Lately my best friend is so draining

^{By Dana Kaczmarek}

I hate to admit that I am actively dodging someone I consider one of my best friends, but I am. She’s become SO draining. It’s literally always something with her.

Job sucks. Relationship sucks. Friends suck. Life sucks.

It’s like she’s stuck in a permanent state of “nothing’s ever enough,” and I can’t take it anymore.

The part that drives me insane is that her life doesn’t even suck. Like, not even close.

Her family comes from money and she’s always had it better than most. Her parents paid for college in full and gave her a monthly allowance so she could “focus on school.” Which, in her case, meant shopping, brunch, and spring break trips. Meanwhile, I was doing back-to-back shifts at the student center just to afford groceries.

She studied abroad junior year and came back bragging, “I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do this,” as if it was some personal failing on our part that we couldn’t afford to fly to Europe for four months. That was probably the first moment I realized: oh, we live on different planets.

After graduation, she moved to Boston to work in a low-paying creative job — something like editorial or nonprofit comms, I don’t even remember anymore because she’s bounced between so many “dream roles” that all somehow turn out to be the “worst job ever.”

Her parents still pay half her rent. They bought her a car. She complains about gas prices while driving a fully paid-off SUV. She’s turning 29 this year.

And yet every time I talk to her, there’s another “crisis.” She’ll go on two dates with a guy and when it fizzles, she’ll act like she’s mourning a divorce. I’ll be like, “You met him twice.” And she’ll say, “Yeah, but it’s just another reminder that I’m never going to find someone.”

It’s exhausting.

She’ll compare herself to our friends — the ones who are married or buying homes or having kids — and spiral. But it’s not just insecurity; it’s resentment. Like she can’t stand that other people are figuring it out before she is.

She can't be happy for anyone that has something she wants. She'll say "Why do they have that and I don’t?”

It's wild. And she hasn't always been like this but as we've gotten older I've seen this side of her come out more and more.

And I can’t say that out loud because then I’m “being judgmental” or “not being supportive.” So I just nod along while she rants about how unfair everything is.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking: your parents pay half your bills and you travel like you’re in the 1%. How are you the one who’s struggling?

She’ll complain about money constantly — “Ugh, I just want to make enough to live comfortably.” And I’m sitting there like, you do live comfortably. Beyond comfortably. You’re literally paying for Equinox and you go once a month. You DoorDash every meal. You spend more on skincare than I spend on rent. But sure, tell me again how broke you are.

It’s not even about the money though. It’s her mindset.

It’s the constant glass-half-empty thing. Every good thing somehow becomes a bad thing. She gets promoted, and it’s “Ugh, now I have more responsibility.” She meets someone new, and it’s “He’s nice, but a little short than I'd like.” She plans a trip to Italy, and it’s “Flights are so expensive.” Like girl, pick a f***ing lane.

I used to try to help. I’d play therapist, pep-talker, career coach — whatever she needed that day. But nothing ever changed. She’d just thank me and then do the exact same thing again next week. After a while I realized she doesn’t actually want to change. She wants validation. She wants someone to tell her that her life is hard even when it’s objectively not.

And honestly, that’s when I started to pull back. I don’t have the emotional capacity to keep carrying someone who doesn’t want to stand up on their own.

It’s not that I expect my friends to be happy all the time. God knows I’ve had low points. But I try to be self-aware about it. I try to make sure I’m not just dumping on people without any sense of perspective. She doesn’t have that filter. She’ll call me at 10 p.m. crying because her boss asked her to edit something “last minute,” which turned out to be due the next day. That’s literally just called having a job. We all do it.

Sometimes I think the real issue is that she’s never actually faced consequences. There’s always been a cushion — her parents, her savings, her safety net. So she never had to develop coping mechanisms. Every inconvenience feels like the end of the world because she’s never had to problem-solve without someone rescuing her.

And I hate that I sound bitter. I really do. Because she’s not a bad person. But when you have a friend who’s perpetually miserable, it’s like their energy starts leaking into your own life. I’ll hang up the phone and feel completely drained. The negativity is contagious.

I keep thinking about this one night a few months ago. We were out to dinner, and she spent the entire time complaining — about work, dating, her parents, her therapist. I tried changing the subject, asking about a trip she had planned. She sighed and said, “Yeah, but I’m just not that excited anymore. Nothing ever really goes how I want it to.”

And I swear, something in me just shut off. I didn’t even want to ask what she meant because I already knew it’d be something trivial, like one restaurant didn’t have the exact day and time she wanted for a reservation.

UGHHHH. I know I probably sounds like a bit of a b*tch myself, but I'm just so done. There’s only so much of the same, undeserved pity parties one person can sit through. And I've decided I've reached my limit.