Hi, I have a problem and it gets me depressed. This will be long so please bare with me.

Over the past few months I have noticed that I don't have any real good friends anymore. The relationship between my friends is deterierating.

I have two groups of friends. One group is the out doors type and the other which are closer to me are my gamer friends.

I never hang out with my outdoors friends because they either don't care to hang out with me or what I think the problem is, is drugs and drinking. These were the people who were against everything like that and one day they all do it. This is not what I like. This does not bother me as much as what is happening with my gamer friends.

My gamer friends are two people mainly. These are the people I am having an issue with. My one friend is nice and is fun to hangout with. The other is also fun to hang out with but is a jerk. Hes nice to me most of the time, it's just his character. In order to hang out with these two more I got World of Warcraft so we could have more in common.

Just so you can understand the situation I will give you a little backround on some of my friends.

Friend 1: Nice, likes to go outside at my house. Doesn't like drugs or drinking. Has a girlfriend for four years and going, Play's World of Warcraft religiously.

Friend 2: Sometimes mean, plays WoW religiously, drinks a lot. Likes to go outside and mess around with people.

My issue is that when I want to hang out with friend 1 he always wants to have friend 2 with us. It's like it can never just be me and him. Whenever all three of us are together there are the only ones doing the talking and whenever I try to say something they either don't care or friend 2 puts me down and friend 1 never backs me up. Never. When I say he never backs me up I mean when friend 2 will insult me friend 1 wont say anything and will act like it never happened.

I usually go onto ventrilo and talk to some people. Both of my friends are on the ventrilo server I go on. Whenever I am in with them they are always doing something together. When I ask if they want to do something they most of the time say no or they are busy. Since I am new to WoW I asked both of my friends if they could start a new guy and play with me. They both say they don't want to. So when friend 1 makes a new character friend 2 makes one with him and they play together. Not once have they asked me to hop on mine. Not once.

Originally I hung out with friend 1 and friend 1 and 2 never spoke. When they started talking thats when the decline of my friendship with 1 and 2 started to decline.

To be quite honest I can't say I have a lot of friends anymore and I certainly don't have any good friends.

So anyone, please I would like some advice on this situation.

As of right now I am really depressed. Don't worry I am not going to hurt myself in anyway.

Am I looking to hard into this? Or is my friendship really starting to fall apart?

If anyone would like to discuss this over AIM, then PM me and ask for my screen name and I will gladly give it to you.

Thank you, Plink.

I hate to say it, but I think it sounds like Friends 1 and 2 are more interested in hanging out with eachother. Friend 1 sounds good, friend 2... I'm not so sure. I think you should evaluate where you stand with these friends, and decide if this abuse is worth it. Because that's what they're doing. They're abusing your loyalty. They sound like they take advantage of you whenever they can, but they're only nice to you to keep you from leaving. If they WEREN'T nice to you at least SOME of the time, then you'd tell them to sit on it and rotate. So if they're nice to you sometimes, you'll just think they're being weird, but still be their friends. Do you find yourself bending over backwards for them? Doing HUGE favors, or sacrificing something? Even like.. if they want to do something, but you had other ideas, you always do what they want? But let me guess.. they never give back to the friendship.

Sounds like you need friends that aren't going to use you.

What do you have that they use, and what have you got to offer that they don't? Aside from the whole loyalty thing.

If it makes you feel any better, Matt, I don't have very close friends either. I had a LOT of friends that used me because I was the only one with a car, and a job. I never got to do what I wanted to do, it was always what they wanted. Eventually I got sick of it, cause if you're surrounding yourself with friends that aren't good to you, you don't have TIME to go find friends that are true to you. It sounds like your outdoorsy friends could offer you more. They could introduce you to other people, they could replace your gamer friends. And there's tons of gamers out there, so you'd have no problem in finding a "play-mate" (no sexual pun intended). It sucks for the first while, cause you've ditched your user friends, but eventually you gain new friendships, they treat you MUCH better, and you'll look back at your other friends and see what they did wrong.

These friends will only drag you down. And if friend 1 doesn't defend you when friend 2 is being a dick, he's not a real friend either. They're more interested in hanging out with eachother than you.

Think they're.. you know.. together? Cause that could be an option too, judging by their behaviour. But I don't know, they're definately using you. I don't know HOW exactly, but I can tell they're using you. I've been in the same situation. It sucks.

You are right on the money with the fact that they are more interested in hanging out with each other than with me.

I wouldn't say that they are using me it's just that they are drifting away from me if you get me.

The thing with my outdoors friends is that they are into drugs and drinking which I'm not too much into.

I see where you are coming from. Like I said they aren't using me they are just drifting. It hurts to start to lose your good friends.

It's hard to start losing good friends. There is this girl, Michelle, and we've been best friends for 8/9 years. We recently have been drifting apart. We don't talk as much. Whenever I call her she is either "busy" or "can't hang out"

Yeah it's like a punch in the stomach when that happens. As of right now I don't feel like making any new friends because the rest of the people from around my school and such I am not fond of.

Well that's just how I see it, but whatever I guess no one really asked for my opinion lol.

Hey, the way you're describing this it sounds like introducing the two of them was a big mistake. I realize you think getting them together might have been cool because you thought hanging out with both of them at once would be awesome but if you weren't already an addict for WoW you shouldn't have bothered. The only thing you did was gave two WoW players (who must know how to play the game well if they play as much as you say) a real world link to hang out when they're off the servers to do other stuff. Asking them to play new characters, or to play with you is like a 21 year old asking a 60 year old if he wants to go drinking. Hopefully you understand that one << sometimes what I think doesn't click with other people.

Also, you're changing too much to try and accomadate them. It's cool if you want to play WoW but wait until you're closer to their level or something and for the mean time do what you used to do with them.

With Friend 1 it sounds like the way you two used to be was fine. Friend 2 sounds more like he's the dominant personality in the relationship and you should try to even that out more by being somewhat more assertive than you currently are.

I hear the problem, but I'm no psychologist so what I've said may work, it may not. If it does, fantastic but if not I'm sorry.

I have to say i know how you feel here. I do not have many friends that i feel i can rely on. If you need a friend or a talk, pm me.

Thanks Phoenix I think your right on the money with what your saying. I went out to hang out with them yesturday and we had a good time. Thanks

Kat1990 I will message you sometime, thanks.

Thanks, Plink.