The one sided friendships... (Full Version)

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TruelyBroken4u -> The one sided friendships... (7/10/2008 2:00:21 AM)

Lately, I have notice that a lot of my friendships are one sided. You might be adding or saying that I am being selfish, but I beg the differer in this case. Every time I ask my friends to share how they are doing they just say that they are doing fine and when you ask how are you really doing they don't want to tell me. Yet, when they ask me I don't hesitate at all I tell them the truth. How can a person grow spiritually when there friends are being this way? Is there a cure for this one sided friendship disease? Any advice? Also, I do ask them a lot of personal question or just want to find out what they like to do and I kept getting the same quiet answers.

Michael



agapetos -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/10/2008 11:05:26 AM)

Have you tried not to 'tell everything'? Or have you tried to gently explain why you'd like them to share more with you? Or have you ever considered that they believe they truely are 'fine'.

Some people simply don't want to be pushed on personal questions.



fluffmonkey -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/10/2008 11:35:04 AM)

Yes and cure is..........find more friends who will talk with you and you can talk to them about anything... what are friends for if you dont share ^_^

Sometimes you have to make first movies and share and open up and eventually they will do the same... if not then find friends that will.



CheshireMuse -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/10/2008 6:27:53 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: TruelyBroken4u

Lately, I have notice that a lot of my friendships are one sided. You might be adding or saying that I am being selfish, but I beg the differer in this case. Every time I ask my friends to share how they are doing they just say that they are doing fine and when you ask how are you really doing they don't want to tell me. Yet, when they ask me I don't hesitate at all I tell them the truth. How can a person grow spiritually when there friends are being this way? Is there a cure for this one sided friendship disease? Any advice? Also, I do ask them a lot of personal question or just want to find out what they like to do and I kept getting the same quiet answers.

Michael



Just because someone is more private about their feelings doesn't make them a "bad" friend. Some people are just very reserved.

I'm that way myself. I have difficulty sharing my deeper emotions with others, especially face-to-face. It drives my husband nuts! LOL.... (He says he's got to be the only man on the face of the earth that has to beg his wife to talk about her feelings...lol).

My reluctance to share personal feelings with my friends has nothing to do with whether or not I trust them, or love them, or like them or anything else. Its just the way I am.

Instead of getting angry with your introverted friends, why not stop trying to force them to share? Just accept them for who they are - let them offer thoughts and feelings as they see fit, without any pressure.

My advice to you would be to keep your questions to a bare minimum. Ask them how they are, maybe ask them a couple of more specific questions like "how was school?" or "how's your family doing?" Past that? Don't bombard them with questions in an effort to force them to "open up" to you. All that will do is make them defensive (I speak from personal experience), and even MORE reluctant to share.

Oh, and btw....Your spiritual growth is based solely on YOUR relationship with Christ. It has nothing to do with how much your friends choose (or don't choose) to tell you about their personal lives.



shadowspring -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/10/2008 6:55:05 PM)

I have experienced something like this before. [&:] I was going through a lot of difficulties in my marriage at the time.

I called a relative whose walk with God I respected. Well, I guess I was calling too often. The last time I called it was plain that she was annoyed by my problems, though she didn't say so.[:(]

So I thought, "You know what, SS? You are being rude. You never let her talk about her life because you are always so distraught these days. Wait until she calls to talk to you about her life, and then be a good listener."

I guess I was more annoying than I thought, because that was over six years ago and I have yet to hear from her! [;)]

I have other friends, friends that I have known and kept for longer than the last six years. I listen to them and they listen to me. We can talk about anything together. [:D]

That relative just isn't one of them.

Maybe your friends are all introverts; maybe you are more annoying than you realize; maybe (at least some of them) they are not all your friends after all. But time and backing off will tell.

Best wishes to you as you wait. I am sure there are people out there who will appreciate a "talky" for a friend. I know I have run across plenty; mostly other "talky"s like ourselves. [:)]

In the meantime, make this a special time of friendship with the Lord, and be on the lookout for people to whom you can be a blessing.



song -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/10/2008 10:13:23 PM)

I'm just jumping out on a limb here... but it could be that you share too much. Sometimes it's good to keep stuff between yourself and God and maybe one trusted mentor. It's not always good boundaries to wear your heart on your sleeve. [:)]



saraimay75 -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/11/2008 2:40:37 AM)

I am an introvert and I deal with a lot of feelings and other stuff internally rather than externally. My mother and best friend are extroverts the express themselves externally.

