A friend is someone who takes your hand and leads you back to yourself. To me, being a true friend means that I bring a gamut of things to the relationship: giving, laughter, amazement, challenges, disappointment, sadness, hurt. As I am not perfect I expect friends to tell me when I do fuck up, and believe me they have. And I learn. We are all learning about ourselves and each other and sharing that learning. But on the whole I believe I bring friends laughter and joy.
Can true friends tell friends that they are pissed with each other? I bloody well hope so.
I believe that the closer the friendship, the more you can reveal. I could not get pissed off or celebrate with a person that is an acquaintance or a casual friend. Why expend the energy? But a close friend I can get pissed off at, cry with, share joy with, because the barriers are lowered. I can be vulnerable with a close friend because I know that when I get pissed off they won't judge me, or dump me, or abandon me. And if they do, it is short lived because they get to see the deeper me. They see the kaleidoscope of wonders (dark and light). I know that I can cry and they will be there. I can feel joy and a friend can share that with me. Yes friends have the potential to hurt more, because they get to see more. That is the trade-off.
Would I get pissed off at a casual friend? Would I be vulnerable with a casual friend? Absolutely not! They will just experience the fun, bubbly me at distant intervals. With a casual friend I would never get pissed off with or share many feelings with because the investment and expectations are not there. And yes, I do have expectations or rather guidelines for friends otherwise I would have no boundaries. Casual friends will never see the wonderful dimensions that I have to offer. And I will never the experience the wonders of them.
I spent a large part of my life living the philosophy that others are responsible for their feelings and what they think. That is so easy when I don't want to think about others. It takes energy and empathy to think about others. I am responsible in part for my actions on others. I cannot go around being angry or sad or happy at people and then saying "Well I am just being me, it is their responsibility how they take it." I managed to stay married way past the due date because I had been taught that I was responsible for my feelings and thoughts. No matter what the case, I always ended up rationalizing that I was the one who was responsible for my feelings. My ex-husband was therefore free from responsibility. He could act like he wanted but it was up to me to change how I felt because "Goddamn it I was responsible for how I felt". To a degree I agree about being self-responsible, but I also ended up hiding my feelings.
Now I realize that I have three choices if I don't like the way something is said or some behavior is incongruent with how I think.... 1. Decide that this behavior does not mesh with the way I think and it is critical to my well being and leave. 2. Decide that it is my thinking and deal with it on my own. 3. Have a mature conversation with the other person and see whether or not a compromise can be met. These steps are so much better than being passive-aggressive (which comes out as cold and distant and silent punishment).
A friendship to me is an investment. As with any investment you take the highs with the lows.
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2 comments:
Three choices. Absolutely! I learned a long time ago that there are only 3 choices from which to make a decision about anything: (1)Accept it; (2)if you can't accept it, change it; and (3) if you can't change it or accept it, leave it. When you boil it down to the bare essentials, decision-making really is quite simple.
is there something you need to tell me?
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