In the past, when things haven’t been working between me and friends, I would let go and just find other friends. I use to be good at quiting and really good at finding more of my type of people.
A couple of years ago, I tried something different. I emailed two friends of mine telling them I felt left out and that the only thing I could think of doing was to quit and move on. I got two very intense emails back telling me that my friendship mattered and the relationships got much deeper than they were before. It was a Good Thing(tm).
One of the reasons I was so good at quiting is because things were kept on the surface. I have been trying to forge deeper relationships since that experiment a couple of years ago. It isn’t so easy to quit anymore.
Lately, I have a few different friendships that I feel aren’t working. I know they like me and would want me around but I am feeling like I have put out more energy in than I am getting back. I have tried to initiate contact and getting together and I have gotten excuses and reasons why what I propose wouldn’t work. Which is really fine. People’s lives don’t match up to mine and there are going to be conflicts. The thing that is missing is that these friends don’t come up with alternatives. I give them space because they are busy with something and when that something is over, I still don’t hear from them. I know it isn’t that they don’t like me but I do feel like having me in their lives are not worth it to them. I was trained from the time I was a small child through college that I should always be ready to move on, that friends get tired of me. This lack of initiation from others triggers those feelings.
I leave doors open for people I care about but when they don’t use them for long periods of time, I get cold from the draft and I start to close the door. I am no longer receptive. I still like these people but I don’t care as much.
I have been thinking about this post for about two weeks. I have some friends I am ready to write off as no longer close and that I need to close the door between us because I feel I am the only one willing to work at keeping it open. And the energy I am using is not getting me what I need in return so all I am doing is hurting myself.
Because of my experiment about telling people what I am feeling, I was planning on letting each friend know what was up and basically check in. I might get lucky and end up with something more out of it. Worse case scenario, I would be right and doing what I would have done anyway. Then I realized that I had quite a few of these heartfelt letters to write. I think I was up to 4 or 5. That got me to thinking that maybe the issue isn’t with my friends, maybe it is in how I am seeing things right now.
I know I am battling some sort of depression right now. I thought I should wait to write those letters until I could tell what was reality and what was just a filter over my eyes. Maybe it was that my energy is worth more to me now than at other times. It feels like the energy I get back isn’t enough. It feels like it costs me more than I can afford to get to a point where I feel they will notice me and give me any energy at all. I don’t know if these costs are absolutes and I was spending more than I should before. I don’t know if things have changed for my friends and they don’t have as much to give. I don’t know if they are just clueless of the exchange rate and they had no idea that I am feeling like I am on the losing side. There are lots of possibilities.
I have realized today that in waiting to write this, I have started to closed the doors to those people more than I was planning before writing to tell them what is up. I am feeling hollow and disconnected. I am not even sure if I could accept energy if it were coming at me. I might fight it and hide some more. But it would be nice to know if it was there, for when I can accept it again.
For claification, I have friends that are at the correct levels right now. The amount of energy going out matches the amount of energy coming in. I probably have friends that give me more energy than I give (but right now I am a sponge so I am not so good at noticing that difference). I have a lot of friends at many different levels. This post is only about a few of those. If you think you might be a friend I consider important and you haven’t been putting energy into me, then maybe this post is about you. Or maybe not.
Write the letters anyway. Worry about sending them later. Perhaps just getting your thoughts down in a more concrete form will help you figure out what’s you and what’s them.
Just a thought.
I’ve had this issue myself a time or two. Friendships that feel one sided. You call them, you make all the plans, maybe they show up, maybe they don’t. You get tired of holding the hand of friendship out after awhile and having it ignored. Sure you had fun with them in the past and when you finally do get together after months of trying you have a few laughs.
I always feel that as long as I’ve made the effort to be a good friend, letting it go after awhile is fine. No need to push things, if it is important to them they’ll get in touch with you.
I hope it works out well between you and them.
I was trained from the time I was a small child through college that I should always be ready to move on, that friends get tired of me.
