I have a friend who’s loud, opinionated, and just has a big personality in general. And there’s nothing wrong with that! That’s just who she is, and I fully accept that.
Unfortunately, she is also often rude and even racist, which has recently become a bigger and bigger problem, especially when added to her personality. In my friend group, she often doesn’t get invited to events, not out of anger, spite, or really any kind of childish exclusion, but simply because she is rude and exhausting to be around. It’s more that we are sometimes tired and not up to spending time with her than anything else.
My friends and I have often tried to gently point these issues out to her, but we often get a “this is me, that’s just my personality, deal with it” and the conversation shuts down.
Lately, she has realized that she we aren’t inviting her over as much, and is hurt. She reacted by not speaking to us and making angry passive-aggressive comments. I realized that this was unsustainable if we’re to maintain a friendship with her, so I invited her over to come talk it out tomorrow.
How are my friends and I supposed to explain how we feel about her rudeness, racism, and overbearing personality without offending her? We’ve tried being nice about it in the past and the message just doesn’t seem to get through. How do we call her out on her rude, racist, and childish behavior? Is there a way of communicating that we’ve had enough of that behavior without callously hurting her feelings?