Blocking Buddies

Ok, I know this topic is subjective, and I am not trying to place judgement on the blockers out there. You do what you need to do for your own mental health and peace. However, I personally, am not a blocker. I don’t see the point, or find it necessary to block people from my social media, even if we are no longer friends. I am hesitant to even unfriend somebody, because it feels like such a decisive and hurtful thing to do to someone. Maybe because I have been hurt by being on the receiving end in the past, or maybe because I never like to think of endings as such final things. Particularly in friendships, where it is common for the relationships to ebb and flow. What may be ebbing now, may one day flow again in the future if the soil is still fertile?

I am no saint though, and I have enough ex friends on my list to vouch for my many imperfections as a friend. I am fairly sure people who aren’t exes could also chime in. Haha I have been known to simply unfollow someone if their presence in my feed is upsetting me, making me anxious, or just spamming me with content I am disinterested in. Out of sight, out of mind, right? As for how many people have blocked me? I don’t know, because I don’t feel the need to look somebody up if they left my life. For starters if they unfriended me the most I would see would be a profile picture anyway, and secondly, if they made it clear they don’t want me in their life, I respect that. I hope they are all happy, but I don’t need to see it.

There have been 2 occasions however, where my unfollowing a friend has meant I missed a fairly important update in their life, and once it ended the friendship and the other it led to a productive conversation about why our communication had broken down and a repair. There has only been one occasion however, when a friendship was re-established after an unfriending and blocking. Because it almost feels like a permanent deletion of the existence of the friendship or the other person at all. It’s hard to recover from. Added to the shame that can come with the split and subsequent re-adding being such a public affair.

Being unfriended and blocked feels like an assault, and when it is sudden and unexpected, that only adds salt to the wound. Someone in my life recently experienced this and she was extremely hurt, shocked and baffled by this. Just the night before her and her buddy had been enjoying a casual chat about movies, video games and just catching up on life and their respective relationships and jobs. Nothing earth shattering, but also nothing that my friend could see that would cause her friend to block her the following day. Which is exactly what they did.

My friend was concerned about her buddy, and curious as to what had transpired. She wanted to apologize, and let him know that she was open to hearing from him again in the future. So she found a way to reach him via email, and sent a heartfelt message. He didn’t reply. This started to make my friend angry. She felt she deserved at least an explanation, a goodbye and an acknowledgement of her concern. The silence was loud.

A week passed before he contacted her. In that week, she had been stewing in her emotions, becoming more self righteous, certain that she had done nothing to warrant such disrespect. So although she said in her message she was open to contact, when it came through, she wasn’t all that happy to hear from him. (See post Accepting an apology when you are still mad for guidance on this issue.) He blamed his deteriorated state of mental health on the incident and she let him know this was not ok, and she deserved better. Thankfully they managed to work through this glitch and came out stronger, with her encouraging him to discuss these issues rather than withdraw.

He was, in a way, fortunate that he didn’t wait until too much time had passed to address the issue, even if my friend was initially still mad, because the longer you leave the awkward silence and leave the other person virtually deleted, the harder it is to recover from. You either have to leave it for a very long time until you both feel neutral about the situation and ready to move forward, which can take years, or recover swiftly and accept accountability for the blocking. This is true regardless of whether or not the blocking was expected or unexpected.

Obviously, my friend in this situation was right to be hurt, and also right that the best way to address conflict, or needs for space, due to mental health, or anything else should be openly communicated. That said, even if there is active conflict between you, I would always advocate for proceeding with caution before you press that block button.

Are you really certain that this is necessary? Are you sure that you honestly want to be rid of that person forever and sever the social tie publicly? Are you acting in your own best interests, or acting out of spite in a heated moment? Might you one day regret permanently deleting this person? Will it impact any mutual connections? Is this an act of power or revenge? Is it warranted?

I have heard people claim that they block the other party to prevent themselves from looking backwards or seeing unwanted updates through mutual connections etc…. which might be fair enough, but it doesn’t seem all that logical, being that any time you want to look, you could choose to unblock them, temporarily or permanently. So are you being rational, or emotional?

While I encourage discretion with the block button, if the other party was abusive, threatening, or in any other way damaging to your health or safety, then go ahead and block them. Block them everywhere and keep them blocked.

At the end of the day, although blocking buddies is effectively saying “you’re dead to me,” nobody will literally die from this social situation, so maybe it doesn’t have to be as serious as it sounds. Share your experiences of blocking or being blocked by buddies in the comments below, or over on my socials!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

When someone likes your friendship more than they like you.

It might seem impossible, for someone to like your friendship, if in fact, they dislike you, or at least, feel somewhat ambivalent or don’t like you very much, which is more likely. I suppose if they outright couldn’t stand you then the benefit of being your friend would not outweigh their distaste for you. But that is what can make it dangerous you see, because they can argue that they do like you, and even make good points about ways in which this has been demonstrated.

Yet it is possible that someone values your friendship when in fact they don’t really care for you as a person. In my own experiences, this tends to have been because I am reliable. Most people enjoy having that friend in their corner that they know with a degree of certainty will be there for them if called upon. This is truer if that person’s love language happens to be acts of service. Being reliable means that I will do what I say I will do, and being my friend means that I like you enough to try and help you if I can.

I have learned over the years, however to use discretion in what I will agree to, because acts of service is not one of my love languages and often leaves me feeling depleted and used. My love language is quality time, so if all I ever seem to do is run around doing favours for a person who never makes any time for me outside of this, I will quickly become resentful. Therefore the onus is on me to say yes only to things that wont cause me to feel resentful, and this will in some form or another be loosely based on the amount of quality time this friend affords me.

That’s not the only circumstance a person may feel that people like their friendship more than they like themselves. If the person has a useful profession, such as a hairdresser or a mechanic, people may keep you in their circle for the benefits of your services or expertise, often expected at a reduced rate or even free. Alternatively you might be the life of the party, someone people call to go dancing and drinking with, yet you find your name excluded from the dinner party list, or that nobody is there for you when your pet dies.

These are just a few examples that come to mind, I’m sure there are many more, but it highlights the concept that some of our friends probably do value having us as their friends, perhaps more than they value being friends of yours. There is a difference. A friend of mine once showed me a very cryptic carefully worded message she received from someone she had once considered a friend after some tension. It said “We (it was a couple friendship) still consider ourselves to be friends of you and your partner.” What stood out to me, was what wasn’t said, which screamed the loudest. We do not consider you friends of ours. But we would like for you to still consider us friends for our occasional benefit, and because I do not wish to actually say that no, we don’t consider you friends. They valued the friendship, but not the people within it.

Most of the time, we know deep down when this is the case. And maybe, maybe, we all do have friendships that fall into that category too ourselves, which makes it harder to be too judgmental of those who treat us in similar ways. We might understand it, but that doesn’t mean it feels any less bad when it happens to you. Nobody likes the friend who only calls when they want something, regardless of what it is that they want.

I have one friend who only seems to get in touch when she is feeling very low, and another who seems to forget my existence until she needs a babysitter. However it isn’t always as obvious as that. Sometimes it might be a feeling, more than a fact. That friend who never seems to make time for you, although they always seem to say yes if you initiate quality time. Or that friend who asks you to do a lot for them, however makes excuses not to help you half the time. The friend who cancels frequently, but not always, or the friend who you have a great time with but only when they’re single.

I am willing to bet these scenarios are familiar to us all in one way or another. And I am willing to say that nobody enjoys this feeling which is hard to ignore. When it becomes a real issue, is when all your friends seem to treat you in this way, or when a friend who was once close and whom you value a lot, quite suddenly starts to feel as if they belong in this category. If you still believe yourself to be close friends with someone who has decided they actually like your friendship but it’s a shame that involves you, as a person, it can go on for quite a long time before you start to realise that you seem to be giving a lot more than you are getting.

And this is different to last weeks love bombing over generosity, it’s just you supporting your friend like you usually would, but slowly over time, finding that their effort has significantly diminished. If this is the case, as soon as you start noticing this trend, put the brakes on your own effort. There is no point in trying to discuss this with them as they will deny it, even though you feel its truth. They can’t say they don’t like you or you wont still be there for them. You can’t make them invest more, and there’s a good chance they will make excuses coupled with false promises of change. Only for you to hang on longer and ultimately get disappointed again. It’s like platonic gaslighting.

However, if you reduce your effort to match theirs, they’ll notice the shift. And the choice will be theirs to make. If they increase their effort, there is a good chance they became overwhelmed with life, but definitely value you and don’t want to lose you, and recognize their mistake. They may or may not apologise or communicate, but action speaks louder than words regardless. If they either don’t seem to notice or care, you have it on good authority that they are relieved you got the message and stopped trying to push for more closeness.

If this is the case, you have to decide if you are comfortable also having them in your life, from time to time, on friendly enough terms, however not considering them actually an active friend, or if you want to slowly distance yourself by being consistently unavailable for requests until they get the message and the connection fades away.

There is no right or wrong answer to how you handle this, but the quicker you action this plan, and stop pondering why things changed or how to bring it up or fix it, the sooner you will start feeling better. People who value your friendship, more than they value you, aren’t worth the level of emotional turmoil. If you find all of your friendships are like this, ask yourself how you could show up better for people in more deep, vulnerable and authentic ways. Do you initiate? Do you show interest in others? Are you reliable and consistent with your efforts? If your answer is no, changing those things is your action plan.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Love bombing in friendships

Quite a while back I wrote a post pertaining to the experiences of having a people pleasing friend, in particular one with low self esteem, which often goes hand in hand with people pleasing tendencies. A more recent reader made a comment that this sounded a lot like love bombing. I could certainly see the similarities in the 2 situations, and it made me ponder the idea. Can love bombing exist in friendships?

In answer to the question, I’d have to conclude that yes, it can. If I believe friendships to be little more than non romantic relationships, which I do, then that makes them just as susceptible to most of the complexities often more heavily associated with romantic relationships. The main difference in either context, being intent. Which can be tricky to decipher, because you aren’t living inside someone else’s psyche. But there will be signs.

Love bombing, can be described as the use of over generosity, with gifts, money or affection, quite soon after meeting someone. It is said to be a form of coercive control, used to manipulate someone or make them dependent on the love bomber. The ways in which these acts are manipulative can be hard to  spot as they are disguised as something positive.

Some examples of love bombing might include cancelling plans together, however gifting you a pamper pack so you can have a nice night in on your own instead, or always paying for lunch, however bringing it up every time you express concerns and making you feel or seem ungrateful. In love bombing it is usually a cycle, whereby they either let you down then make up for it with some sort of grand gesture, or something that is consistent in the beginning, then quickly stops and is followed by put downs. In the latter scenario you may even feel there has been a complete role reversal with yourself now feeling responsible for footing the bill and buying them generous gifts in order to keep them and get them to return to that person they were in the beginning.

While these things can happen in friendships, and both ultimately stem from a fear of abandonment, what we tend to see in friendships is a less variable nature of the giving. Meaning the giving, of attention, affection, gifts, acts of service and experiences, remains consistent throughout the friendship. It is not brought up, lorded over you, or turned against you in order to make you feel guilty. That’s not to say that you wont feel guilty, you probably will, and a good test is to set clear boundaries and see if your friend can respect them. For example paying your own way or taking turns. Or giving them a limit, for example a $20 gifting rule or no more than 2 gifts etc…

Hopefully, in time, as your friend grows more comfortable that you do in fact like them, and they don’t need to try so hard to keep you, their efforts will calm down some. Not all the way though, and this is probably an important distinction, because your friend values generosity as a personality trait of theirs and not a vice to manipulate. Giving without expecting anything in return.

