Perhaps it’s time for you to seek out new friends, says Mariella Frostrup – your old ones may be relieved
The dilemma I’m 32, have a fulfilling job, a wonderful partner and child, and travel a lot. Unfortunately, quite a few of my close friends bore me to death. They haven’t developed personally and intellectually over the last decade. They have no, or limited, ambitions and are the opposite of inspiring. Meeting up with them feels like a chore and I don’t respect many of their opinions. I often wonder whether we have grown incompatible because we are from different class backgrounds, as horrible as that sounds. My friends lack drive, curiosity and resilience, and I’m often embarrassed by how uneducated and bad with money they are. I have tried over and over again to get them to develop an interest in further education, reading, the arts, different cultures, politics and finance, to very little avail. I’m immensely frustrated. On the other hand, they have been loyal and supportive, and breaking up with them because our lives have little common ground strikes me as cruel.
Mariella replies Perhaps they’d welcome it? Allowing for their challenged intellects they can’t be unaware of your feelings. Even if you are wholly insincere and brilliant at feigning false interest they must have sensed your frustration towards them and their low expectations. The rolling of eyes and raising of eyebrows at the immensity of their cultural ignorance will have been hard to miss. Hopefully they’re equally unenamoured of you lecturing them about their lowly ambitions and the glories of aspiration and artistic expression.
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