attraction

So after my friend revealed her ass to me, A behavior I always heard her talk about, but never associated it with our friendship, I now wonder what else I need to learn from it? I just wrote about the pervasive disease of negative self beliefs. You do not need anyone else to help you feel badly, in fact, as hard as it is to acknowledge, you probably pull the people toward you who can help you agree with all of the crap you tell yourself. You choose relationships and then you get down to making it comfortable. If it is friendship, then it is based on similarities and structures that engage and entertain you. If it is love, then there is a sexual component along with compatibility. You have to accept some responsibility for the pleasures gained from the association.You say to yourself, my friend understands me, supports me...gets my moods and my quirks and likes me. I like them back. When you disagree, the relationship usually should be able to withstand the differences. What has happened to me, is that the echoes of things she has told me about the way she views and has treated her own family now resonates loudly in my ears as I am on the receiving end of her behavior. She represents herself as a victim. But not only is she not a victim, she is a very cunning predator. She contacted me yesterday and she asked me how I was doing and then got right into what she wanted from me. Yet again, I marveled at that. She had no qualms at all. She does this with her children to. They go out of their way to do whatever they can for her, but she nitpicks about what she feels was not done to her exacting requirements. How can someone ever be happy when all that they see is what they believe, they don't want or isn't exactly as they wan it? It is like, she wants $100. You give her $100 in $50,20,20,$10. She complains that you gave her two $20 and a $10. My God! What are you doing to yourself? What are you doing to your life? What sort of mental illness is this? OCD much!?! To me, that kind of behavior smacks of entitlement. That can get out of hand. It makes relationships become strained. What is all of that criticism about? The similarities between my ex-husband and her is so acute right now? Being so, I question why am I attracted to such people? You are supposed to attract what you are or what you need to work on...I read that somewhere once. I have definately been critical in my past. No doubt about it. I am now very self critical, and working on it all of the time, and seeing improvements and I am very excited and pleased about that. It is all about expectations and feeling that you do not control your life. (Which you really don't) But you also do control your world. You control the way you want to express yourself within it. Also, there is so much democracy in a situation. We reached an impasse because we both believe that our 'feelings' were not being acknowledged. The whole thing is mental! Really, really stupid! But it is real to both of us. This is getting rather long and I am not sure that my point is getting across...I shall make this two entries instead of one long one.