If you still aren’t sure, another useful tool is to look at their other friendships and relationships, and behaviours. Are they a generous tipper for good service? Do they give money to homeless people or charities? Do they also shower other friends with gifts and experiences for birthdays or other celebrations? Do they ever complain to you about feeling used by any of the aforementioned friends?

It might be hard to imagine that someone could be so generous, and I do tend to believe that deep down it does stem from a deep need for validation. A desire to be liked. Finding oneself lacking in other qualities such as confident, fun, outgoing, popular. It can stem from childhood where love was only shown through monetary means – presents in place of presence for example. It could stem from the idea that you invest financially in things and people you value. The intentions are usually pure, and you can usually tell.

That’s not to say it can’t still cross boundaries and blur the lines of controlling behaviour. If you don’t really like the band playing at the concert they want to see, and try to use money as an excuse, it can be hard to argue if they quip that they will purchase the tickets. For this reason, you may need to be more direct in communication with this friend and actually say “no thanks, that doesn’t interest me.” However, because they likely have low self esteem and may feel rejected that you didn’t opt to spend time together, you may add “I’d much rather we just met for coffee next week sometime instead?” To provide subtle reassurance that you do value time with them.

If you happen to be the kind of person who values being treated as royalty, and is more comfortable in a receiving role, and yes, these types of people do tend to be drawn to one another, then the onus will be on you to make sure that you are no taking so much that the other person does feel used and as though you only like them for what they can offer. You aren’t necessarily a bad person for being a taker any more than they are a bad person for being a giver. Perhaps you were raised to believe that your worth to other is only demonstrated by their financial investment. Or perhaps you never felt financially safe and secure or taken care of, therefore this particular breed of love appeals to you. As long as you are giving back in ways that your friend feels seen and valued, it doesn’t have to matter who foots the bill.

One red flag, be it in a friendship or romantic relationship, is if the person in question doesn’t seem to have any other people around them, and only has negative things to say about their past encounters. If they are quick to say people just use them for money, then you notice an over generosity, it is fairly safe to assume your name is going to be added eventually to their history book of users.

At the end of the day, the best advice is to trust your gut, speak up if you’re uncomfortable and set clear boundaries that keep everyone comfortable. Communicate with openness and vulnerability to get to the root cause of a love bombing friend, and if you believe they are genuine, work hard to prove your friendship on its own merits outside of excess. Choose free activities, spend consistent quality time but not too frequent, initiate, demonstrate appropriate levels of attention and affection… just show you care.

If you don’t believe they are genuine, or just feel too triggered or uncomfortable and they refuse to change, this probably isn’t the right fit for you, and that’s ok too.

Have you ever experienced love bombing in friendships? Comment below, submit your story above, or head on over to my Facebook page to share your experiences, I’d love to hear them.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Duos with Disorganised Attachment

Ok, over the past months I have been focusing on attachment theory again and summarizing how they show up as friends, or the problems that can occur in friendships as a result of people’s differing styles. However, this week, I wanted to address the fact that most of us actually have more of a disorganized attachment style. Basically, what that means is that certain people and situations trigger us to be avoidant, while others trigger us to be more needy.

I know I fit into this category, because I can think of some friends who would describe me as anxious and needy, and others who would describe me as avoidant and distant, and even a few who might even call me fairly secure. And it is so interesting to me that all of them are right! Because as I said at the end of last weeks post, avoidant and anxious are opposite sides of the same coin. Yes, they are opposite, but it depends who is flipping the coin as to whether they land us on heads or tails.

I have also observed this in some of my friends. Lets take the ones with whom I tend to be a little bit more needy, for example. This is in direct relation to their need to hold me at a distance. Which makes me insecure, and feel I need to push for more closeness in order to believe that they actually want to stay in my life at all. I often feel like if I stopped initiating, then I would probably stop seeing them at all. This may or may not be true, that’s not the point this week. What is part of the point is that I have witnessed with my own eyes and ears these people chasing recklessly after other friends in their own worlds in the exact same ways that I chase them.

These friends complain to me about behaviours their avoidant friend exhibit, although they seem oblivious to the fact that they often treat me with the same kind of disregard. It’s fascinating to me that they can see it when they are on the receiving end but not from the other side. That said, I must be the same… or maybe worse? Because I write this blog, so I must be aware of it on some level… and I know I do the same thing to the friends who trigger my own avoidant side.  But I am no more aware of it when it happens then my avoidant friends are. Because it is all subconscious.

I think it must be triggered when someone likes you more than you like them or vice versa. The friends with whom I have a more equal investment are probably the ones who might describe me as secure. Only when issues arise do we trigger each other one way or the other, but this is minor and infrequent. However, in some other relationships, including friendships, there is sometimes a quiet imbalance and the power tips in favour of the least invested party. This person, regardless of how anxious and needy they may be in other relationships or friendships, automatically assumes the more distant role, which only further triggers the anxiety and insecurity of the more invested party.

That isn’t to say that the avoidant person in the scenario doesn’t like their friend, they probably do – friendships are optional and you’re unlikely to bother maintaining them with people you don’t like. That said, it is always the role of the other to actually maintain the friendship and there have been distinct times when I have wondered if someone likes my friendship more than they like me. That’s a post for next week! Lol

If it weren’t all subconscious, and we were more self aware, these experiences of being triggered into the opposite side of the attachment coin than our usual default – we could probably learn so much about ourselves and our other friends. We could recognize our own needy behaviours and how they may smother someone…. Or they could see how their distant ones may be coming across as cold and uncaring at times. If we could both do this and meet  in  the middle we may find the very security we seek.

While it seems that this isn’t a likely outcome, because both people actually have the same attachment style, what it does mean, is that we can be very patient and understanding with one another. The avoidant can resist the urge to flee totally, because they know how it feels to be on the opposite side, while the anxious can appreciate the hesitance of the avoidant and understand they are just afraid of getting hurt, and actually do want and need the love and connection they run from.

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Both parties are responding to fear, and deep down both are actually somewhat emotionally unavailable. Its not deliberate, but on some level, this game of push and pull feels comfortable to them as the inconsistency mimics the relationships they had with caregivers as youngsters. Sometimes rewarding and sometimes cold. Sometimes there for them, sometimes distracted. Never knowing when they were going to feel loved and wanted or like an annoying unwanted burden.

Both parties struggle with boundaries, they may try to assert themselves from time to time, but lack any real consistency that would signal where a hard boundary lies. They cross boundaries easily and frequently, and can both be emotionally extreme at times. Which makes them more susceptible to conflict. One over shares too much too quickly and too easily while the other struggles to share anything vulnerable at all and will quickly retreat if they feel they revealed too much.

The avoidant thinks they want the anxious to go away and leave them alone, yet the minute the anxious threatens to do that, the power shifts and suddenly the avoidant becomes the anxious. So this cycle is hard to break, because they can’t live with each other or without each other.

If you recognize a friendship in your life caught in this cycle, my best advice, other than professional therapy, is to just try to be less extreme. If you’re anxious, don’t try quite so hard, focus on other friends and other hobbies etc…. If you’re avoidant, try harder, make a few invitations, talk about something vulnerable. If you’re adults, communicate about what you need from each other, hear one another, reflect on your own behaviours and the impacts it has on your friend and your friendship, and act accordingly… With love and reassurance that you are working towards the same goal, which is simply to be better friends to each other and remember your friend is your friend, not your parent!

Easier said than done, I know. Best of luck to you all!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Avoidant Attachment Amigos

A few months ago I wrote a piece on friendships with a person who exhibits behaviours in line with anxious attachment style. Attachment styles are learned in infancy as a way to regulate, feel safe and have our needs met, and revolve predominantly around our caregivers and their responses to our needs during the first few years of life. There are a lucky few who had very stable caregivers that constantly and consistently met the needs of the infants in question, however, for most of us that wasn’t always the case.

I would like to point out that I am not a fan of blaming the parents for everything. I like to hope that most parents, and I know it is by no means all of them, did the best they could with the resources they had at the time. And I would also like to make it a point that the most important resources were often emotional rather than physical. If we have survived this far, it is safe to assume our basic physical needs were met in order for us to survive. It is the emotional needs that are more indicative of thriving versus surviving.

And it is worth noting that how available your caregivers were to you, is likely an indication of their own attachment styles which formed well before you when they themselves were young. It is a bit of a cycle. I do not profess to be any expert on the issue, in fact, I know relatively little about it at all really. It is certainly interesting armchair psychology, and the ways it impacts our relationships with others fascinates me. Most people tend to focus on how this impacts our romantic partnerships but I am more interested in platonic pairings, and how they are equally impacted.

As I pointed out in my article a few months back about friends anxious attachment, we can be needy, smothering and demanding as this is the way we learned to get our needs met as youngsters. Maybe it is a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease? We need lots of reassurance and chase after validation from others, insecure that any signs of distance are indicative that our friend no longer likes us and perhaps never really did. We can be exhausting. I admit it.

The people we exhaust most, are our avoidant attachment amigos. These people learned from a young age that their needs would fairly consistently not be met at all, and the best approach was to have no needs so that they couldn’t be let down, and to only depend on themselves. These individuals often appear overly confident. Unlike their anxious peers, they do not often seek validation, they have had to believe in their own worth without the support of anyone else. They are independent and the opposite of needy.

Afraid of getting hurt or let down, their strategy is to basically avoid getting attached in the first place. Nobody can leave them if they never let anyone in to begin with, right? On paper, this would make them seem highly incompatible with anxious folks. And really, they are. Yet, we tend to find ourselves drawn together. Anxious attachment types can’t resist trying to win the affections of the avoidant, because they can’t stand feeling disliked. The avoidant’s style triggers all their insecurities about being unlovable as they jump through hoops of fire to be called a friend at all. The avoidant appears to hardly notice and actually loses some respect for the anxious here. They find us annoying and smothering and far too needy.

https://www.instagram.com/thejessicadasilva/

So why are they drawn to us then, if they hate us so much? Because we love them. And they want to be loved just like anyone else. They feel confident we wont leave them. They understand we will continue to chase them as long as they stay aloof. Which they will. It’s not to hurt us, but to save themselves because they truly believe if they showed us the love we show them, that we would then leave them. The risk is too big, the hurt too much. They need us every bit as much as we need them.

Sure, they have an easier time of it when they are with their other avoidant pals. They are all low maintenance, and basically ask or expect nothing of each other. When they do ask, and that friend shows up for them, this serves to strengthen their bond immensely given how much they hate asking or relying on others. How scary depending on someone feels and their potential for disappointment. But the thing is, they wont dare express that disappointment. If they need something, they are far more likely to depend on the anxious, because they know these are the people who will show up. They also know we will express disappointment though if they don’t show up for us in the same ways, so they spend a lot of time managing down our expectations of them and keeping us at a distance so we don’t get too comfortable asking for support.

https://www.instagram.com/thejessicadasilva/

Essentially they see themselves in the anxious. The weak helpless child, and while they understand the need, they have chosen a more powerful position in life, to be the parent who is emotionally unavailable. The person who can make choices for themselves without considering the needs of others as closely. They might be the work friend who just cuts contact when they leave, or the friend who decides to live overseas on a whim and can’t seem to understand your emotional distress if you say you will miss them. They can’t fathom that their actions impact other people because they just don’t attach to begin with. They liked you, maybe even loved you, but they will always be fine without you. They will also always be a bit lonely.

The thing is, actually, we are the really opposite sides of the same coin. We had needs that weren’t met and learned opposite coping mechanisms. One decided to discard the need while the other decided to become needier. It probably depended on what was more effective with your caregiver. The issue is that most of us are actually not anxious or avoidant 100%.  I think it is probably more like a spectrum, with some leaning heavily towards avoidant and some leaning towards anxious….. but that means essentially that most of us are actually both anxious and avoidant types.