I’m still working on where this came from.
I know we’ve talked in the past about perceptions from our childhood days – and how I thought you just didn’t care any more when you were really trying to give me an ‘easy out’ – but I’m still wondering where this concept that your friends get tired of you comes from.
I don’t get it, personally.
You are one of the most amazing and intriguing women I’ve ever had the privlege to know – so I doubt it’s that they ‘tire’ of you so much as they get so wrapped up in their own BS that they neglect your friendship… and thereby lose it.
I’m going to think about this a bit further before posting any more.
But I do know that I adore you!!
**hug**
College is where I figured out the “tire of me” thing. It is an energy/attention thing. People seem to think I have a lot of energy, that I am intense. After awhile, they are overwhelmed and need to be away. Since society insists on being “polite” there isn’t an easy way to tell me to play somewhere else for awhile. I enter need to figure it out for myself or be “pushed away.”
In college, I realized I would wear people out so I had three groups of good friends. I would rotate who I hung out with. When I would seem to be getting on the nerves of one group, so I would switch to another. Or I would do it before anyone got tired of me.
I had one friend when I was living in Denver that admitted that sometimes he would do things that made me pull back (like make me feel stupid with trivia questions) because I made him deal with reality when he wasn’t up to it. I was so grateful that he was able to figure that out and tell me.
I had forgotten about this “tire people out” thing until Dec when a friend pointed out to me that I wore him out so he found himself pushing me away.
Another friend recently admitted to me that when she was sick, it would be harder to deal with me picking her up than to wait for awhile at work and take the train home (about an half hour to hour commute.)
It isn’t a bad thing. It is just the flip side to the livening experience that can be The Gina. These things can be hard to hear but I am so pleased to hear them because then I know what to watch for. I have another friend that is very grateful that I figure out she can’t deal with me and back off before she has to shut down on me. We talk about it a lot.
You and I haven’t really spent a large load of time together. We get inseparable for chunks of time and then don’t see each other for a long time. I think one of the reasons you may not see the “tired of me” thing is because you are an intense person too.
I hope this explains it more.
You are not in any way part of the main post, but guess what my dear…I don’t know how to get a hold of you. I have your cell phone which mostly lives in your car. I don’t know your home number so I can’t call just to let you know I am thinking of you. I don’t think I have even gotten a return call from a message I have left on your cell.
I know I’ve tried to return said cell messages – but that said… I will immediately remedy the lack of contact info!
Next comment after this will have it all – then i’ll promptly delete it so it only goes to your inbox!
I do leave the cell in the car – simply because I detest being ‘available’ 24/7 when I’m really not.
I’m big on my ‘downtime’ so that I don’t get misanthropic on people too quickly – unfortunately, I also have a husband who is pretty much incapable of not answering a ringing phone…
But you’re family!!
(I was wondering why you only called my cell phone tho! lol)
By the way, I also agree with you that some of this may be them caught up in their stuff and ignoring the friendship and it not being about me.
it doesn’t invalidate the “tire of me” thing but it does make it hard to recognize when it is which.
I feel the ping, but realize that we’ve not gotten all that close in the first place. I do know that you remember each time I run into you that we still need to find time to attend a graveyard together, and I keep not having the time.
Lately I’ve been having a weird problem – I have too many friends. There’s dozens of people I wish I had more time for that fall off my list not because they don’t matter, but because other things are nevertheless a higher priority.
So I’m someone who has accidentally failed to respond to your overtures with overtures of my own, please accept my appology. I’ll try to do better in the future, but I’m still not used to this whole “too many friends” thing, and I’m afraid I’m just not very graceful at learning the ropes.
–Ember–
That was supposed to say “IF I’m someone who has accidentally failed…” because I don’t guess that I was on your list of letters that needed writing, but I notice that I fit the pattern anyway, on what I assume is a smaller scale.