I grew spiritually quietly and on of the fist one to notice and tell me about my growth was my extroverted best friend.

Communication goes beyond speaking.



CarlaJames -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/11/2008 7:26:06 PM)

Have you thought about this...I have a friend that is always going on about her problems that I don't have time to tell her mine. Maybe you go on and on so much that by the time you are finished he/she no longer wants to share and is ready to get off the phone or whatever. Just go a week without telling your feelings/problems and see if they will open up then. Give them a chance to talk. [:D]



Rivermoon -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/13/2008 9:45:22 PM)

I'm encountering the same problem too. I believe I might have made the mistakes mentioned by all the previous posters made which I never realize.
I'm an introverted, and I believe I'm a good listener too. I always let others to vent to me. And I always try to put myself under control not to dominate the conversation. But I also always find that people always tend to take the liberty to vent to me (not offensive to me at all). But when I want to find somebody to talk to, I just sense that they are disinterested to engage the talk with me, as if I am too heavy for them to bear.
Sometimes, just as simple as asking how they are doing, they just answer me alright with not much details provided, as if they just try to be polite.
But at the same time, I know that a lot of the people do have reservation to disclose their more inner lives to others. People I meet nowadays seem try to present themselves to others as not troubled and well-functioned. I maybe wrong, but this is my personal perception.



jaimestarcross -> RE: The one sided friendships... (7/14/2008 4:29:09 PM)

You may feel safe sharing what's going on in your life easily with your friends but they may view that with trepidation and they could think you'd easily reveal their problems with others!

Typically when someone has a personal problem, they don't want to discuss it in front of others - they usually seek out a trustworthy person to talk about their problem(s).



skygreen -> RE: The one sided friendships... (8/15/2008 9:18:14 AM)

Michael,

I would recommend stepping back for a moment and re-evaluating your friendship, and see if there is anything worth while that you are getting from your friendship - and if there is, determine on what level you should maintain your friendship. There are different types of friends. It sounds like you are looking for a different type than what you have.

Different people have different needs in a friendships. From what you are saying, you are not comfortable with how this friend is not sharing- and you would prefer they would be someone they are not. This is not fair to them, because it isn't being very accepting of who they are.

You may also need to evaluate whether you can accept this individual just the way that they are - AND be ok with it - meaning that it doesn't bother you that that they are not reciprocating on the same level of sharing that you are. From what you wrote, it sounds like you already know the answer to that question. Otherwise you would not have been bothered by what they were (or were not) doing.

I believe God put a little meter inside of everyone, which if you pay close attention to, it will tell you if you are ok with what you are doing, (or what someone else is or is not doing), because when you (they) aren't - you tend to think about it A LOT and it doesn't bother you. Some people call it a conscious or intuition.

I think it would be helpful for you that you cultivate other friendships in hopes to find someone who desires a similar type of relationship as you do, where both people mutually share their thoughts and feelings.

When someone does not share their thoughts and feelings with you, you often feel disconnected and alone. The person who is sharing their thoughts and feeling is the one who is taking all of the risks being vulnerable by exposing their feelings. Those individuals that don't share, aren't exposing who they are, and as a result there can never be a true sense of intimacy between you, which is what it sounds like you want.

If you don't have an intimate relationship with someone by conversing with them on an intimate level, you won't ever really get to know who they are and this also can make you feel terrible alone.

The same applies with having a personal relationship with God. If you don't get to know God by reading His word in the bible, and by having a personal conversation with Him - you will never feel connected with Him, and you will also feel all alone.

You must have faith that there are people out there who seek the same kind of closeness as you do in a friendship. Try not to force your desires unto someone else, to try to change them into someone you can accept which never works.

Imagine a target with a series of rings. The outer rings are acquaintances, and the rings closer to the center of the target are your closest friends – spouse and God. Rather than severing the friendship entirely, perhaps your friends just need to be put into a different ring on the target.

It will take time to cultivate new friends. The sooner you do, they faster you will find a new friend who has similar needs.



Rivermoon -> RE: The one sided friendships... (8/15/2008 9:43:34 AM)

Thanks skygreen, your analogy of friendship rings is something I have been learning so hard. I have to keep telling myself that I will try to love everyone as God told us, but I can't be friend with everyone, even yes, may not be at the same level of intimacy. It's a reality I learn to accept that someone just choose to be my superficial friend without any disclosing of him/herself. :-(



skygreen -> RE: The one sided friendships... (8/15/2008 11:36:24 AM)

Rivermoon- what a beautiful name – reminds me of canoeing at night under a full moon.

