Title: How do I stop back form a friendship with an intensely negative and argumentative coworker? Originally posted on Ask A Manager
I am not the OP, this is a repost community.
Trigger Warning:
spoiler
Feeling trapped with a crazy coworker
Original Post: Jul 8, 2025
I’ve been working at a university library for a little over a year now and have had a hard time making friends. Shortly after I started, I befriended a coworker, “Morgan,” who is also relatively new, and it has been nice getting to know them and commiserating about how hard it is to make friends in a new city and workplace.
Over the course of our friendship, Morgan has opened up more and more about the interpersonal problems they’ve had with our colleagues. They describe scenarios where collaborative projects get stalled because other stakeholders stop communicating with them, coworkers they were getting lunch with on a weekly basis suddenly stop responding to chats, and other frustrations with navigating bureaucracy that interferes with their work. It’s hard to tell if Morgan is becoming increasingly disgruntled or if they are now very comfortable with telling me their unfiltered feelings.
I’ve also had to navigate some fairly horrendous problems as a new employee, so it’s been nice to have a coworker who understands and sympathizes with our (somewhat) dysfunctional workplace culture. Morgan has made it very clear to me that they are only here for the time being and have already decided that this is not the city they would like to stay in long-term. Personally, I want to retire here and have worked very hard to improve my situation. It feels very different for me today than it did a year ago, which is why it’s become increasingly difficult to navigate Morgan’s constant negativity.
Morgan can be a lot of fun to talk to, but they’re in an increasingly bad mental space at work. They frequently come to my office to gripe for an hour or two in spite of how busy I am; I’m always actively working and trying to concentrate when they pop into my office. To my fault, they ask if it’s a good time to chat and I always say yes because they’ve been so hurt by our coworkers pulling away and I’m afraid of upsetting them. On top of this, they’ve become increasingly argumentative with me when they’re looking to talk. Again, I would say this is my fault because they are looking to vent and I’m always trying to provide solutions, so I think it’s taken as invalidating Morgan’s feelings.
Morgan is in such a bad mental space at work that seemingly any type of feedback or dialogue that they disagree with comes off as an attack. One of the issues they’ve had with multiple colleagues is that they invalidate Morgan’s feelings. Morgan has described situations where they complained about something to a colleague and rather than agreeing with and consoling Morgan, they essentially said to look on the bright side. For example, Morgan was upset about a change made to their office and the coworker responded with, “At least you have your own office.” Morgan has many examples of conversations like this and cites it as a workplace culture issue. In addition, Morgan holds on to comments like this (that took place months and months ago) and often refers back to them as examples of how bad things are. At this point, I am very afraid of upsetting Morgan because I like them, and their hyper-sensitivity is a bit triggering in light of all the reparative work I’ve done for my position and unit.
One more detail about Morgan that I think plays a factor is their odor. Morgan has a strong mildewy smell wherever they go. The odor fills a room and I can often tell if they’ve recently been in a space because of the smell. I believe Morgan maintains good hygiene practices, but that they are unaware of the fact that a lot of their clothing has developed a pungent mildew odor. Depending on how strongly they smell, it can be very difficult to spend extended periods of time with them. I’ve avoided spending time with them outside of work, like inviting them to my home, because the smell is so off-putting and am wondering if it has contributed to their interactions with coworkers.
How do I take a step back with Morgan without further inciting them?
Alison’s response can be found at the link to the post above
Update: Jul 2, 2026
Your advice was excellent and gave me a lot to think about.
First, I did not have the heart to mention the odor issue to my coworker, primarily because they are often very sensitive around me and I had concerns that they would lash out. Oddly enough, the odor has improved somewhat, so maybe someone else mentioned it to them. That brings me to your point about my intentions with this person.
You are so right that I am spending time with them out of fear, rather than genuine interest. Things with Morgan were great at first when we just chatted about non-work topics. I’ve tried re-routing conversations there when they pop into my office to get us back to that place. It’s worked and not worked. For example, recently they were talking about their frustrations with our administration (quite loudly in my office). I kindly discouraged them and said that we should talk about it over drinks instead. They laughed a little and kept on going with their thoughts.
Since then, I’ve tried being much more direct about being busy and not able to talk when they pop in unexpectedly. I’ve also had multiple one-on-one conversations with them about how uncomfortable it makes me to complain about work in my office because I don’t want our colleagues to overhear and get the wrong idea because they heard a snippet of a conversation. They seemed to understand at the time of the conversations but have continued to complain about our workplace administration (loudly in my office) to the point where I now mostly stop talking to them and focus on my work — somehow this has been quite effective!
I think they are more aware of my discomfort/disapproval of the conversation when I withdraw and it has been seemingly ok/without obvious negative consequences? It’s possible that they are now complaining about how unsupportive I am, but I’m seeing that this is better than the alternative (or past practice with them). Depending on how things go from here on out, I might also try to limit my time with them outside of work. We don’t see each other much but, when we do, it’s a lot of the same draining negativity that I find very stressful and unpleasant to dwell on.
Thank you so much for your advice! As a side note, I couldn’t believe how many people chimed in about front-loading washers and mildew smell!
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