There’s a lot to unpack here, I’m not getting into that, but here’s one thing: I have friends I haven’t called in two years. They’re still my friends. I have a lot going on in my head, sometimes I should congratulate someone for their birthday but my brain is like, naaah, not now, heeeeey, Macarena. And suddenly it’s been two weeks and shit, can’t really call now, can I?
My sister has been known to call me on her birthday late at night and telling me sternly that it’s her birthday and wants to be congratulated about right now, goddamnit. Great! I can work with that. That helps with that problem.
The whole thing you write about the friendship being a lie made me frown a bit, I feel I want to give some comment on that: A friendship isn’t a hard linked state. Relationships with people are more of a dynamic web, connections fluctuate over time, depending on available resources, shared interests and mental state of everyone. New connections are made, sometimes old connections drain too much energy one way and thus get less time and energy scheduled automatically, as a form of self protection. It’s just what happens. At that point the web loses a connection. It helps a lot at that moment to have an actual web, not just a single thread to hang on. That puts a lot of force on the anchor point of that single thread and that’s usually not a great situation for either side, see above.
Please understand…I don’t normally mind if someome doesn’t wish me happy birthday. Hell, I usually don’t like too much attention. It’s that we specifically talked about it and it was specifically noted to be a big deal to me because I was having a hard time with turning 30. We specifically talked about it being a big deal to me. It’s not like a regular birthday to me.
They specifically said they would text me to keep up with things after they moved away but they didn’t, even though I periodically would text. They specifically and repeatedly told me about being in town for a specific set of dates and then didn’t actully find time to hang out when they were here.
Here’s the thing…they didn’t need to repeatedly tell me when they were coming in to town if they didn’t want to do anything or if they knew they would be too busy.
They didn’t need to tell me they would try to keep in touch if they didn’t want to or knew they wouldn’t do it.
It’s going back on your word is what hurts.
I get that people have busy lives. That’s fine.
But to get my hopes up about things and then never end up keeping your word with anything really hurts. And it really does make it feel like they never liked me.
If the answer you say is to find even more people like that… I have a hard enough time making friends as it is. What is even the point of existing at that point if I can’t do what I’m supposed to do? And when I do rarely find someone they just leave anyway?
There’s a lot to unpack here, I’m not getting into that, but here’s one thing: I have friends I haven’t called in two years. They’re still my friends. I have a lot going on in my head, sometimes I should congratulate someone for their birthday but my brain is like, naaah, not now, heeeeey, Macarena. And suddenly it’s been two weeks and shit, can’t really call now, can I?
My sister has been known to call me on her birthday late at night and telling me sternly that it’s her birthday and wants to be congratulated about right now, goddamnit. Great! I can work with that. That helps with that problem.
The whole thing you write about the friendship being a lie made me frown a bit, I feel I want to give some comment on that: A friendship isn’t a hard linked state. Relationships with people are more of a dynamic web, connections fluctuate over time, depending on available resources, shared interests and mental state of everyone. New connections are made, sometimes old connections drain too much energy one way and thus get less time and energy scheduled automatically, as a form of self protection. It’s just what happens. At that point the web loses a connection. It helps a lot at that moment to have an actual web, not just a single thread to hang on. That puts a lot of force on the anchor point of that single thread and that’s usually not a great situation for either side, see above.
Please understand…I don’t normally mind if someome doesn’t wish me happy birthday. Hell, I usually don’t like too much attention. It’s that we specifically talked about it and it was specifically noted to be a big deal to me because I was having a hard time with turning 30. We specifically talked about it being a big deal to me. It’s not like a regular birthday to me.
They specifically said they would text me to keep up with things after they moved away but they didn’t, even though I periodically would text. They specifically and repeatedly told me about being in town for a specific set of dates and then didn’t actully find time to hang out when they were here.
Here’s the thing…they didn’t need to repeatedly tell me when they were coming in to town if they didn’t want to do anything or if they knew they would be too busy.
They didn’t need to tell me they would try to keep in touch if they didn’t want to or knew they wouldn’t do it.
It’s going back on your word is what hurts.
I get that people have busy lives. That’s fine.
But to get my hopes up about things and then never end up keeping your word with anything really hurts. And it really does make it feel like they never liked me.
If the answer you say is to find even more people like that… I have a hard enough time making friends as it is. What is even the point of existing at that point if I can’t do what I’m supposed to do? And when I do rarely find someone they just leave anyway?