her and asked if she was interested in talking about what happened. I apologised many times. I explained my side and she explained hers. We reconciled and met up recently, hung out like normal… But our friendship would still never be the same. Maybe it might later, but who knows.
There is a lot more drama involved with manipulative friend, but I doubt you’re interested XD
My advice: Try to really think critically for yourself and not fall for any schemes like I did :’D
Get involved too or call the popo
I’ll just remind them that they should keep it civil, staying objective and bringing up the good and bad arguments each side has.