The interesting thing about people is there are givers and there are takers – usually the two go hand in hand. Sometimes people switch roles, but usually not that often. The givers have a desire to give – and the takers have a desire to take – usually at no thought of how it is affecting anyone else – and they will continue to take as much as they can – for as long as they can – so long as someone is giving.

Givers often feel taken advantage of and used by other people, which makes them become resentful. The key for givers is to set limits on how much they are comfortable giving. A good indicator (God’s meter) when you have given too much is you will get angry at the other person when in fact, who you are really angry at is yourself, because YOU allowed someone else to take advantage of you, because you over extended yourself.

In order to fix this situation you can use the target with the rings with other people and start off slowly giving a little at a time. Then access how you feel, and how well the other person is reciprocating when you ask them for assistance. If they don’t reciprocate – then you probably need to set limitations as to how available you will be in the future if they ask you to do something. It is called setting boundaries.

The same goes to trusting someone. Its not a swift idea to blind trust someone, with whom you haven’t known for very long, or who you can’t get to know any better than a surface level, because they are unwilling to share anything about themselves.

If you apply the same rings on a target to the level you trust someone, you won’t end up in as many bad predicaments. If you take time to qualify who are trustworthy people, and get to know someone slowly over a period of time, than you can get a better feeling who would make a more compatible friend, and how much to give so you won’t be angry, because you felt taken advantage of.

The funny thing about being taken advantage of – it usually comes back to you making poor decision, about how much you gave. No one can take advantage of you if you don’t let them, and also remember: you are responsible for who you pick as your friends.

God is putting you in this situation because you need to learn something from it. If you don’t learn what it is you’re suppose to learn, something else similar will happen, until you finally learn the lesson.

In the bible it tells us to love other people how we love ourselves, but some people don’t take very good care of themselves, so it is difficult to love someone else. I believe it is only until we love ourselves, will we be able to love someone else. Until then, all we are thinking about is getting our needs met, instead of how we can be a good friend or spouse to someone else.


sky



Rivermoon -> RE: The one sided friendships... (8/15/2008 11:54:28 AM)

Hey Sky, thanks for your comment on my Nickname. :-)

Yup, what you said is the wisdom I've been learning it the hard way. I tend to give and not receiving. I need to take care of myself, love myself, before I can give to others, while I need to allow myself to be loved by others too. It needs security in myself (based on confidence of God's love for me, instead of anyone's approval of me). I'm getting there, even far from the end result, but I'm on the right track and on my way to restructure my target of rings.

Thanks for the enlightenment, and I am so much appreciated. :-D



skygreen -> RE: The one sided friendships... (8/15/2008 4:40:50 PM)

Rivermoon - I think the majority of people learn things the hard way - including myself.

Just remember the learning part is a process - it isn't something you instantly change overnight.

Part of learning to love yourself, is to be forgiving towards yourself and towards others. I can't think of the passage off the top of my head, but in the bible it says in order to be forgiven, you must forgive those who trespass against you, which all boils down to learning how to be a more loving person..

Good luck to you.

sky



Prairiehiker -> RE: The one sided friendships... (8/16/2008 7:03:15 PM)

I know exactly what you mean about one sided friendships. I've posted numerous threads about this because of my frustrations. Then, I realized that I need to see what I'm contributing to these one sided relationships that are making it easy for them to be one sided.

I'm taking a different attitude now. I've just spent so much time with peopel that are totally self absorbed that all you can hear is about them. I don't spend too much time with them as it frustrates me to no end. I'll be there if they need something for me, but only to a certain extent. I don't believe in throwing pearls to the swine so they can trample it. And that is true friendship...it's like pearls, and people should never take friendships forgranted.



MarlaB -> RE: The one sided friendships... (8/20/2008 7:44:43 PM)

I used to have a friend that would call me and go on and on about her and what was going on in her life and then when it was my turn to talk or say something she would always say well I better get going and we would say good bye. Then maybe a few days later she would call me back and get into a raging fit and tell me that life was not about me and she would say that all I thought was that the world revolved around me and what was going on in my life. I was totally confused. To say the least we really aren't friends any longer spoke to her a few weeks ago and that was about it of course it was all about her. My husband is not crazy about her and I now I finally see why.



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