How to Help a Friend Who is Stupid About Men
Of course, we all know her--our BFF, old college roommate, or maybe even a close family member. She is the SAM we love, who drives us absolutely crazy with her continual drama and roller-coaster love life. She wouldn't know a good man if a fairy godmother dropped him on her doorstep. She continually hooks up with losers, or even worse, bad boys, drifters, and cons Then you have to hold her hand and dry her tears when she gets her heart slammed in the car door, every single time. In other words, she is hopelessly and painfully stupid about men.
How do you help her without going crazy yourself? For starters, here is a quick list:
1. Treat her behavior as the addiction to romance and excitement that it really is.
2. Advise her to get professional help. The patterns associated with the chronic behaviors of a SAM often originate in painful childhoods, abuse, trauma, and sexual wounds from adolescence. Romance is a form of escape, but also her drug of choice, and keeps her from ever getting to the root of her problems.
3. Try to get her involved in hobbies, social activities, and sports that will get her mind off romance.
4. Encourage her to enroll in college, or work on a higher degree. She needs to learn and grow.
5. Show her there is more to life than dating and sex, and that sex is not a recreational sport. Many women entertain themselves by hitting the clubs on Friday night looking for the next hook-up. You might can handle it, but a SAM cannot, especially when she is drinking or doing other drugs as well.
6. Do not enable her by talking with her on the phone or sending a gadzilliion email messages that give you a blow by blow account (no pun intended) of her latest big fight, break-up, or passionate reconciliation. Tell you that you can no longer stand by and watch her throw her life away on losers.
7. If she she is in an abusive relationship, then do anything you must to get her out of it, and end it once and for all. Tell her if she goes back to him, your friendship is over.
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