What do you do if friends get too demanding/controlling?

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I used to do voluntary work at a charity shop, a 10-mile bus ride away, but gave that up a few months ago because I was being picked on a little bit by the manager. I've tried a couple of other charity shops around the area, but I didn't really like it. I'm currently at one now, but I don't feel like I'm fitting in properly there, even though I've been going there every week for a few months now.

But now I've suddenly got myself involved with a friend who is quite demanding, and she is a very old-fashioned person. She's on job-seekers like me, and we both hunt together. She is nice, and she invites me back to her house for lunch a lot, and she means well, but I don't like the way she looks at job-searching. She does it a completely different way to what I've always done it as, and each time I say, ''I don't need to go around asking for vacancies, I just do it on the internet'', she seems to have a strange answer like, ''no, it's best if you went round in person and gave your CV in, rather than the internet'', or, ''no the job-centre is getting strict now, don't forget. We want to prove that we're doing these things'', or when I say, ''just apply badly if you don't want the job'', she just says, ''no we can't do that - the job-centre will find out and will be down on us like a tone of bricks''. She also tells these big stories of people she know not being able to get away with things what I suggest, and I'm not sure if she's just making them up to give excuses. But the trouble is, doing job-searching on the internet - and applying badly if I don't want the job - has always been my way, but since my friend is old-fashioned, she doesn't seem to get it into her head that things are preferably done on the internet nowadays, and that why would the job-centre give you all these handy websites to look for jobs on then tell you off when you do it?
And my friend also seems to think that just because you apply for a job that you're definately going to get it, and I feel like saying, ''look, it is not the 70s any more! Nowadays, you're lucky to get a rejection letter in the post!'' It's true (for the UK). But she doesn't see it like that. She sees everything the old-fashioned way, since she's older and hasn't had any kids and so always been able to live her way. She isn't that desperate financially. She can get by. But another thing, she keeps on changing her mind with what sort of job she wants. It's now driving me mad. I like her company otherwise, and we do get on, but I don't think she realises that she's being a bit demanding. She just think she's helping me ''come out of my shell'', and she's done some really nice things to me like what friends should, like help me find my way to an interview I needed to go to, and so on. But I just think that when it comes to job-searching, I feel bored to tears, going round and round the same shops in the same place, looking for jobs that aren't there, then panicking at the last minute because we haven't really done anything because of her making too many excuses when a job does come up. It's all got too much for me, but I find it hard to say that I feel bored when doing this with her. But it's just a totally different way of doing it how I used to do it. But if I say how boring it is, she says, ''yes I know - I'm bored too, but we have to do it because the job-centre will be onto us.'' It's true, but I think she's going a bit over the top with it all. She also uses the philosophy what really annoys me which is, ''you wait 'til you start work - you won't be able to get out of anything then!'' That irritates me when people say that.

I am now missing the charity shop where I first was (mentioned in the beginning of this post). I know it was quite bitchy there, I still felt more free when I was there. I used to just get the bus in mid-morning, do a few hours at the charity shop, it was all familiar to me (including the other volunteers there), then I'd get the bus at 2 o'clock to avoid the rush hour, then come home. And I done this 3 or 4 days a week. And I just looked on the internet for jobs when I wanted, and applied for lots of jobs because I knew I wouldn't get them, and perhaps make a little more effort if jobs I really wanted to do, and that'd be that. Much easier life, causing less anxiety and more room to breathe. And I just saw my other friends without nobody on my back saying, ''but we need to be looking for jobs, I won't be able to do tomorrow and Sunday we can't do.....''