–Ember–
You are fine. Our level of friendship matches our level of interaction. We have a lot of untapped potential and that is where it sits. Neither of us is pouring energy into each other because we both have too many friends and are busy.
Thanks for checking. Yeah, you do match the pattern but we haven’t gotten that close to have things fall apart.
Can I just say ditto to all of this?
I think I’ve been overloaded on the friendship front since I left high school. My high school was small and my little clique of freaks varied from about 6 of us to a maximum size of 10 when we pulled in a couple of underclassmen and got over the “boys are icky” thing long enough to let in a couple of those too. I think I learned how to ‘do friendship’ back then when 9 people was the most people in the world I could find who wanted anything to do with me. I’ve never actually learned to scale up from that, even though I’m pleased as punch at the fact that there are at least a couple dozen people who would be happy to be close friends with me if the two of us were ever able to find the time and energy. Most of the time social slots 1-3 are occupied by my SO and a couple of other people I manage to consistantly put effort into and slots 4-9 are shared between the remaining acquaintence-friends in my life.
There’s a saying:
When you laugh, the world laughs with you
When you cry, you cry alone.
Like it or not, a fair number of people that anyone knows, will be fair weather commrads who will be more than happy to be happy with you when your happy, but don’t want to be “brought down” when times get tough.
It’s somethng of a corrilary to “confidence is attractive.” When you’re on top of the world, everything is easier. From better service at retail outlets to being invited to every letter opening. Then you’re down everything gets more difficult. People shy away from others who are gloomy. You are more likely to get overlooked for dates, jobs, service at restaraunts and yes, calls from friends for “hangout” time.
It’s not fair, but that seems to be the way of things.
What you say is very true. And I am sure it is part of what is going on, why I have the filter I have. I just don’t know how much of it is that filter.
Some of the lack of contact is from when I was doing just fine. Some of it is from when I specifically asked for help and it was offered and seems to be forgotten about. Some of it, I think is because I am too inviting and that person doesn’t know I am down and might be safer to be around.
I had a dear friend once that told me he doesn’t deal with depressed people. I went through a depression when I was hanging with him and found that when I would visit, that I felt fine. It was a nice break to the rest of my life. He and I put (I think) equal amounts of energy into the friendship.
I am not expecting people to put up with my dour moods. I would like some of that fair weather friends energy. (And I do get it from other friends.) I am just noticing that there seems to be an unbalance between what I give these people in question and what I get from them. And it is time to figure out if it is worth maintaining the connection.
And it is a pain because I am depressed so I don’t know how much of it is what you are talking about and how much is actually part of the relationship.
I want to go where I am wanted, not just welcomed.
Hopefully, we are at the right energy levels.
You *do* know that I absolutely adore you, right?
*sigh* Need more time to spend w/ friends.
You and I are at the right energy levels. It is one of those lots of potential that hasn’t been followed up on. We both have things we are busy with and we live very distant. I would love to see you more often but I gave a good grasp on what your life is like.
Thanks for checking in tho. I appreciate it.
*HUG*
I figure you are the reverse. A friend who keeps pumping energy into me even when I am not giving as much back. I want to tell you I am aware of that and I appreciate it.
*hug*
I’ve been experiencing a lot of challenges and overloads in these areas myself, particularly over the last few years. I don’t know where this path is leading, but there have been some losses along the way that sadden me.
This is totally off-topic, but I saw this today and thought of you: http://community.livejournal.com/labyrinthwalk/profile
Thanks for the link. I didn’t know it was there. I even have the moderator on my friends list but I have never met her.
Same here. I only know her through LJ, but she posted recently about it and mentioned that she was cross-posting from there, so I thought I’d check it out for you. (I am also interested in joining her for this myself.)
Also, since I’m commenting on this entry anyway, checking in. Are we at an appropriate level of interaction, in your opinion?
We are at a good level. We don’t see nearly enough of each other but we haven’t expected to either.
This is true.
But I still am amused that we named our kitling after you, sort of. It means now that I think of you at least once daily.