So, what impact does that have on our friendships? More on that next week?!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

https://www.instagram.com/thejessicadasilva/

Happy Mother’s Day To You…. And To ME!

I have written a few little love letters to my mother for mother’s day over the years of blogging here, and I stand behind all of them. I have written a sympathetic post for those of you who have suffered the loss of your mother, and acknowledged my fortune in still being blessed with my own in my life. And I have written a post for the mothers amongst you who have sadly lost your children or been unsuccessful to date in creating life.

I write from a place of privilege. I try to be aware of this, however at times I am sure it is only obvious to those readers without. So I would like to take this moment to again acknowledge that I am blessed with a lovely and loving mother. I fell pregnant easily with 2 beautiful healthy babies who have grown into well balanced teens, and I was fortunate enough to get the coveted pigeon pair of one boy and one girl. (Who, so far, both identify as such.)

I am also lucky enough that my husband earns enough money to afford me the stay at home mum lifestyle. I have much to be thankful for, and I am. However, that doesn’t mean my life has been perfect, or that I haven’t faced any struggles along the way. I have.

While I consider it to be very much his own loss, my son’s biological father exited stage left after standing me up for the birthing partner classes. He has never met the beautiful boy we created together. That beautiful boy was diagnosed at 6 months old with special needs, in the same appointment that I was diagnosed with postnatal depression, and told that my beautiful baby was failing to thrive on my breast milk.

I’m not too sure if it was then, or before then, that I began to feel like a failure as a mother. I am willing to guess this is a secret fear, or insecurity at least of all of us thrust into the first forays of motherhood. But the feeling was heavy, and persistent. It was my fault his father had walked away, because I didn’t choose well for my son, and because I couldn’t be more loveable. It was my fault he was failing to thrive on my milk, I must’ve been failing to ingest the correct ingredients for him to thrive. It was my fault he had special needs, perhaps my depression prevented me from being the mother he deserved. It was my fault I was depressed, why couldn’t I cope as the other mothers at mother’s group seemed to? Why was I the only one who was finding this hard? I must be too selfish for motherhood.

As he grew up, and our lives revolved around speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychology and rheumatologists, along with countless other doctors, specialists, pediatricians and cousellors, any improvements were attributed to my son’s determination and curiosity. Any failures or set backs were attributed to me and I was sent on parenting courses, inundated with literature to read and given endless amounts of homework to help me help him.

When he did well at school it was attributed to good teachers and when he lagged behind, it was me who was dragged in to parent teacher meetings to discuss what more I could do for him. When his attention improved it was attributed to the medication and when his attention was off I was questioned about whether I remembered to medicate. When I medicated on school holidays I was judged for trying to make my own life easier, and when I didn’t medicate on school holidays I was accused of neglecting his needs.

When I brought in a tutor to help with his studies, that was the reason for his improvements and was because I had failed to help him enough myself. I admit the tutor has far more patience, and knowledge than me, and I willingly give credit where credit is due. But I made that decision after years of struggling to do it all myself and having it negatively impact my relationship with my special boy. Which was always the most important thing to me.

As I am not in paid employment, I am judged and harshly criticized for being lazy and a lady of leisure. While this may be closer to the truth today, for many years, my special needs son, was my full time job. And I gave it everything in me. I was not paid, I was not acknowledged and it would have been easier to return to work and have someone else deal with the meltdowns and the endless repetitive tasks and never ending list of extra curricular activities on the list.

This is not a criticism of working mothers. Although my own worked, and I do feel it impacted me as a child, I enjoyed, and continue to enjoy the fruits of that labour and wanted for nothing. And my own mother, as do all of you who are working mothers, did most of the things I am doing, potentially with a less supportive spouse and a 9-5 job. I respect it and the choice. I see the pros and cons to each. I am constantly bewildered at how you do it all and am aware that the schools give almost no notice when they request your attendance for an award, or cancel and reschedule sports day because of weather when all the working parents already took the day off work. I admire you and I don’t think your children are any less loved or cared for than my own. I have a very close friend with a special needs child who works full time and does an arguably better job than me at mothering! I cannot describe my admiration for her enough!

This is true regardless of your employment status.

However, what spurs me on to write this post is my son. Who is in his final year of school, and his final official year of childhood. He just passed his driver’s test the first time, which is notoriously hard in this state. He did his manual assessment which is even harder. He has a part time job he has held for over 2 years at which he is excelling, according to his manager. He is completing a pre-apprenticeship in plumbing. He passed his English and Maths standards assessment. He is passing his courses and keeping up with his assessments. He is polite and happy. He takes his grandparents out for meals regularly and thanks them for making time for him, genuinely.

I could not be prouder of the young man he has become despite the adversity and challenges he has faced and continues to face. And it dawns on me that I played a massive role in all of this. The years of advocating, of taking him to specialists, of doing the homework… the last year of letting a person who couldn’t drive chauffeur me around on busy freeways and highways to get his hours up… the years of making him my priority and my full time job, whilst also running this blog, raising my other child, maintaining the home and managing the bills and finances, travelling and participating in a fulfilling social life, has paid off. I was not, I am not a failure of a mother. This is a story of success. The proof is in the pudding.

can’t it be both?

I am a good mother and I deserve to be celebrated this mother’s day, and so do all of you. We are all doing the best we can with the cards we have been dealt. We are all making the hard choices we feel are right for our beautiful babies. This is true even if your child is still struggling, isn’t quite there yet, is making bad choices for themselves or hanging out with the wrong crowd. If they are struggling mentally or physically or emotionally. If they are rebelling etc…. but you are still there, still trying, never giving up, in the trenches everyday, doing what you can to guide and support them, you are still a good mum and I have hope the proof will be in your pudding too oneday soon.

Hang in there mums. Let’s not make it a competition or a comparison. We all love our kids and we need to support each other as best we can, without judgement and show our kids what trust and loyalty and support in friendships looks like in real life.

Happy Mother’s Day Mum. You did a good job, I raised a beautiful human we are all proud of. You helped me do that. You showed me how to love by loving me unconditionally. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mums whatever stage you’re at. And most of all, happy mother’s day to me, because my children make me endlessly happy. Mothering as a job, a career, isn’t a worthless task, it’s paid nothing but worth everything!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Happy Mother’s Day. The only way you can fail is if you give up trying. Hang in there. You got this! x

Can Mimetic Desire and Limerence exist in friendships?

Mimetic desire refers to the increased value placed on people, places, events and things based on the popularity of said things. For example, a must have pair of shoes you saw your favourite influencer wearing made you want them or attending the restaurant that everyone you know is raving about. When lots of people see value in something, we begin to unconsciously assign value to it as well.

Limerence is usually a romantic concept, whereby a person develops an obsessive crush on another person and their relationship with that person is laced with ambiguity as to the level of reciprocation that exists. While it often refers to someone with a sexual desire for another person, it is possible to form a limerent obsession with someone you actually aren’t physically attracted to or want to form a romantic relationship with. You just unreasonably assign high value to that  person and become obsessed with wanting to attain a relationship with them.

Both concepts can be more susceptible to people who are less sure of themselves and who they are, or who have lower self esteem and seek external validation from others. However, even people who are seemingly confident and capable are not exempt from experiencing these forms of desires and relationships.

I have a close friend who has seemingly developed a limerent crush on a coworker. It started as a deep respect for this person, a great admiration and a desire to be more like her and lead the kind of successful life that she leads. There is no shame in admiring someone, and initially it motivated my friend to apply herself harder, to try to climb the career ladder and reach higher ranks as this person has achieved.

However, before long, my friend started to express some embarrassment about how much she was thinking about this other woman and her confusion about the intrusive thoughts, feelings and actions. If this person was warm then she found herself in a very cheerful positive state, and if this person was cold to her, she felt rejected and disproportionately unhappy.  She found herself buying the same car that this person had recently purchased, and suddenly wanting to eat at the same places or shop at the same stores.

I suppose this is probably where the single white female movie concept arose from, which only added to the deep shame my friend was starting to feel. It is only fair to further explain that my friend identifies as heterosexual and is confident her family would not be supportive if that weren’t the case. Regardless, this seeming crush caused her to question herself uncomfortably and I am willing to bet my gentle teasing about the issue was in no way comforting! Haha

My friend found herself behaving strangely around this person, suddenly self conscious of her body, her tone, if she touched the other woman’s shoulder too much or for too long. When in a car accident she inexplicably called this person first although it wasn’t relevant. It was after work, so she wouldn’t be late to the office and at this stage, they weren’t friends, so my friend could not really explain why she chose to straight away call this woman. She appeared at the top of her call list – because she admitted she seemed to be inventing excuses to call and message this person.

“She is just so cool, calm and collected” my friend explained. “She is beautiful and funny and smart. She is a career woman and has a close connection with her extended family and her husband and children. She has the life I want for myself.” I could see that in some ways my friend saw herself in this person. She already possessed many of the qualities she admired in this woman, she just felt she was lacking in some areas that society values such as physical beauty, a thin physique, 2.4 kids and a dog, and a high ranking and professional title. Mimetic desire is of course the reason “society” values anything. Society decides what we value at times more than we do. I asked my friend if she really wanted a husband and 2.4 children and she admitted that no, not really. But that she would feel more successful if she had it regardless. Case in point.

My friend is persistent and while this woman maintained a professional relationship with her for years, eventually my friend got her to agree to spend some time together outside of work. And since then, quite a strong platonic bond has formed between the pair quite quickly. They have even been on holidays together!

As is often the case with limerence, once the ambiguity is relieved and you can be sure that your feelings for the other person are either reciprocated or rejected, the obsession naturally starts to fade. Which is a positive thing – particularly when you are trying to have a successful personal relationship with someone and this requires a level of respect for their boundaries.

However, that mimetic desire is still lingering around. It’s not all bad though, as now it is more reciprocal. This other woman has expressed interest in joining holidays to destinations my friend has had on her own list that before now didn’t interest this person. When the mimetic desire is more reciprocal, it is another sign that you value each other equally.

Most people would tell you to be wary of a friendship that starts in this way, but from what I can see, it has only increased my friends self-esteem to be accepted by this person and although the limerence has died down by all accounts, and my friend is no longer ashamed of her desire for this friendship, the deep respect and admiration still exists. And isn’t that something we should feel about all our friends in some way?

I certainly have one friend who’s generosity of spirit I admire, while one I admire her natural mothering abilities. I admire this particular friend’s independent spirit and her ability to fix any issues that arise mostly on her own, and despite the fact that I don’t work I admire another friends career driven personality and financial savvy. In some cases we admire in people what we lack in ourselves, and in others, we admire in them qualities we are proud of in ourselves.

And sometimes, we can’t really explain why we desire a certain person or their validation, friendship, love, respect or mutual attraction. We are just drawn to them and maybe that is just our intuition telling us that they would be a good fit, or fulfill an unmet need in our lives in some way shape or form.

So if you feel you are pursuing a friendship a little bit embarrassingly obviously – if the other person doesn’t seem to mind, keep going. There is no shame in going after the things you want. And if you get rejected in the end, the limerence will end then too. You just need to know when to call it quits.

They say we regret the things we didn’t do more than the things we did. And I am going to add my friends shameless pursuit of this friendship and ultimate success as something I admire about her. For the record, I concede. It wasn’t a lesbian crush, just a strong desire for a close friendship with someone she admired a lot, and a relationship that has enriched her life in many ways. Certainly nothing to be embarrassed about and certainly not anything like the single white female after all. Thankfully!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Language Matters

The language we use, sends messages to others, every bit as much as the words themselves. I posted once before about a misunderstanding when a friend cancelled our catch up and I casually said “no worries.” I was trying to convey that I was not upset or offended, casually brushing off the cancellation so as not to seem too needy or demanding even if I was disappointed. Yet my friend at the time felt offended that I didn’t care. She had wanted me to say “I am disappointed, can we reschedule? I’d really like to see you.”

