If one of your best friends is a pushover and always try to stay on top, what's a good way to deflate his superiority complex?

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? You want your friend to be more likable and less annoying?

In my experience, most people I know are a mix of qualities I enjoy and appreciate, and also those that I don’t. If I feel that the good outweigh the bad, I try to ignore or mitigate the bad for the sake of our friendship. If the bad outweigh the good, I move on.

Sure, you can tell him how you feel, that his behavior bothers you, try to show him “the error of his ways”, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Best of luck.

there’s no way. if you manage it, he’ll just do it more.

You can’t change his behavior.
What you can do is make sure that you’re not tolerating and/or subconsciously encouraging that behavior.

You don’t like one of your best friends? I think you need to reevaluate your basic philosophy/

Isn’t your question a bit of an oxymoron?
he’s a pushover, yet he always tries to stay on top?

@jackfright: But it kind of sounds like the typical no-confidence-but-trying-to-cover-it-up-by-being-an-asshole syndrome a lot of 15–25 year old human males suffer from, doesn’t it?

@La_chica_gomela what you’ve described isn’t something i’ve seen myself. there are the general pushovers, and those annoying types that even try to dominate small talk.

Why don’t you just stop being friends with him? Your description doesn’t include any reason why you enjoy being friends with him, so I say you should end it, and if he asks why, tell him honestly just what you said here. You can’t change a person who doesn’t want to change themselves, but you certainly can show him that his actions are not the ones you enjoy being around, and maybe this will be enough to make him reevaluate the way he behaves.

People like this are often insecure, and overcompensate by acting a role. The only way you could get through to him is to stop hanging out with him, and if he asks you why, articulate what you’ve said here in terms of how this person makes you feel; not how you think he’s acting, but how you feel when you’re around him.

@La_chica_gomela hit the nail on the head.

He’ll be that way until he feels good about himself. Right now, he views himself as crap, so he tries to over-achieve, and if that doesn’t work, he tries to make others look like crap scoopers (something lower than crap). He needs a long time to grow up, therapy, or possibly a whole lot of things to go his way so he doesn’t feel so bad about himself. Most likely, he will continue this way for many years. I have an old middle school casual friend who has been just like that for the 30 years I’ve known him with no sign of changing.

@DarkScribe man you really sound like exactly the person I’m talking about. I never said I don’t like my friend. Maybe you should also revaluate your basic philosophy. Do you divorce your wife when you have issues, problems, that take time to resolve? Check yourself before you wreck yourself mr.

@mehmetaydin3 Check yourself before you wreck yourself mr.

Ok, Done that, no problems.

And no, I don’t have problems with my wife, we work at making our relationship contented and secure. Of course I don’t go online and complain about what a terrible wife I have, belittle her, call her a brat or similar and then claim I love her. Because I love her if there was a problem I would go out of my way to resolve it – in private.

@DarkScribe why can’t you go online and ’‘tap the collective’’ on any issue that evokes your emotions, thoughts that need some sort of guidance? Do you find that when it comes to a loved one it is morally or ethically wrong? On what basis? I believe that the people who make up this community can be trustworthy and I can openly express my feelings to you, them and everyone else, whether on the web or not. I don’t want to make assumptions about you, but you don’t seem to have a hard time to make assumptions about me. I admire it, that you don’t have any problems with your wife. I hope you never will have any problems with her. But if you do, and you keep it to yourself, thats your way of dealing with it. If you seek for help online, and tell exactly whats going on, then thats just another way of dealing with it. No problemo. I can see that you are smart, and you have some wisdom, but you’re not all the way there. I am saying this because I think you belittled me by saying I should check my philosophy and that I’m calling my friend this and that and then I say I love him so I don’t really know what love is bla bla.. I do know what I’m talking about, and I am quite confident in describing how I feel about my friend. Yes he can be a brat, but I tell him that too, which doesn’t mean I don’t love him.. It is a situation that boggles my mind a lot, so I’m trying to use fluther for what it is there for. Get it? Tell me what’s wrong with it? The truth is in many ways. And ethics are a good place to start arguing. Cheers

Sounds to me like your friend has a self esteem issue. You can’t change him. You could wait for him to change himself or encourage him to see the flaw and begin correcting it if he chooses to.

@mehmetaydin3 I have friends, good friends, some of them for more than forty-five years standing, I was in kindergarten with them. At no stage in my relationship with any of them would I have the angst that you expressed and still regard them as friends. Friends don’t do that to you. It is that simple. Sometimes relatives might, but never friends – that is what friendship is about, empathy, loyalty, support and caring. You regard someone who apparently is not aware or doesn’t care about your feelings as a friend – I wouldn’t.

Have you talked to him and told him how you feel about his behavior? That’s all you can do. It’s up to him if he wants to take your feelings into account, or make fun of you for having them. Do this privately, of course. If he makes fun of you for your feelings, you might want to reevaluate your friendship. He probably has no idea that his behavior bothers anyone.