DEAR CHICO AND DELAMAR… I have a friend who is becoming more and more a pain in the ass – only because she does not listen to me! She is having an affair with a jejemon and by her stature, they are not at all compatible. She earns much more than he does, she is upper middle class and he is poor, she wants true love and he is a liar who plays the field! To top it all, she knows she is just being taken for a ride, she knows that he is after her money, and she knows that he does not love her!!

I have attempted to stay away from her after saying my piece over and over again (which she won’t listen to, she just pretends!) – but at the end of the day, I feel guilty because she is a thoughtful and sincere friend to me – and she does not have anyone to talk to but me. I am just afraid that should I leave her, she would hurt herself or resort to something drastic. She has this tendency to sabotage her life, a drama queen to the highest degree!

I would gladly listen to her only if she listens to me – but the thing is she knows he is bad for her but goes on and on and on. If I could strangle her or bang her head against the wall just so she would come to her senses, I really would! Chico and Delamar, what should I do. I can’t leave her but I can’t stand her too! – Jejemon hater

CHICO SAYS…You are one of either two things: a real friend who’s had enough of a difficult friend, or a people pleaser who’s driven more by guilt than genuine friendship.

If you are the latter, then all you have to do is wait for the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Eventually the rewards of pleasing people will be overridden by the excess amounts of unwanted drama. Once you’ve had enough, trust me, you’ll be outta there, without a smidgen of guilt in your system. Relief will take the place of guilt.

But if you are a real friend, I suggest you revamp your definition of “lending an ear.” With true friendships, there is no such thing as, “I will only listen to her IF she listens to me.” Sometimes our friends talk to us, not really for us to tell them what to do, or to dictate prefab instructions on how to solve their problem, but more for a support group. Haven’t you ever had those days where you know you’re in deep trouble, you know what you’re doing is wrong, but you just can’t help but be on the wrong side of the tracks? And during those times, you just want a friendly face to listen to your woes, not really to deliver a sermon you’ve already told yourself, but just to have someone you can air your problems to?

Like you said, your friend knows she’s being bamboozled by this guy. So it’s not a matter of telling her what she’s doing wrong, because she knows it! But like you said, no one else will talk to her. And however annoying she may be, she’s human too, needing a little attention, a little compassion, and a little love, just like the rest of us.

Some lessons are not meant to be lectured, some lessons need to be learned in the field. Maybe she just needs you to be there, as she, like a suicidal matador, knowingly jumps into the ring with a raging bull.

When a dear friend died just last week, one thing I realized is that people enter our lives for a reason. Maybe it’s to love us, to hate us, to support us, to provoke us, to enrich us, to annoy us, and in the end, whether their role was that of a hero or a villain, we walk away knowing ourselves a little better. Our closest friends and our bitterest foes, all have their respective purposes in our lives. I believe in soulmates, but not the half-the-oyster-shell romantic variety. I do subscribe to the notion that the people who enter our lives are all there to teach us the lessons we need to learn. Sometimes they take the form of a staunch ally, maybe a friend or a life partner, but they can equally take the form of an archrival, because I believe they have just as much to teach us as our loved ones.

So inasmuch as your friend is learning a lesson here, maybe you’re there as well to learn yours. Maybe you’re both in each other’s faces to learn from each other. Of course I’m not telling you to acknowledge each urchin and vagabond that scurries your way as a karmic partner, because obviously there are also people you’re meant to swat away like pesky flies as much as there are those you treasure. All I’m saying is, with real friends, there is no such this as: “I will only give you advice if you promise to follow everything I say!” You can dispense what you think is the right approach, but in the end, your friend, who has a mind of her own, reserves the final decision for herself. Just because she didn’t follow your advice, doesn’t mean she’s any less of a friend.

DELAMAR SAYS…Part of being a good friend is standing by your friend even if you believe, beyond reasonable doubt, that she is making a big mistake. You can only do that if you acknowledge the fact that this is still HER LIFE not yours.

Yes, you love her. Yes, this guy might be all that you say he is. Yes, your friend is probably harming herself by keeping the relationship even if she knows he is just using her. But this is her love life. This is her boyfriend. And, it is her decision to make. You can only do so much for people. You can have your say about what they do with their lives, that’s your right as a friend. However, you can force your opinion and make her do what you think is right, not if you want to keep your friend.

Look, people will do whatever they want to do with their lives. The thing is you care for her, you want only the best things for her, but this is really not up to you. She has decided even after knowing how wrong this guy is for her that she wants to keep him. The most that you can do is to tell her what you think about it. And you have already. There is no persuading her from what she has decided already. So, leave her be to rise and fall by her own decisions.

At some point you will have to answer this question: would you rather be right and lose a friend or disagree with her decision but still be a friend? What is more important to you? Being right? Or being a friend? Friends can agree to disagree, right? You are her friend, not her parent. Do you really want to just quit the friendship altogether because you don’t agree with her on this particular issue? If you quit every relationship because you can’t agree on something, you might not have any friends at all because it is impossible to agree with someone on everything. Is this issue worth losing a friend over? More than thinking about who is right or wrong, is this disagreement worth more than all the other parts of your friendship? Is this one thing you don’t agree on worth more than all the years and all the other things that you agree on? Is this issue bigger than the whole friendship?

Answer these and the decision you need to take will become clearer.

(Chico and Delle welcome your letters. Write to: youth@mb.com.ph or fax through 527-7511. Listen to the Dynamic Duo Monday to Saturday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. over Monster Radio RX 93.1)