I have posted before about the importance of inclusive language to show you care. Using terms such as “we” instead of “you.” For example “we will figure this out together.” Rather than “You will figure this out, I believe in you.” One implies you are not in this alone, while the other creates that distance and feeling like this problem is yours alone. Just a fortnight ago, I posted about someone imposing an hour time limit on a catch up and how the words used sounded nothing like the message I received which was “I don’t really want to see you or spend (waste) time with you.” In this instance it wasn’t really my friends language that mattered, so much as the language I use to talk to myself when insecurities are triggered.

But the point of todays post is around the expectations we hold when we use certain language. If we refer to someone as a colleague, that seems to imply that we know this person through work, but don’t have any real personal connection or expectations of them outside of work. Yet if we use the term “work wife/husband” we are implying a closeness that exists between us at work, and with that, probably comes the expectation that if anything happens at work, they will have your back. If we call someone an acquaintance, then that is exactly how we see them. We would not expect an acquaintance to invite us to their housewarming party, even if they mention it to us before and after. However, if we use the term new friend, we may well feel hurt to find our name didn’t make the invite list and question their intentions or investment.

I have a friend who recently reconnected with an “ex” from her youth. The reason I have put the word ex in quotation marks is because the word ex is how they described this person at the time, when their youthful pairing seemed so big and real and important. My friend feels embarrassed now to really label them as such when really it was their first kiss and didn’t amount to much more than that in reality. Anyway, I digress. This person, upon reconnecting, has jumped right in and is sharing very personal details about their life and their current relationship drama.

For reference, my friend is happily partnered and is not looking to get back together or anything of the sort. And as their “Ex” is so caught up in current drama, it would seem at least that they are on the same page about this. Not that it would make much difference if they were interested really, because one of them has moved out of state anyway. So keeping in touch on the internet seems harmless enough? Which it is, as both parties new partners are aware of the connection.

However, my friend has felt this person has been inconsistent in their communication, preferring to message in meaningful ways only when they want to discuss their relationship issues, and not really for any life catch up conversations. At best this leaves my friend feeling like an unpaid counsellor and at worst it leaves her feeling confused, hurt, used and disappointed. That disappointment only grew when my friend had to travel interstate for work, and their “ex” couldn’t be bothered making even an hour to catch up let alone offering a ride to or from the airport. (Which wasn’t expected, work was covering transport and or expenses anyway. That isn’t the point. An offer would’ve been nice or some excitement to see each other face to face.)

Disappointment. The word only exists in terms of expectations. If we expect nothing, we will never be disappointed, right? Easier said than done though, because we don’t always realise we held any expectations until they are unmet.

On discussing this with my friend, we drew the conclusion that part of the problem was that my friend had stopped referring to this person as an “ex” for aforementioned reasons, and instead started using the word “friend.” Or even “old friend.” At no point did this strike us as problematic, I understood the drive to move away from the term “ex” which seemed outdated and silly with more mature perspective. What other word was there to use? This lack of language for platonic connections is a big problem. We have no language to describe feelings of love or words to use when a friendship ends. And, it seems we use the word friend as a bit of a catch all too!

This friend and I are close, so there is no chance if one of us moved out of state, and then flew in for work, that we wouldn’t attempt to catch up. There would have to be something major to get in the way of this happening. Because we are friends. We are actually close friends, but we seldom use that distinction. Maybe we should? Because when you use the same term to describe the “ex” and our relationship, your expectations become muddled up in that without realizing it.

The truth is, this person isn’t a friend. It is someone my friend used to know, and actually never really knew in a platonic context. So comparing their behaviour to what you might expect would happen with a close friend, is an unfair and unrealistic comparison. You can’t compare apples and oranges after all. The problem is that these 2 friendship fruits are like quince and pears – they appear the same on the outside and without the correct label to determine one from the other we wouldn’t be able to make the distinction. We would be unpleasantly surprised when biting into an uncooked quince expecting it to taste like a pear. So we gave them different names and expect the growers or supermarkets to help us determine the difference before we put them in our cart.

Although my friend and the “ex” knew each other in childhood, the truth is, that they no longer know each other now. The link to their past creates a false sense of intimacy, meaning one felt too open to share intimate details of their life too soon, overwhelming my friend. It also meant my friend expected too much from the “ex” on the visit. Despite having known each other, technically for 30 years, and having briefly reconnected here and there in the past, these are 2 people who are “chatting.” Similar to an online dating service for friends. The part where you are getting to know someone and finding what value they hold, and what title in your life they will assume… if any at all.

Language matters. Use it carefully, when you speak to others, know your audience. Understand how they think and try to be careful you are not implying something negative while saying something positive or understanding. When you are speaking to yourself, use kind and forgiving language, as though you are talking to your closest friend. And when you define relationships, define them based on what you would expect of them rather than expecting things on them based on an inaccurate definition.

My friend and her “ex” still keep in touch. My friend has just learned to invest less, have more boundaries around free counselling and engaging too much in personal matters and not use the term friend to describe someone who isn’t, just the same as they no longer want to use the word “ex” which doesn’t fit either. Although I would like to point out that maybe it fits better than the word friend. Lol

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Easter is Sweeter With Friends

There is a song that pertains to nothing being sweeter than the sound of children’s laughter. While I wholeheartedly agree, it really is magical and I adore hearing the sound of my children laughing and playing… I don’t think it ends when they are children. The sound of my teens laughing still warms my heart and the sound of my friends too. Although I have one specific friend with whom I laugh the most, it is because we share a similar sense of humour. Actually all my friends love to laugh and I have laughed to tears with them all at some stage over the course of our friendships.

So today, on Good Friday, I wanted to create something for you that you could gift to your friends that is just as sweet as chocolate (because that is how we celebrate Easter here in Australia although I believe it is different in other countries?) But with less calories and more health benefits. And what better gift is there than laughter?

Send this to your friends this Easter to send a silly smile.

Happy Easter EveryBunny!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Can you connect over coffee in an hour?

If you are like me, you probably agree that an hour is not going to be long enough to catch up with a friend. However, many of you are not like me, and may even think a whole hour is really too long? I guess it comes down to our friendship styles, our lifestyles and our values. So there really isn’t a correct answer to this question, or a one size fits all approach. Actually, the answer to this question could also vary depending on which friend is considered for the proverbial coffee catch up!

I am the first to admit that I don’t do so well with boundaries. Neither setting nor enforcing them really. They often feel like barriers to connection, although I understand healthier people see them as essential tools for close connections. Just another way in which people differ, because I know I am not alone in feeling this way regarding boundaries feeling like barriers. So if I invite a friend to catch up over coffee, and they say “sure, but I can only stay for an hour,” 9 times out of 10, my gut reaction is to tell them not to worry about it. (I don’t always do this, but that is still what my gut tells me to do.)

For starters, I personally prefer a more leisurely feel and approach to these sorts of situations, so immediately it feels to me like my friend is trying to say “I really don’t have time” – but doesn’t want to say no and hurt my feelings. This probably stems from a lack of self esteem somewhat, assuming that a coffee with me would be considered an inconvenient intrusion on someone’s time, and therefore them limiting it serves as some sort of confirmation bias. I can also convince myself that this is the person’s way of telling me that I take up too much time typically and limiting me on purpose. That one, may actually be true! I can accept that. On the other hand, I can also accept that some people just keep themselves very busy, and an hour is literally all they can spare. In which case I should really be grateful and not make it about me.

As I said, I don’t always act on how I feel. I am learning to challenge those demons and accept and respect the boundaries (and time) of others. However, I definitely also have one or two friends with whom an hour is enough. And maybe at times, even too much. It could be because we have grown apart, and despite long gaps in talking, there still doesn’t seem to be much to say. Or maybe these friends can be energy vampires at times, always talking and never listening, or expecting more of me than I want to offer. Or maybe I am just more motivated to stay home and watch Netflix than catch up with them, if they aren’t that fun or interesting. Lastly, they may be people I consider more “activity friends” – the friends you catch a movie with or go drinking and dancing with, but don’t usually find yourself sitting face to face in more quiet serious contexts.

While growing friendships in this manner can be rewarding, both parties have to be receptive to the growth in order for it to work. Speaking of growing friendships, that is another context in which an hour feels like an acceptable time frame; new or developing friendships. It isn’t realistic to assume you will have a lot to say over a coffee catch up with a new person, so initial catch up’s are kept shorter deliberately to keep everyone comfortable and test the waters. If you both walk away feeling like an hour was not nearly enough, then your next catch up might be a dinner, with the potential for lingering afterwards over a drink or an activity. A bit like dating. However, if one of you suggests this and the other agrees but says they have to be home by 9pm for whatever reason, the initiator is probably going to be left with that awkward feeling of “I like them more than they like me.” Which could prompt my earlier reaction of pulling away, or a more annoying reaction of trying harder and becoming increasingly needy and insecure. Funny, isn’t it, how these small things can send loud and potentially incorrect messages to people.

In other contexts, I have friends with whom I have daily or regular interactions, over the phone or friends I see regularly. So it doesn’t always feel necessary to spend hours together over a lunch or dinner when we are already “caught up” so to speak. An hour is sometimes plenty just to show up and say “you matter, I wanted to see you, to connect with you, to give you a hug, but we’re both busy (even if you’re not really) so no need to waste time twiddling our thumbs talking about stuff we already discussed.

Lastly I have friends with whom I am deeply connected. I trust and value them and 100% want and need more than an hour with them. I know we could chat for days and still not run out of things to say, that silences are comfortable and the feelings are mutual. BUT if we can only find an hour, then we will lap up that opportunity, only after we have tried to troubleshoot the situation and find a day or time where longer might work.

Would I prefer more than an hour with most of my people? Yes. Would an hour at a time, once a week or more suffice? Probably. Is an hour enough for me to generally feel connected? Sometimes. Do I hate it when a friend says they can catch up with me for an hour and spends that hour looking at the clock and making me feel like they can’t wait to get away and get to the next more important engagement? Yes. If you can only offer a friend an hour, please be present during that hour as much as is possible. Set yourself an alarm if you need to, so you don’t have to worry about watching the clock and can make that hour count.

Know your friends well. Know their friendship style well, and their lifestyle. If they are someone who cannot say no, and like to keep busy, you might find there is only so many hours one can be social in a weekend, for example, and if they are popular and have been asked to catch up with a few people on the same weekend… don’t take it personally if they can only offer you an hour. But if you really want more, and they really can’t or wont offer it, you’re probably incompatible in your friendship styles, lifestyles and values around friendships. Or, possibly, you do like them more than they like you and it isn’t wise to put many eggs in that basket.

Is an hour enough to connect over coffee? You tell me? I’d love to hear it in the comments below or over on Facebook?!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Does your good friend make you feel like a bad friend?

Here’s the thing about friendship: it can be felt but not seen. It can be heavy or light or big or small, yet it can’t be measured. It can be for a lifetime or a short time, as it cannot be predicted. It can be broken but not touched. It can be expressed in many different ways, and can even exist with very little expression at all.

If you have read my blogs for long enough, you will know that I do consider myself to be a good friend. I certainly try to be. That isn’t to say everyone agrees with me. I know for a fact that there are women out in the world who would scoff at this statement. Because another thing about friendships is that no 2 are the same, and it is less the person giving the gift of friendship, and more the person receiving it, who gets to deem it as good or bad.

