I love him, but ...

My best friend is in serious Eeyore mode again. All we talk about his him, and his job search, and how much he hates networking, and how bad he feels about his career choices, and how badly his bosses treated him ... and ... and ... and ...

I recognize that losing his job has hit him hard. I am doing everything I can to help. I do this willingly and with an open heart. But it's beginning to weigh on me.

He asks my advice and then resists it ... until he works it all through and comes around. He complains about things he can't change. (LinkedIn is a fact of life in advertising/marketing. It just is! Not everyone will answer his emails as quickly as I do. They just won't!) And he can be stupefyingly self centered.

He shot me a text message (which I read while getting my hair done): UGH! Dave* reviewed my LinkedIn profile. I hate seeing his face.

When I got home, I responded in an email telling him that I get it, as my least favorite ex uses LinkedIn to stalk me. I told my best friend how it feels like a shot to my solar plexus to see the face of the man who raped me when I least expect it, but this is a necessary evil of the uber-connected world we live in. I also told him how Dave probably found him -- that he now works once again with another former coworker (advertising/marketing in Chicago is rather incestuous).

His response to my three paragraphs long email? "Thanks."

There are times that he is the most sensitive, mature person on earth. But when he is in "Woe Is Me"/Eeyore mode, he is, pardon the pun, an ass.

I told him it hurt my feelings. And now I bet he will tell me that somehow I'm "beating up on him." I could be wrong, but this does seem to be our dance. Oh well. If he is going to continue to be my friend, I am going to continue to demand he respect my feelings. He lost his job three weeks ago. He may be out of work for a long time. That doesn't give him the right to diss me.

*One of our least favorite former coworkers.