What should you do when your friend is an asshole?

in your friend's case, maybe you should not talk to him for awhile and see if he cools out. maybe it's just a phase. the problem with this being, of course, that phases can last for years

I just cut people like that out of my life. I guess I'm unsentimental that way -- I have no desire to be friends with assholes, no matter what our history together is.

Rainy, I don't wanna be in a band with him. A previous (good) band I've been in split up partly because of him. Before today, I was already looking for people to do things he can do, but hiding it from him.

Never mind...the bottom line is that the only way the guy will fix himself and realize why he's fucked up and try to improve and b ecome a better person will be once he hits pavement and that'll only happen when he's abandoned by his friends who no longer like him

I get the impression he doesn't have many friends apart from me. The abuse he throws at people is often along the lines of, "I'm a fucking musician - what do you do with your life?", continuining with more hateful crap. The problem is, his own music is mediocre at best, and he's getting on a bit, and his chances just get worse. So he's bitter in a way that is understandable, maybe. But then he seems to hate everybody, especially, as I've said, women, and I'm sick of being embarrassed by my friend. And I'm wondering just what he's capable of. So I wonder whether I should dump this friend, or whether I should try to help him.

View 2: You don't tell them they're an asshole. That's what friends are for: to support you no matter what.

Hint: View 1 is right.

Dave Q, I don't think I'm talking about you. Especially if you're really called Dave. Also especially because you're posting messages at 8:26am.

I think this is an important point. Whatever you might say to him has to be balanced against how you think he might react. If you think there's any chance that he might actually listen to you (doubtful from what you've said), then sit down and have a chat with him. If you think instead that he might smash your face-in, trash your apartment or slash the tires on your girlfriend's car, I'd go with the avoidance method. A friendship that isn't given attention will eventually wither and die.

Buy him two buttocks for his birthday?

Eventually I came around and was rather contrite with him, and he pretended like nothing had happened. Of course after months of him not returning my calls and not socializing with me, I asked him what was up. Apparently my sins included not being a good wingman when he was trying to score phone numbers from girls, and....well I can't actually remember what else off the top of my head. regardless, it all boiled down to him bitching about me acting certain ways, which (even if true, which they weren't) were minor compared to his almost total misanthropy, pretense, and unwillingness to be a decent guy overall, none of which I ever brought up because friends tend to overlook that sort of thing and he's not the type to admit that sort of behavior.

Basically, he moved to L.A. the same time I did, sold a couple of scripts for direct-to-video production, and his indie cockfarmer fuckery rose to new levels of bullshit. In retrospect I suppose this was the type of guy who just might be waiting around for cooler Echo Park/Vice mag types to hang out with. Even though we eventually "made up" and I opened up to him in a way I don't normally do during the conversation in which we reconciled, telling him that he did mean a great deal to me as a friend, he still acted like a dick.

Eventually it all happened again (this time not for any reason I could mistakenly attribute to my own actions) and I still would only talk to him when he would happen to pick up the phone (again, no returned calls). I realized I was right the first time, and this time I ditched him for good. It was rough, especially since L.A. is not a town where one can easily meet new people and this was my best friend from college and my first few years in California, but I had to do it.

I thought I'd feel miserable about the whole thing, this conclusion I had arrived at, but I feel nothing about it. Maybe that's sort of miserable in itself.