I have a very close friend - someone I see almost every day. He's someone who I constantly keep updated on my life. But our friendship is tense - I'll regularly scream at him. And our friendship is competitive - I constantly want to one up him. It's gotten to the point where, in social situations, I gain joy from his failures. If he does something embarrasing or awkward, or if he looks bad in a photo, I get joy from it. I get joy knowing that other mutual friends may see me as superior to him. And I've recently come to realise just how bad it really is.

Our competition is rooted in our simultaneous break ups. I broke up with my ex-girlfriend five months ago, and he broke up with his around three months ago. Initially, I was excited by his breakup because she was really bad for him - constantly stressing him out and never putting in as much effort as him. It sucked for me watching my friend go through that, so when they broke up I was relieved. I was also excited that we could now go through our break ups together, instead of going through it by myself. But this isn't what happened. What happened was simply that we both went through his break up - no room for mine.

It was exhausting. I'd see him everyday during and after school, and the only thing we could ever talk about was his ex. At first I encouraged him to get it all out as it would help him get through it all, but it got to the point where he'd cut me off mid sentence about my ex to talk about an unrelated topic with his. It drained me, and it quietly enraged me. Not only did he not give a shit about my situation, he was trying to one-up me. He was trying to have the worse break up, saying things like how I was lucky how mine ended, or we weren't together that long anyway. This went on for months and I can confidently say it has ruined our friendship.

Now the dust has settled, and I feel almost completely over my ex. But that period of tension has manifested into a deep and persisting tension between us. I still see him almost every day - just out of habit - yet just looking at him triggers some subtle anger inside me.

It was these last few weeks when I realised that this could really affect other areas of my life. Me and him had frequently been hanging out with a group of friends where I was getting very close with one of the girls. I was really into her, and it was clear she was really into me. But regardless of how obvious it was that she liked me, if she so much as looked at my friend, it would send me into a paranoid spiral that ended in me being clingy and overprotective. My competition with him was throwing a spanner into the works of my potential relationship with this lovely girl. Thankfully it didn't get too far with her for unrelated reasons, but if it had, the amount of stress that the jealousy and paranoia would have inflicted on me would've been severly detrimental to the relationship and my mental health.

So now I'm not sure what to do. I've tried talking to him about this issue, but that changed nothing. I think, no matter how hard it may be, I need to distance myself from him. Because any future relationships I have will otherwise be affected by our competition, and I need people in my life who I can actually trust. The painful thing is that he used to be one of them, but I have to accept the fact that our friendship isn't like that anymore, and I don't think it ever will be again.