September 15, 2019 - 2 - "Surviving the Life: Frenemies"

First off; a Disclaimer: 

     The truth is, I could fill a whole big corner of the internet with what I don't know about friendship.  I have gotten it right, and I have gotten it hellaciously wrong.  

     But I have learned some things.  So here are just a couple of my gems of wisdom.  These gems, like all gems, were formed by extreme pressure.  In this case by the pressure of those two-ton 'friendships' that hurt your heart and prepare you for the darkest challenges of life.  Stuff like political debates and bouts of strep throat.

What I Actually Do Know About Friendship:

1-Friendships should be with people who challenge your limitations...not your ability to tolerate bullshit.

2-Friendships take time.  But fun time…not like time spent in an orange vest in the hot sun picking up trash on the side of the road kind of time.   Pleasant time. 

3-There are only so many hours of free time in a week.  You must choose your friends very, very, carefully. 

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     So, some background to my friendship lessons:  I learned some extremely unhealthy and unhelpful lessons in my early life.  They, basically, boiled down to this idea:  Relationship is all sacrifice.  

     It took me a very very (very very….you get the idea) long time to even notice that I’d internalized this message, and even longer to learn a better way.

     ...and then even longer than that to start practicing this new way.

     I went through a long time thinking maybe I'd just avoid all relationships because they are just too exhausting and scary.  In some ways I'm still leaning in this direction a little too much.  What I'm  trying to remember now is that there is a healthy way and that this way is available to me.  

     In grade school, all the way through college, I took great pride in the fact that I was a 'good friend'.  Being a good friend was very important to me.  Looking back I absolutely didn’t even know what that meant.  I felt so incredibly 'less than', that I felt my only job in friendships was to build someone else up.  Having zero self-esteem doesn't tend to attract people who think you're cool.  People will tend to agree with your own self-assessment.

     I had some sweet friends along the way, but often they were people who didn't think much more of themselves than I did of myself.  The people I tended to be really drawn to were those outwardly very confident people; the steam-roller types who'd just knock down anyone in their paths.  I guess I wanted their confidence to wear off on me.  I didn't realize that's just the other end of the lack of self-worth spectrum.  They were the bullying perspective to my martyr perspective.  

     As I grew older, and grew to like myself more and more, I started to develop different sorts of friendships.  I found friends who I had fun with, who had fun with me.  And I found friends who, and this turns out to be key:  friends who I felt very peaceful about while we were together and also when we weren't together.  

     I didn't get those thoughts after getting together like:  'Hey.  Wait a minute!  What did they mean by that?  They know I just love cabbage and then went out of their way to say that anyone who likes cabbage is an uneducated, immoral, moron, with zero redeeming qualities. Hang on!  That was a dig.  And it was aimed right at me.  Why would they say that?!' 

     What I wanted to go for were lower-angst sorts of friendships.  People who were happy, and who liked that I was happy too.  

     That's when I noticed that a lot of the relationships I’d formed previously, both romances and friendships, were based on me being a yes-man for these dominating types.  We did have good times together, but only if I agreed with everything they said, never expressed my own wishes, and pretty much, never expressed myself…at all.  (Which might explain my love of writing and journaling.  You've gotta express yourself somewhere.)

     Two of these early friendships ended the moment I said to each of them:  "Hey:  I was wondering why you treat me like shit?"  Now, I didn't actually say that in so many words.  I just asked about a very specific thing each of them had done that hurt my feelings.  And I put it that way:  "Hey can we talk about this thing that happened, because it made me feel bad?"

     And:  *POOF!*  Friendship over.  Like, entirely over.  Like, I was dead to them.

     These were decades-long friendships that dissolved completely the instant I opened my mouth.  How crazy is that?  How could I have even thought those were friends?  

     But did this realization allow me to move on happily to more fulfilling friendships? 

     Oh no....not at all.  Instead, I spent ages and ages questioning myself.  ‘What did I do wrong?  What could I have done differently?  I’m a bad friend’.  And, as I write this, I realize I actually translated this to mean:  ‘I am a bad person.’

     As I'm editing this I see something obvious that I missed for all of those years.  I kept ruminating about what I did wrong and what I could have done differently to avoid the clear truth:  these people did not love me.  I was avoiding admitting that these people didn't love me because once I did that, it would feel that meant that I was just unloveable in general. 

     It’s hard to write all of this now.  It sounds pretty pathetic to my current self.  How lame is all of this even to think of?  But at the time I simply didn’t think to ask myself why I spent so much time hanging out with these semi-tyrants who only wanted a patsy sidekick.  

     I just kept questioning my own ability to be a 'good friend'.  I tried to make the relationship work, mainly by alternating between court jester and patsy-in-residence.  And while I did that we'd had a whole lot of fun.

   Being basically a positive person it was the fun parts I remembered.  I didn't mind playing those roles back then so it didn't seem like too much effort.   Much later I realized that most of the fun in those relationship was provided by me.  These were not fun people.  These were people who fed on fun people.  

     Another element was that I wanted to be 'spiritual' . I wanted to see the gifts in everyone, know that they were at heart good, and that any negative interpretation of their behaviors was my own stuff.  

     All this is good.  It's also true.  It is a worthy goal to think in this way.  However, there comes a point where you have to ask yourself:  Wouldn't it just be easier to spend time with people who don't make me do these constant mental gymnastics?  People who are just actually nice...not just constantly telling me that they are nice...while stabbing me in the back at every opportunity?  

     Besides, just because they were no longer a match for me, didn't mean someone else might not enjoy them.  I could stop tying up their time and let them move on to being a life lesson for someone else.  (Is it just me, or is that last line hilarious?  Bitchy posing as Zen.  I kind of like it.) 

     So, eventually, I started doing this.  I started choosing to hang with friends that were overall easy and fun and challenged me only in positive ways.

     It wasn't until years later when I rekindled another friendship from my youth that I could actually see those old dynamics being played out.  And I went through the same self-questioning crap for a very long time, but at the same time, could watch with a little detachment.  I could see all too clearly that this person didn't just do this to me, but to everyone around them.   

     Still, even with all this fabulous awareness:  it hurt.  It still caused self-doubt, but it felt good to experience that last remnant of my youthful pain...from a different perspective.  I could actually see what was happening.  I could see the black humor in listening to someone telling stories about what giving people they are....all while ignoring what anyone around them might be going through. 

     And then, finally, I just moved on.  And I didn't end it by saying:  "Hey.  You hurt my feelings."  Because, in a way they really didn't.  In a bigger way, I only hurt myself by allowing this sort of thing to play out again.

     I just said I didn’t want to hang out anymore.

     I thought there’d be lots of questions.  Like:  'Why not?  What did I do?  Could I do something to change your mind?'  But there were zero questions.  It's almost like these people expect that 'friends' will move on, expect that others can only take their crap for so long.  

     Maybe that's the reason for the criticism of people around them.  Obviously you're an idiot for putting up with their crap, so how can they respect you?  It's a little like Woody Allen saying he wouldn't want to be part of a group that would have him as a member.  

     Also I realized looking back that there wasn't much about me for this person to miss.  Why would the friendship be missed?  If I never spoke, how could they know me?  In the end I realized just how little interest this person had in me as a person, barely saw me, barely heard.  If you just want to talk at people then one person is pretty much interchangeable with another.

     So, thankfully, the last of those painful relationships was over as easily as that.  Now I just hang out with people I actually enjoy knowing, and who actually want to know me.  How cool is that?

"The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, 

whose presence calls forth your best." 

-Epictetus