Not to imply that we do, or should, walk around rating each other! We shouldn’t. My point is only that while we ourselves might think we are being a good friend, that doesn’t always mean it is being received that way, or that it will make our friend reciprocate in kind. But essentially I don’t think any of us out there are intentionally walking around purposefully trying to be a bad friend. If such a thing even exists.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/kids-t-shirt/No-Bad-Friend-by-ValeriesGallery/8941380.MZ153

The problem I encounter in trying to be a good friend, is that I inadvertently make my friends feel like they aren’t as good a friend to me, as I am to them. There may be a plethora of reasons for this, starting with how deeply I value friendships, right down to nitty gritty details like a lack of time. I am the first to admit that I have more time to devote to friendships. This means I have more time to plan a girls weekender or girls night out. It means I can put more time, therefore more thought into gifts and I am more available to provide assistance by means of acts of service. So when my more time poor friends buy me something less thoughtful at the last minute, they might feel less than, in comparison.

As I said before though, it isn’t them who gets to decide if they are a bad friend. Sure it might be the case that they literally bought me a cinema gift card at the grocery store on their way to my house that night, but to me, the promise that we will spend some time doing something I love, like going to the cinema, is a wonderful thoughtful gift. So they might compare and feel they are less good, while I haven’t compared and even if I did, wouldn’t find them to come up short.

Friendship isn’t meant to be a competition after all. We are meant to give and take what we can, when we need to, and not always expect the scales to be in perfect balance. Because I have more time than most of my friends, it tends to mean I need less from them in terms of friendship favours, and more from them in terms of quality time. Sure, I will take in and collect your dry cleaning on Wednesday, if that might mean you don’t have to do it on Saturday and we can go do something fun together instead… you know?

What is interesting though, is that this makes my friends feel guilty that they are asking me to do something menial like their dry cleaning, and it makes them feel obligated to then use the time it has saved them with me. In turn, this sense of obligation can lead them to feel resentful, and can lead me to feel both needy and used. And it’s all a bit silly, because we need each other just as much, or as little, even if we need each other for different things somewhat. We are still a team.

If I remember their kids birthday, they feel terrible that they didn’t remember mine. Meanwhile, it’s not like I am putting heaps of effort into remembering, I just value remembering, so I use my phone reminders and paper diary to prompt my memory. I do not keep any one of my friends at the forefront of my mind, even if it appears to most of them that I do keep them right there. And just because I remember, doesn’t mean I expect them to remember. All I want from them is that they make effort to stay and keep in touch and make that face to face time once in a while.

It really all does come back to those pesky love languages, and the point is that we don’t always show love in the same languages in which we like to receive love. I love giving gifts for example, because my mother used gifts as a love language when I was young (and even now, really) so it is a lesson I have learned on how to show love. That said, she will be the first to admit, it was time and attention I was always seeking, and so this is the best way I receive love.

I don’t think my friends intend to make me feel needy either, any more so than I intend to make them feel like less good, or even bad friends. It just so happens that the thing I desire most from them is the hardest thing for them to offer – and most of you will understand this, because really, who isn’t short of time?

So what is the solution to this conundrum? How can we be good friends to each other without inadvertently making each other feel less than in one way or another? It comes through understanding and believing the best in our friends. I understand if a friend gets busy and forgets my birthday, even if I planned an elaborate celebration for theirs. I know they just got busy and they have things going on and it isn’t about me or a sign that they don’t care about me. And I need them to understand that the reason I remember is because I have more time, not because I am inherently better at friendship than them in any way. I understand that because they are time poor, friendship has to be a lower priority than they would prefer, coming second to work and romance and family affairs. I need them to understand that because I am not so busy, I do value friendships more highly and crave more time together.

It is never an unwritten contract that if I help friend x do this then friend x owes me time next weekend. Nor is it the case that if friend x spends time with me then I am obligated to say yes to every request for acts of service or give them a mountain of gifts for their upcoming birthday. I love them the ways I do, and they love me in the ways that they do, and that is valuable.

It isn’t a competition or a comparison. It is a companion.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Is three a crowd or is three allowed?

I am the first one to admit I am wary of group friendships. After some negative experiences I learned the hard way not to put all your friendship eggs in the group basket. I prefer to have individual friendships. For a start it is safer, because if you fall out with one of them, you don’t automatically fall out with all of them. Secondly, individual friendships naturally allow for more intimacy and privacy to really get to know each other on a deeper level and talk about things you might not feel comfortable discussing with the group. Lastly, conversations tend to flow more freely between 2 people, with less tangents and equal talking and listening.

However, that’s not to say I haven’t found myself in group friendships from time to time, regardless of my preference to avoid them. Sometimes you are welcomed into somebody else’s group. Other times a duo, becomes a trio inadvertently. And sometimes a trio is formed naturally by association. I have experienced all three of these triad friendship scenarios, and only one of them has lasted the distance.

There has been a lot of attention right now on the triple friendship thanks to the third season of “The White Lotus” show on Netflix. The season features a somewhat relatable tale of a group of three female friends and a behind the scenes look at the potential for toxicity that exists. Naturally all is seemingly rosy when the triad are all together in the one room, but get any 2 individuals in the group away from the third and you can almost guarantee that the third will be the topic of conversation… or should I say criticism, ridicule and or judgement by the other 2.

It’s a risk you take, I suppose. We all know that women are prone to gossip, and often it is harmless enough. Other times, we might speak about the third party with genuine concern or even plan something nice like a surprise. It is NOT always bad…. But it certainly can be and based on the buzz the season is causing, I’d say that more people relate to the darker side of the trip than the vanilla and strawberry components of this particular Neapolitan sundae! So I thought I would share my experiences and try to make a comparison as to why one failed and one succeeded.

Firstly, the triad friendship that is thriving, was never intentionally formed as a triad. It so happens that the 2 other lovely ladies involved knew each other a while before either of them met me. Whereas in the one that failed, all three of us were relatively new to one another. I had met one of the people involved, and we had become fast friends. Which, in of itself is often a red flag. Anyway, after a few months perhaps, my new friend had made another new friend. They thought we would get along and were keen to make an introduction. They weren’t wrong. We got along great, as we shared a common interest in writing and content creation. We spoke the same language and this was someone who could read between the lines intuitively and hear what I was not saying. I love people like that.

As our bond blossomed however, the friend that introduced us became increasingly uncomfortable, feeling excluded when myself and this new person would communicate online privately or get together as a duo. It appeared my friend had considered us to be their friend, but never considered that we might foster a private connection too. This friend began running interference, lying to us both and manipulating situations to the point that I decided to extricate myself from the group altogether. It was nasty and ugly and didn’t reflect on any of us particularly well, however I still stand by my choice.

In the thriving threesome however, my 2 friends had already formed a close connection. Over the years, although I met them in a group setting, I formed a strong connection with one of them in particular and we became close. It wasn’t for many years later that the second friend and I actually started becoming friendly. These friendships formed very naturally and independently. Only after a time when both friendships had reached the point of closeness, did we even consider getting together as a triad. And when we did, it was for my birthday. I saw no reason not to do this, we were all friends. And it went swimmingly. We had such a great time, we decided to make it a regular event.

However, all of us understood that this was not an exclusive triad. We each have, and respect, our private connections as duo’s and that we can, will, and do maintain those individual connections. With plenty more to talk about than each other.

I will admit that I talk more openly with one party than the other, however myself and the second party share more in common in terms of life and our engagements with each other are far more frequent. I have no idea, and no need to know, how often the other 2 talk or get together without me. I do know that if we suggest something as a three and one isn’t interested, we are very open about the other 2 going ahead with the plan, however, if one person is unable to attend, but interested, we will work together to try and find a solution that includes us all.

https://alexalexander.com/joining-friend-groups/

The second situation is more mature, more evolved and more natural, where as the first one was more forced, orchestrated, and was supposed to stick to a particular narrative. It wasn’t flexible enough to change and evolve with circumstances and possessiveness and jealousy started rearing their ugly heads. Gossip, control, lies and manipulation crept in. Insecurity and some sort of assumed hierarchy or loyalty tore us apart.

I have no concerns at all about anything similar happening in the second triad, because we communicate and speak positively and don’t try to control the narrative, or each other. We respect each other as individuals and support the paths we are travelling. We respect one another’s opinions and experiences and input and rally when one of us needs it. We are there for each other, as individuals and as a group.

What I didn’t realise, or perhaps respect, in hindsight, was that I had been invited to someone else’s friend group in the first scenario. It wasn’t their intention that we would form friendships and they felt their loyalty was betrayed. So if you have been invited to someone’s friend group, know your place, and try to understand and respect the boundaries and limitations there. Then maybe it could work, but wont be as close.

If however, you have formed a trio more naturally because you all had the mutual friend anyway, then it has a greater chance of success on the basis that it doesn’t take priority or impede on the duo’s involved.

So, is three company, or is three a crowd? And is three allowed? I think it can be either company or a crowd and you’d be wise to know the difference before it is allowed!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

If conversation feels one sided, does that mean the friendship is one sided too?

A few posts back, I made a reference to the fact that a friendship might be lopsided at times, with one party having less to give at any given time due to circumstances outwith their control, while the other party finds themselves stepping up to compensate. This is completely normal, so long as it goes both ways and each of you knows they can count on the other to do the same when needed. If it is consistently one person doing all the heavy lifting, then the friendship is one sided, not lop sided.

Similarly, there have been times when I felt the burden of communication was solely on my shoulders. It might be that I am the one always initiating contact, or that it is always me who is asking them about themselves and their lives, while they show little to no interest in my own. This alone doesn’t always constitute a one sided friendship, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t notice the imbalance quite obviously.

I do have friends with whom I consider myself more of an audience than a guest speaker, however the circumstances do differ. With these friends, their lives, are truly more hectic, chaotic, dramatic and generally, well, more interesting than my own. However, they do make an effort to direct conversation my way, it just so happens that I don’t have much to share. Particularly if we see or speak regularly.

With friends you speak to all the time, it seems reasonable that you have conversations that seem boring on the outside, but that provide much meaning; because it is in the mundane details of life that you really get to know a person. You share details with these friends you might forget to share with someone you only catch up with once a month, simply because the smaller details slip into the background to cover deeper territory. However, sharing a laugh with a friend that you just slipped over at the local shops or smashed your partner’s favourite mug develops an intimacy, and it is nice to have people to share these smaller details with on the daily.

What is harder to swallow, is the type of friend who seems to only get in touch when things in their world aren’t quite so rosy. A friend who wants to share every screenshot of messages between them and the person they are seeing to decipher the secret meaning. A friend who calls to send hours on the phone dissecting their relationship or that fight with their boss. But when you try and share with them your thoughts on the musical you attended on the weekend, you get a flat response like “I love musicals.” Nothing further. Nothing that invites conversation. No explanation of what musicals they like or questions about what you enjoyed particularly.

These are the conversations that tend to leave us feeling drained and used. Because when we try and change the subject away from our friend or the current drama, they show very little interest in engaging. Worse still, if you try and share your own drama, they either don’t show interest and say “That sucks” and nothing more, or they quickly relate it back to themselves and before you know it they are once again stealing the limelight. Never short of something to share, but never seeming to allow you the space to do the same, even when you really need to.

I am always a big believer in reciprocation. Of course, in a perfect world this would mean that you give your best self, and your level of friend energy and intensity, wherever it may lie, is reflected back to you. However, this isn’t a perfect world. And sometimes you give, hoping to receive, and end up disappointed. And in these circumstances, all you can do is be the mirror instead of hoping they will mirror you.

Give them short, disinterested answers when they try and share with you. Don’t overly engage with their stories or be a willing audience. You might be surprised, they may even read the subtle signals and self reflect that actually those kinds of conversations are relatievely unsatisfying and that they have unwittingly been subjecting you to this. Or they may just cool off at any more attempts in engagement as they go off in search of someone else to be the next willing audience.

