Endship Ring

I was roommates with a girl five years ago. I was a spoiled brat for many years, but I've worked very hard to change. She, on the other hand, is still supported by her father, has no job or interests, and just wants to get married. Whenever she calls, she wants advice on the same boy drama. I just don't have the time or patience for this anymore. I tried not responding to her, but she keeps calling and texting, "I need to come over right now!"

--Drama-Weary

"I need to come over right now!" What are you, a day spa for her emotions crossed with the Burger King drive-thru? It's easy to confuse the chunk of time a friend has been in your life with reason for them to continue being there. It helps to unpack the mystique about how friendships form. Social science research finds that a major driver of friendship is similarity -- shared values and attitudes, for example. But demographic similarity is part of it, too -- like both being 30-year-old single female zoo workers who went to a crappy college. And though we want to believe we carefully choose the friends in our lives, personality psychologist Mitja Back and his colleagues are among the researchers who've found that "mere proximity" seems to play a big role in who our friends are. This means, for example, living in the apartment next door, working in the same department, or, in Back's study, being randomly assigned to "neighboring seats" in a college class. In other words, you probably became friends with this woman because she was sleeping in the next room, not because you conducted a nationwide search for the best possible buddy for you. Now's the time to choose whether she stays in your life -- and you don't do that by hoping she'll hear your vigorous eye-rolling over the phone and take the hint. Breaking up with a friend -- if that's what you want to do -- should work like breaking up with a romantic partner. Don't just wordlessly cut off contact; that's cruel -- and likely to backfire. Tell her that you need to end the friendship, explaining the problem in broad terms: You've "grown apart" or you're "in different places" in your lives. Even if she presses you, keep it kind by keeping it vague. The point is telling her it's over, not informing her that she's got all the emotional depth of a goldfish and then ducking out forever via call waiting: "Sorry -- gotta go. Important robocall from Rachel from Card Services on the other line!"