OK, so I know that you never really should stop caring, but I can't think of a better way to put it briefly. As we all know, I'm not really a brief person, but the title kind of requires all of my skills in brevity to come alive and work to bring you such masterpeices as "I hate titles" and "Do I have to put a title" and "...".
Anyway, I'm getting off-topic (Can you get off-topic if you haven't even started?). I was thinking about this for a bit and I really don't know the answer. I hear people talking about having "different seasons" in life (which, honestly, I understand and believe, in some extent, the phrase...but it kinda makes me want to gag on a spoon full of cliché every time I hear it...but I'll live) and how sometimes people are in your lives for very short seasons and some for not-so-short seasons.
Well what if you are season-blind? (Or, live in Florida, where you can't tell what season it is?) I'm never really sure when to just give up on a friendship and let the inevitable pull between us take us on our seperate paths or fight for the friendship and keep it alive. Is it worth fighting to get nothing in return when you could have been putting that effort into other friendships that would continue to last and be fruitful? Is it mean/bad/immoral to stop being friends with someone if the relationship bears no fruit? At what point do you give up adding more fertilizer and just let it die on it's own? (Work with me here, I'm a metaphor-type person).
Hurm.
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Addendum:
I never used to be bad at making friends. I've moved so much in my life and had to forcefully give up friendships before out of sheer inability to contact. I was good at making friends. My family thinks so, my friends think so, I think so.
What has happened? I never used to be afraid of sharing myself and just being who I was in front of people? What am I afraid of? Rejection? Maybe a little, but not really.
I shouldn't be afraid to be open and honest and who I am. Something must have happened to cause me to change and be afraid. What happened to me?
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If five-year-old Matt were to see me now, he'd be confused and disappointed.
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I hate having two varied points in a post that I want to hear feedback on because I generally will only hear a response to one part, if any.
I shouldn't write late at night. Way too honest and way too contemplative.
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4 comments:
I don't think you ever have to stop caring. Stop pushing maybe. But not caring.
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What would make 5 year old Matt expect to see?
So a group of us had this EXACT same discussion during our "open space" technology discussions at Ghost Ranch. (Open space tech. essentially being a meeting/seminar format where the attendees create the entire subject matter... it's pretty awesome).
So here's my metaphor for you that was used by another girl at Ghost Ranch, right now you're constantly knocking at a door that's closed and no one is answering, so maybe you should go back in your own door and join your own party with the friends who are there, NEVER close your door, instead leave it open in case they ever decide to come over and join in. If they're the one knocking on your door... I suggest that maybe you open it, say hi, see what's up... etc.
How you feel now as far as making friends... it's kind of how I felt in that July-ish/August time, it just wasn't me and honestly it took you constantly going "HEY YOU'RE NOT THE GIRL I REMEMBER" for me to figure that out, wake up, and get back on track. It took plenty of time for me to get back to me too I guess it helped that I was immediately forced into situations where I genuinely felt like I was being told "These are your new best friends, you will now tell them your entire life story, and your deepest darkest secrets." Okay, it wasn't *THAT* bad, but you get the point.
Stop being afraid, and how about you be five year old Matt, the photos I've seen were adorable. Even if you hate your smile as you say, I told it's amazing and I think people should see it. My opinion is the only one that really matters here, so go with that :P
As far as "life seasons" you should gag on a spoon full of cliché, if the other person isn't responding then go ahead and move on, if they come back at some point then great talk to them then, but if you're still harboring these feelings of 'why aren't they talking to me' or whatever, I don't actually know, then it just sucks that much longer and when they do come back around are you going to be happy or just resentful that you haven't heard from them? Just a thought... Any other deep thoughts I could touch on in my marathon comment?
*also I appologize for the typos and randomly missing words (I can't help it if rereading my comment bothers me...) it's 1:30 am and I've been talking to Alee for like 4 hours... yikes but good times all the same...
Interesting thoughts, really tough questions.
I'm not sure I completely understand exactly what it is you're describing. What does it mean for a friendship to "bear fruit?" Is it that there's just no real joy in the relationship anymore? Or is the problem that this friend seems to want to take and take, but never gives anything in return? If so, what is it that they're not giving that you want? And are you asking for it, or at least positioning yourself to receive it? You can't expect a friend to reach out to you in your time of need if you don't express to them that you're in need.
And has that particular friendship always been this way, or did it used to be different? What attracted you to them in the first place, causing you to want to invest in a friendship with them, and are those qualities still there? If the friendship has always been one-sided, then I think perhaps it would be time to let go of it and put your energy into other relationships. If this is a new development in the friendship, though, maybe it would help to think about when it started being this way, and what might have caused their approach to the relationship to change. Maybe that would give you an insight into why the friendship is suffering.
Of course, you can't force a friendship. Some relationships just aren't going to grow into anything no matter how much fertilizer you dump on them. That happens for different reasons. Sometimes it's because the other person is a tool. Sometimes they change and become someone you can't connect with as easily. Sometimes, like you noted, distance puts up a wall that is insurmountable, and communication just languishes. But only you can decide whether a friendship is worth maintaining, and to make that decision, you have to identify what it is you want out of the friendship.
As far as having trouble making friends at this point in your life, I'm not sure what to say. The only possible idea I came up with is that, since you did grow up having to forge and break so many friendships, maybe somehow some part of you is just tired of all the emotional linking and breaking, and doesn't want to open up *again* only to have to lose a friend *again*. It's emotionally wearing, and one solution, albeit a pretty unhappy one, is just to avoid making the relationship in the first place, so that you don't have to endure losing it. But I don't know if that's what's going on at all, it may be way off the mark.
--- Micah
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