Either way, your own energy is preserved from this kind of emotional vampire. If they do decide to discard you, then you haven’t really lost a true friend anyway, and if they are able to show up for you, then each of you has actually learned a valuable lesson. In most cases I would not advocate for bringing this up to your friends direct attention…

That said, if this is a long standing friend, who has had a sudden shift in behaviours, then I would suggest you might practice patience, before gently sitting your friend down and telling them that you don’t feel they have been able to hold much space for you recently, and you want to understand the change, and see if you can’t course correct to a more even keel. If this is the case, practice diplomacy and kindness. The truth might hurt to hear, but that doesn’t mean you have to deliver it in a harsh or hurtful manner… even if you are feeling angry and hurt.

Speaking of one sided conversations, this blog is my voice, sharing my thoughts. But it doesn’t have to be one sided. Comment here, or head to facebook to engage with my stuff there. Share your own thoughts and experiences because we can all draw on these to learn and grow collectively?

Hope to jear from you soon.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

The friendship reinvestment plan

The friendship that turned out to be the catalyst for this blog, was clearly  one that was dear to my heart. I was hurt and confused when my friend seemed to disappear into her own world, her own life, and it felt like she had entirely forgotten my existence at all. While there, at that stage at least, had been no harsh words or bad feelings between us, that I knew of at least, our friendship just evaporated right before my eyes.

It’s a story as old as time, isn’t it? Girl meets boy, and promptly forgets about her friends, leaving them in the proverbial dust as she races down the aisle? And that readers, is exactly what happened. My friend seemed so confused, when I expressed hurt over her magicians disappearing act from my life. As far as she was concerned, I was still her best friend in all the world. Just because we didn’t see or speak to each other as much as we used to, didn’t mean she loved me any less. While the logical part of me understood this to be true, in theory, the truth remained that I no longer felt loved.

Our weekly girls nights in had stopped in favour of her going on date nights out. Initially this was fair and I was happy to oblige, however, when she still hadn’t resurfaced nearly a year later, my patience was growing thin. Didn’t she miss me? I missed her. Why hadn’t she noticed we weren’t spending time together? Had it ever been meaningful for her, or had it just been a space filler until she met her prince charming?

When I met this friend, she was in the throws of a painful separation and soon to be divorce. So it wasn’t really surprising that she was seeking new friendships, to start a fresh chapter. Naively, no part of me questioned where her old friends were. And, had I questioned it, I would likely have just thought that she had learned a valuable lesson about maintaining friendships and relationships simultaneously so she wouldn’t find herself in a similar predicament again next time. I blindly trusted, without discussion on the topic, that if she did start dating again eventually, that we would remain close.

The fact that I am writing this post at all, tells the rest of the story, doesn’t it? When she started dating, it was exciting as I got to hear all about the disasters and highs and lows. We analysed texts and discussed the pros and cons of each guy like she was buying a new car. I guess I never considered what her eventual choice would mean for me, and our friendship. Or how convenient her singleness had been.

Things became increasingly tense between us as I attempted to demand time with her and she was unable or unwilling to oblige. She said she was always there for me if I needed to talk, but I was not receiving any calls to see how I was to even tell her, and messages went unread and unanswered for days. And yes, I did see that she was online not reading my message. She, understandably became fed up with my disappointment in her, and demanded I be happy for her. We were at a standstill, neither able to show the other what she wanted to see, or provide the support she needed.

It didn’t help that I didn’t think she should marry him, and I told her as much when they got engaged. By the time of the wedding, that she did go through with, I wasn’t even sure I would make the guest list. But I did, and at that stage, I knew I had to let her go emotionally and wish her well. Although it was difficult and painful for me, I managed to find acceptance and maintain a more casual connection with her. Although she still thought of us as best friends, I no longer felt that way, but I could see that we didn’t have the same beliefs and values around what it meant to show up as a best friend.

I knew I could still talk to her about anything and everything, but because she wasn’t around, I didn’t really. We were just moving in different directions, but I did still have love and care for her none the less. So when that marriage also came to an end, I was there for her. Not to the same extent that I had been the first time though. So when she found herself once again living on her own, I never suggested we reimplement our weekly girly catch ups etc… I had learned my lesson. I knew there would be another man soon enough, and there wouldn’t be room for us both. I only visited her a handful of times, although I felt a bit mean about it when she suffered an injury that basically left her bed bound for months.

I wasn’t wrong though, as soon as she recovered, she had put herself back out into the dating world and had soon enough met another man I didn’t particularly like the sounds of. I actually never met him, despite the fact that they eventually bought a house together and were together about 5 years. That’s not to say I didn’t see her though. This time perhaps she had learned a lesson, and suddenly she was much more engaged in our friendship despite her relationship.

She came on weekends away and plenty of girls nights outs, leaving her partner at home to do whatever men do when we leave them to their own devices. And he seemed happy to allow her the time and space, which he last husband did not. So for the next few years we grew closer again. We started talking again, deeply, and I could feel the spark reignighting.

Sadly, her relationship with this latest man had started to sour, after 5 years, and she had decided to end it. The circumstances were complicated but it soon became clear it was her only option. She was unable to find a rental and didn’t really have anywhere to go. So we sat down and looked at the numbers and figured out she could possibly afford to buy a small 2 bedroom apartment for herself and her daughter. And once we did that, she put the wheels in motion.

She eventually moved into her new place, and has sworn off men. Ok, yes, I will believe it when I see it, but at the same time, the commitment to buy a place on her own and provide her own security has me fairly convinced she might mean it this time. So my question, I suppose, becomes, is it safe to reinvest emotionally in this friend? And if so, how much time should I invest in her?

I have contemplated if my unwillingness to show up for her after her second divorce contributed to the loneliness that saw her fall into the arms of another man nowhere near good enough for her. Perhaps if I had of been around more, she might’ve been happier on her own? That said, this has all led her to her own place, which can only be seen as a positive.

The problem is, the more time I spend with a friend, the more emotionally invested I tend to become. So I don’t know how much I should be there for her. She has my full support, of course, and I have spent time and money on storage solutions and helped her source much needed items from my contacts…. And I do not want her to be lonely. Part of me is actually excited that the opportunity to reinvest has presented itself again.

So I have decided to commit to making time for her on a monthly basis. Time I will actively pursue. I will be open to more time if she pursues it. I am not willing to commit to any formal schedule at this stage, because then we will each feel trapped and burdened by this in time, and I will miss it if she is ever unable to continue it. (And resent it if it is because of a new partner.)

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am willing to reinvest slowly. I don’t think I am throwing good money after bad, but this time I will be cautious, and invest based on all the information. Our friendship was always worth the emotional investment. I have never regretted it. I just didn’t do enough research the first time. Now I have more information to practice a more realistic and stable approach.

I am a believer in reconciliations and second chances, are you?

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!

When a friend can’t show up for you.

The whole purpose of this blog, is basically, to remind you, and myself, that when a friend lets you down or withdraws, it usually isn’t about you. More often that not, it has nothing to do with you at all. Sounds simple, right? It really is! However, the reason I have a whole blog dedicated to the subject, is because it so often FEELS like it IS about you.

And, to be fair, in some ways dear readers, it is. Because although their reason for withdrawal may be completely unrelated to you, their absence is still felt by you, and you are still the one left dealing with the consequences of something they themselves are going through. This leads me to todays post, to explore the situation further when you need a friend to show up for you emotionally, or physically, and they are literally too caught up in their own heaviness to be there.

Somewhat recently in my own life, a close friend withdrew from me quite suddenly. I tried to be patient and understanding, because I was well aware of the issues this friend was dealing with in their own world, and that they were feeling pretty low and stressed. You can’t pour from an empty cup and all that.

We celebrated my birthday in August, and as my gift they had purchased tickets to an event for us in early September. If memory serves correctly, it was the end of August when they received some heavy news. We still attended the show in early September, but I could feel that my friend was somewhere else; physically present but emotionally absent. In the car on the way home that night, I initiated a conversation about things and although the discussion was heavy, my friend seemed to feel lighter for having shared what was on their mind.

This particular friend loves the phone, and would call me (yes, actually call, not text) several times a day sometimes, and always a few times a week. Never at any specific time, just whenever the urge hit. So I definitely noticed the silence and the absence from my life in the way of physical presence too. I invited this friend to a theme park with us at the start of October, (a month being an unusually long time for us not to have seen each other or spoken really) and they did come along, however seemed to spend the day avoiding me or any real conversation. It felt awkward and strained.

I reasoned that maybe they didn’t want to talk about it and wanted to distract themselves on the rides and slides, letting off some steam and not thinking about their situation for a minute. Which was reasonable. However, when they cancelled on me for our next ticketed event the following week, (tickets we had from the previous Christmas) I started growing concerned. This friend is habitually late, but in all the years of our friendship, they had never, that I could recall, actually cancelled on me. I tried to remain calm and cheerful, telling them that I completely understood and was always here if they wanted to talk. But I guess they didn’t because by the end of November I hadn’t seen or spoken to them in any meaningful way and we had not seen each other in person since that first few days of October. Which meant that since August, we had only seen each other twice, when typically we were catching up about once a week if not more, before that. I say this to allow context. I don’t expect to see all my friends this often, and for some of them, that schedule would be normal, however for this particular friend, it was a noteable shift.

Messages to say I was thinking of them were left on read. Memes sent were not reacted to. Emails about the kids schooling or questions about Christmas were unanswered. My phone was not ringing. It was getting harder to ignore the withdrawal and not take it personally, so you’d think I would’ve been relieved when the phone did ring eventually. I was… initially.

Except that during this particular call, my friend had to call me back 3 times because they were helping another friend with an emotional crisis, and needed to go to her house for a coffee. The second time they called me back, they were talking about the new cake place they tried at their weekly catch up with another friend. And the last time they called they complained that a third friend of theirs had made plans with them, then changed said plans, and my friend was annoyed because this change meant they weren’t going to be spending enough time together as the plans were shortened by 2 hours, not leaving enough time to have a meal and chat.

It is very hard not to take a withdrawal like this personally, when you are well aware that the person is not withdrawing from all their social contacts, but just you, specifically. So of course, my mind went into overdrive (which is never good, by the way) trying to pin point the moment that I had unwittingly offended this person. When I came up empty, I decided the best course of action was to quietly let this person go. That appeared to be what they wanted.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t hurt, upset and annoyed. I was. But what can you do? If our friendship had run it’s course, that didn’t surprise me, given that we have had a bumpy road over the years. Maybe they were done with the drama and maybe that was for the best. So I was even more hurt, confused and annoyed when on the odd occasion I did hear from them, it was to ask me for favours. Could I buy and deliver flowers to someone on their behalf please? Could I bring them lunch at work because they left theirs at home. Could I go collect an item from the buy nothing pages before they gave it to someone else.

This person was not showing up for me in any real way, and yet kept asking me to do things for them, without addressing the unanswered messages or the distance between us. I have learned better than to bring it up myself. I didn’t want to know why they no longer wanted to be my friend, because that was only going to serve to make me feel worse. And honestly, I was tired of caring, when it didn’t appear to be reciprocated.

So I was surprised, to say the least, when this friend showed up at my house on the 1st December to give me our annual advent calendar exchange. I had one to give her in return, as I had bought it in the after Christmas sales earlier in the year (it did not contain perishables) however, I just wasn’t expecting it to happen. The exchange was brief, as they showed up right when they knew I would be leaving to take my son to work. They also had someone else in the car with them. So we didn’t even hug. They presented me with a beautiful calendar that I very much loved, and I ran inside to grab theirs, then we went our separate ways.

When I returned home, I messaged my friend to thank them for the lovely gesture and to say I was surprised to see them in all honesty. They acknowledged that they had been terribly distant and apologized. I admitted that although I knew they were dealing with personal issues, that I felt hurt and abandoned, not to mention used and taken advantage of. That I understood the need to withdraw, but found it difficult not to take it personally. They acknowledged that they knew it was painful for me, and that was part of the reason they kept their distance, because they couldn’t deal with my upset about things, and they felt guilty.

But once we had communicated things clearly, we were able to resume our connection. I just needed them to communicate clearly with me, and they needed the same thing. They should have explained why they weren’t able to show up for me, and acknowledged that they knew I might struggle with this but it wasn’t personal. And they needed me to broach it, to express that I was feeling hurt and used and abandoned although I understood their energy and capacity to give was low. I didn’t because I didn’t want to start a fight. And isn’t it ironic that we both didn’t want to cause conflict, so we avoided the conflict until it was too big to ignore.

If your friend is going through something and they can’t show up for you at the moment, allow them some grace, but don’t allow yourself to get hurt. You matter too, and if they are your friend they will care about that no matter what else is going on for them. And if you are the friend who is going through something heavy, communicate that to your friend and reassure them that this is not personal, you do care about them and if they really need you, that you will still be there, but to be patient with you meanwhile. A friendship may be lopsided at times, but it should never feel one sided.

All it takes is clear communication so everyone knows where they stand.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Falling out with work friends

Remember when you were in school, and one of your good friends, sometimes even all of them, have stopped talking to you, for whatever petty reason school kids can muster. Sometimes for no reason at all other than to test the loyalty of the group, and take pleasure in the power, not to mention your misery.

Part of the reason it was so torturous was that there was no escaping it. You literally had to go there and subject yourself to the silence 5 days a week. Mind you, at least, back then, before the internet took off and mobile phones became commonplace, you could escape at the end of the day. If you are of my vintage anyway… perhaps I am showing my age!

I want to tell you that when you leave school, things get much easier as you surround yourself with a variety of peers. Many older and more mature, men and women, from different backgrounds. You’re less pressured to be a certain way and more able to be your true self…. Right? Well, yes, and no. Just because you are free to be yourself, doesn’t mean everyone will like you. They wont, and this can make work every bit as torturous as school, with the added pressures of seeing passive aggressive vague posts directed at you on social media or having to keep it professional outside of office hours for the greater good.

It is exhausting when you don’t get along with a colleague, and painful to understand the impact this can have on your relationship with other staff members too. Particularly if you considered those people friends. And work is so much more enjoyable when you have meaningful friendships within it. I am certainly not advocating for people not to make connections at the workplace. That would be nearly as miserable. Nearly.

But when a colleague takes a disliking to you, either directly or as the result of some sort of altercation or misunderstanding etc….suddenly work is a much harder place to be, no matter how unenjoyable it was before. You either end up isolating yourself from them, and anyone they associate with, or find yourself isolated unintentionally as everyone else awkwardly avoids you so as not to get involved themselves.

Added to this, it can be difficult to talk about the situation without putting others in an awkward position, which may lead you to further isolation. And there is nothing worse than watching the person who is making your life a misery swanning around laughing with the others in the break room while you eat your cold spaghetti at your desk because heating it up would mean going in there, where you are clearly unwelcome. You would rather avoid the awkward silence that ensues when you enter the room and the longest 2 microwave minutes of your life.

You might notice someone you normally chat with at the water cooler is suddenly avoiding eye contact and drinking only hot coffee today, despite it being the hottest day on record, or the stern look on your bosses face that tells you they know what has transpired and somehow believe it is all your fault and you better fix it, pronto!

So what is the best course of action? Should you confront your colleague and ask to discuss any problems or tension in the air? If you do, will they acknowledge the issues, or politely give you a cold smile and tell you everything is fine? Should you hunker down in your office and avoid eye contact with everyone until the storm blows over and it is safe enough to re-emerge? Should you call a meeting with your boss, or HR, to get the issue mediated professionally and pursue any warranted bullying claims?

Honestly, it does depend on the person and the situation you find yourselves in. If they are bullying you, then a trip to HR is warranted, no matter who’s feathers may get ruffled. It would also teach others not to mistreat you as you wont hesitate to take the appropriate action. However, a trip to your boss may not be the smartest move. Maybe they got there first, or maybe your boss wont appreciate you dragging them into things. You want to demonstrate that you have the maturity to handle personal conflicts in the workplace, and not make a public display in the process.

It may be advisable to request a private meeting with your colleague, to clear the air between you, however if they are the sort of person who is giving you the cold shoulder, they may not be open and willing enough to do this, particularly if they have rallied other colleagues against you in the meantime. It’s difficult to know if the other team members are on the bully’s side, or if they just want to avoid being in your position.

Should you talk to them about it? Probably not, unless they approach you about it directly themselves. I do always remember one colleague approaching me and asking for my side of the story in a similar situation and I actually had a lot of respect for her for doing this. Not because she was butting in where she didn’t belong, but because she was not just going to believe everything she heard and wanted to make sure I was ok. She told me what the other person involved was claiming and told me she wasn’t interested in taking sides, but that she felt I should know what was being said about me, and she didn’t feel it was fair to assume it was true. The fact that she spoke to me at all was soothing to be honest as everyone else seemed to be avoiding my desk, which was separated from the others by a wall at the front of the office, like the plague.

However, just because it mighn’t be appropriate to discuss the situation at hand with your other colleagues, that doesn’t mean you should stop talking to them entirely either. Of course you probably worry about putting them in an awkward position if they get seen conversing with the enemy, however if they were truly your friend, they wouldn’t be concerned about that enough to turn their back on you entirely.

My friend has currently found herself in a position where the colleagues she has fallen out with, have a close alliance with some of her other key support people and friends at work. She has noticed one of them appears to be avoiding her, and while disappointing, has made it clear where their loyalties lie. Another colleague who does not wish to get involved however, is still friendly with my friend and willing to partner with her in team building exercises etc…. So this act has solidified their connection. These things do tend to show you who your real friends are.

The best course of action however, is to do nothing, to say nothing and continue on being your awesome self until they get over themselves or find something new to be upset about. That said, this is the precise reason it is not wise to have all your eggs in one basket. It is better to have a few close friends from different areas of your life, than to have only one or only all work friends for example. So that you still have some support of impartial people no matter what. Whatever you do, just don’t suck up to the bullies and reward their behaviour. Their behaviour says much more about them than it does about you and vice versa. So just be cool calm and collected, no fight, no flight, no freeze, no fawn. Your work and your attitude will speak for itself. But if you can’t resist a passive aggressive statement, I found a save the whales poster behind my desk was effective, funny, and eased the tension somewhat! Haha

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

People Pleasing is Pointless

This post is a follow on from last weeks post “Amigo’s with Anxious Attachment.” Please click the link or scroll down to the post below to read it first.

The whole point of this blog is essentially to remind readers who identify with my struggles that it isn’t about them, to calm down and focus on something that is! The reason it’s a struggle, is because it is painful to us when a close friend disappears from our orbit, for any reason. And if those of us with anxious attachment styles, can make it about ourselves, maybe we can make changes that might control the outcome? We can’t, I know that, but essentially that appears to be at the core of it. We just don’t want to lose you, and if we are losing you, it’s too painful to bare, so you better get lost! Fast! Don’t prolong the pain by slowly and quietly distancing yourself. Let’s just call a spade a spade, and end it! The ambiguity is intolerable. If we feel you pulling away, fiction easily becomes fact. You hate us, and probably always have. We are prone to allowing negatives to rewrite the history of our narrative, and erase any positives.

It’s defeating, because we try so hard! We try to figure out who it is you want us to be, and then we try to be that. Or, failing that, we will try and be like you instead. And it works for a while. But inevitably we crack. We can’t always perform. We might’ve had to let you down or tell you no, in order to please someone else. Then the shame spiral kicks in. We know you’ll eventually leave when you realise we aren’t perfect, or more so, when you discover we aren’t who we pretended to be.

Our real shame should be deceiving you to begin with, although we meant no harm. We do cause harm, to ourselves, to our friends, and to our friendships. We say yes, when we mean no, and let resentment build until we snap. We snap at people for using and abusing us, when in reality it was us who mislead them to begin with, into thinking we were always happy to serve. How can they know what we didn’t tell them? We were easy to be friends with because we had no needs… does that mean we didn’t need them? If we don’t need them to show up emotionally, why should they? Why would they? We ask for nothing and become increasingly upset that we get nothing.

You don’t get the chance to know our authentic selves, or the fact that actually we hate the ballet, even though we have gone with you for years, or that we are allergic to cats although yours has sat on our lap every single visit. (It’s ok if it costs us a small fortune on antihistamines and allergy pills that we load up on before we come over, and swallow more of in the bathroom at your house. As long as you never know!) We never tell you what we like, want or need. To be fair, a lot of the time it’s because we don’t know. We have spent our whole lives pretending to like things other people like and needing nothing at all, for fear of being seen as needy. We just need you to stay. (Not needy at all, right?!) We are protecting you from letting us down by not being interested in us, because we already know we aren’t interesting, and protecting ourselves from the pain of you rejecting us for who we actually are.

But if we are going to be rejected anyway, isn’t it better to be rejected for who we actually are rather than making all this effort to be someone we aren’t? What’s the point if they ultimately won’t like that person either?  And, if someone can’t make allowances because we don’t like the ballet or we prefer them to not have the cat trigger our allergies, is that someone we want to be friends with in the first place? We should give our friends more credit than that, because if we think so little of them, why are they our friend? Will we take anyone that will have us? If that’s the case what is our friendship worth? Is it a valuable asset, rare, to be cherished as we so desire, or as common as a till receipt to be tossed away without a second thought?

Our friendship can only have value, if we ourselves know our value, and make others pay the proverbial price for our friendship. Just as we do for them and theirs.

We can’t please everyone all the time, so why not just please ourselves, and allow our friends the opportunity to please us at times too?  We’re only making them feel inadequate and indebted anyway, and actually that doesn’t feel good. They aren’t perfect, and they don’t want you to be perfect either!

We need to try giving a little less, and taking a little bit more…. Maybe even asking for a bit more if that’s what we need. What’s the worst that could happen, that wasn’t going to happen anyway? This way, maybe it won’t. And if it does, we haven’t abandoned ourselves, which is what really matters, and what we’ve been doing to ourselves for years and then blaming our friends for it. If we stop abandoning ourselves, maybe this fear that other people will abandon us will disappear? Worth a try, right?

Give people a chance to prove their friendship, even ask them to, and make sure they do it. If they don’t, then we may leave. With no shame, because they let us down, not the other way around. We stood up for ourselves, and took care of ourselves, which is what we should have been doing all along…. Rather than waiting for our friends to take care of us and being hurt and angry when they couldn’t. If we can’t do it, how can we expect anyone else to do it? Sure, you took care of them, but it was at your own expense. They never agreed to take care of you. It’s too much to ask.

We need to stop caring for others as an excuse to avoid ourselves. And stop expecting others to care for us. If we do it ourselves, we wont need them to do it. And not needing them, however much we want them, how freeing would that be?

Let’s try it and see!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Amigo's with Anxious Attachment

I love to play armchair psychologist with one of my good friends. We are both interested in the psychology behind our own actions, thoughts and feelings and those of our friends and family. One of our favourite topics to circle around is attachment theory. We would both self-diagnose as anxious attachment types, and this is evident in our dealings with those around us.

People with anxious attachment, fear abandonment. For this reason, we tend to be relatively submissive, putting the needs of others before our own. Our sense of self worth is largely external, meaning we base how we feel about ourselves mostly on how other people feel about us. The more people that like us, the more likeable we must be! So then we can like ourselves…. This is problematic for many reasons, one of the most obvious being that we never actually truly know how other people feel about us. Most people don’t tell you directly, and even if they do, that doesn’t make it true. And feelings are subjective, nuanced and expressed differently by each individual. Ambiguity almost always exists, and it is ambiguity we find the most triggering.

Even if it is true, that someone likes us, then that’s coupled with the need for us anxious attachment types to make sure that the person in question keeps on feeling positively about us. Not just one person either, this applies to pretty much everyone we cross paths with. The idea that someone wont like us appears to trigger fears that we have been discovered as unlikeable, and it is only a matter of time before everyone else then finds out too! Deep down this must be how we feel about ourselves.

It sounds ridiculous, but it happens on such a deeply subconscious level, that most of the time we don’t even realise what’s happening. All we know is that we strive for perfection, aim to exceed expectation, tend to over give generously, listen more than talk, avoid conflict, and never express negative emotions. Well, not never. Because nobody is perfect, and you can only take so much, so eventually us anxious avoidants will explode, or withdraw, or both.

Our overactive emotional brains perceive rejection, often falsely, and this rejection triggers our fears of abandonment, which causes us to reject the other person before they can reject us. Bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy really isn’t it? The thing is, we don’t want to reject people, we are merely trying to protect ourselves from the pain, and distance is the only way to achieve it. But only if that distance is instigated by us. At this point the coin flips and we become avoidant attachment types! Out of sight, out of mind, out of pain. Although, deep down, we want nothing more than for you to ask us to stay, forgive us, and ask us what we are really struggling with.

If you don’t, and why would you if we just ended things? (The only logical conclusion would be that we wanted things to be over, right?) We will avoid you out of shame. Definitely if we have had an angry outburst, spoken harsh words, or made a fool of ourselves crying or begging. But there is also shame for whatever way we let you down in the first place, for not being good enough, perfect enough, no matter how hard we tried. If someone has picked up a flaw, or put space between us, or we made some obvious mistake. If we let you down. The shame, coupled with the fear that the other person hates us now they have seen our true colours, triggers us to run away and hide. If you hate us, we hate ourselves, and we can’t escape ourselves, only you. If the hurt to us, perceived or real, was severe enough we may lash out and hurt them with our words, before we reject and retreat. We are not particularly logical, we are emotionally driven.

It’s ironic, because losing people is the very thing we fear. And yet, more often than not, the people we have lost, and there will inevitably be at least one, probably more, we were the ones who ended the friendship, one way or another. Friendships in particular are commonly the most fraught relationships in our lives, based on the voluntary nature of them. Family is stuck with us, in a broader general sense, although I recognize this is not true for all my readers. Romantic relationships have structure and stages and legalities behind them. Even coworkers are a bit of a fixed position. But friends? They chose us, and they could just as quickly change their mind and leave us.

In a romantic relationship, if a partner stops answering your calls, you are justified in seeking clarification about this. If they have no time for you and make zero effort for 2 weeks, acting as though you don’t exist, you are entitled to be upset and concerned. However, when the person is a friend, it is expected that you just carry on in the uncertainty, not knowing if they are leaving your life or not. If they are mad at you or not. If you have done something wrong or hurtful or upsetting. You aren’t meant to notice, or care. But we do! Although we all know the stresses of being busy, people with anxious attachment styles struggle to accept that sometimes it isn’t about us at all…. Unless we are reassured of this, and then the behaviour changes.

Commonly, if we do feel someone pulling away, we will become clingy. We actually don’t mean to be clingy, and don’t realise we are even doing it. What we think we are doing is trying even harder to please you, in an effort to regain your love and attention. Although the other person might just need some time and space to focus on their own life, we may try and interject. Insert ourselves, give ourselves some sort of role to stay relevant and included. We think we are being generous and helpful, offering support. Then, when said support is rejected, WE feel rejected, and that is when the triggering of anger might happen.

You might hear us throwing back in your face everything that we have ever done for you, how ungrateful you are and how all we were trying to do is help you. The fact that you didn’t want help, can be a bit lost on us. I guess, what I am getting at, is that we tend to make things about us, cringe, even when they aren’t. And that doesn’t usually end well. Either we push you to break up with us because we won’t give you space, or we give you so much space that it takes you a while to notice we are actually gone, when you resurface from whatever was keeping you busy and distracted.

We end things as abruptly as I am about to end this post! But tune in next week for the follow up edition of how people pleasing is pointless!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

The Power of Positivity. For my GALentine.

Next week, on the 13th February, is GALentines Day! If you don’t know what that is, click here. If you aren’t sure how to celebrate, try here, here or here for ideas.

However, this year I wanted to dedicate a post to a particularly bright, bubbly and beautiful yellow rose in my life! You know who you are! x

All my friends are so different from one another. Some are serious while others are light. Some are religious or political while others are spiritual or atheist. Some are negative, seeing the bad in the world and the worst in others. Some are realists. But as I sat on the couch of one of my dearest friends the other day and we chatted with her teenage daughter I noticed something.

Talking about an old family friend or acquaintance, (I can’t be sure which as I don’t know the person in question or their connection to my friend and her family,) my friends daughter exclaimed “was she the ranga?” For those of you who aren’t familiar with Australian slang, ranga refers to a person with red hair. It is often, although not always used in a derogatory way. I don’t think my friends daughter meant it to be derogatory, merely a shorthand way to recognize the person in question.

“Yes, my friend beamed, her smile wide and bright and genuine. She’s so beautiful.” The words ran off her tongue naturally and without hesitation or any hint of annoyance at the use of the word ranga. I contemplated how this particular friend, despite her struggles, of which she has more than her fair share, is always such a kind woman, generous of spirit. Of how easily she sees the good in others, and how openly and willingly she expresses it. And how much I love and admire this quality of hers.

She’s the first to correct me if I’m hard on myself, and would likely be the first to jump to my defense if anyone else was hard on me either. She loves to celebrate me, and our friendship and tell the story of how we met when the teenagers were mere tots. She openly expresses, frequently, how important I am to her and how much she values my place in her life. She’s intentional about our time together and always makes sure to fit me in. She’s affectionate, both physically and emotionally. She’s trusting and always making people feel good about themselves in small ways she probably isn’t even consciously aware of.

If she likes the shop assistant’s nails, she will not hesitate to dish out a compliment, or tell a stranger on the street that they look fabulous in that colour. She handles conflict with a calm easiness, and her assertiveness rarely comes across as arrogance. She’s elegant, classy and worldly, yet takes no hesitation in asking the homeless man outside the local supermarket what she can get for him, with a genuine warmth that makes him feel seen, heard and a worthy for the brief moment of their exchange.

It should come as no surprise that she loves colour and art and food, and all things that bring beauty into this world. Her clothes are loud and unapologetic, as she claims space in this world and encourages us all to do the same. In a massage, she will ask the therapist if the pressure is ok for them. She will offer her car to the friend without one, or to drive the neighbour to a doctors appointment.

My friend isn’t perfect, nobody is, and we have had our issues over the course of our friendship, but she isn’t afraid to apologise or to try to deepen her understanding of concepts outside her realm. She is so forgiving in nature, so beautifully vulnerable, so willing to move forward and not hold any grudges. And even when she holds anger and sorrow, she somehow brings beauty to those darker feelings too with her positive aura.

This is the friend I undoubtedly spend the most time with, realistically. I have been drawn into her enigmatic presence since the moment we met. I honestly thought she was too good for me, too cool and confident. Yet it was her, who gave me permission to be myself, and not just a mother and a wife. It was her who encouraged me to have some fun, to treat myself and practice self care. It was her who welcomed me in with her extended family and proudly introduced me much more grandly than I felt worthy of.

As I touched on earlier, this friend has had more than her fair share of setbacks and heartbreaks. She often fears that I dread spending time with her, or feel emotionally exhausted from the endless drama in her life. And yet, this is rarely the case. Rather than drained, I often still somehow feel energized from our time together, because she makes such effort to connect, and to maintain that connection. Her dramas remind me how lucky I am, both in life and to call her a friend. She’s positive, but not toxically so. She is able to hold space for the darker side of life, without getting too bogged down in it all. She will still smile at the waiter and praise them to the boss for outstanding service. She’ll still make a chicken joke given the opportunity!

I am not so naturally light and positive. I like to think of myself as a realist, but, realistically, I am probably a pessimist, which makes her shining her bright light of positivity on everything so balancing and refreshing and hopeful to me.

This post is to thank her for being the bright pop of colour on my canvas, for shining her light in the dark, and always making sure she holds both my hand and my heart tenderly. For being an advocate, for celebrating my successes, no matter how small, and accepting me just the way I am, although I am not as bright and cheery. For reminding me to see the bright side of life, frolic in the fun, and that I am worth spoiling, and worthy of her loyal, reliable, constant and consistent connection.

I don’t say it as often, or as freely as she does, but she is definitely a very valuable bright star that lights up my sky and helps me shine brighter. If you are reading this, you are one of my favourite colours. Never forget it. Never dull your shine for anyone or anything! If positivity was a superpower, you’d be my superhero! Happy GALentines Day! Love us!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

The ConFract - the concept of a friendship contract

Anyone familiar with the real housewives will remember in season 3, when Cynthia presented Nene with a friendship contract! And made her sign it and everything! As we talked about ‘frésumé’s” (friendship résumés) a few weeks back, I thought the formality of the idea fit in nicely with the concept of the ‘conFract’ – a friendship contract.

I know for a fact that there are times when some of my own friends feel like they unknowingly signed a conFract when we became friends, as I have high expectations and I hold them to a high standard. Because I am someone who prefers a smaller inner circle, that means that my friends have a heavier workload in keeping me satisfied. In short, they find me to be high maintenance! I certainly wouldn’t consider myself low maintenance, not for my inner circle.

That said, I struggle to accept that I am high maintenance either. I will initiate contact, I will plan outings or book tickets, I will bring insect repellent, or sunscreen, and pack the picnic. I will remember you have a gluten allergy and cater accordingly. I will ask about your kid, or the doctors appointment you had last week. I will pick up your sick kid from school, help you with your work and wrap your Christmas presents for you. All I really ask is that you show up, engage, connect, have a good time and show equal interest and concern for my own life.

The issue is, of course, that in showing up, what I mean, is making time. Time to disconnect from your phone and your outer world, and connect with me instead. And in this day and age, and in the phase of life I am in, where some of my friends are grandparents, while some have babies, or primary school aged kids, or teens to adult children and everything in between…. Time is the one luxury most people have little of to offer.

I am guilty as charged of encouraging formal arrangements, such as catching up every Sunday night or a once a month brunch. These sorts of arrangements help me feel secure and manage my expectations. If we have agreed to a monthly catch up, I wont expect to hear from you much outside of that. However, as discussed in our last post, I also wont love it if the monthly friend asks me for weekly favours. That said, you can still be a close friend I feel connected to and cherish. That’s true even if I only see you 4 times a year too. As long as you aren’t asking or expecting more than you give, I am happy.

My friends, however, sometimes feel trapped by these more formal arrangements. They prefer a more casual impromptu approach, whereby if they are free, they will call me, and if I am also free, then we will get together and find something to do. As opposed to me finding something I would like to do and inviting them. They feel they are letting me down if they have to cancel. They feel like a bad friend because of all the effort I am putting in and how little they have to offer in return. And who wants to spend time with someone that makes them feel like a bad friend? I am scrunching up my nose as I even write this. Nobody does.

The pro’s to the conFract style of friendship, is that everyone knows the terms of the agreement, and, if this no longer works for both parties, we can come back to the conFract and make amendments. If we were meeting weekly but that is getting too much for one or both of us, we can negotiate to a fortnightly or monthly schedule instead. We can agree not to let resentment fester, and immediately address the issues, instead of retreating or withdrawing when we feel we cannot fulfil each others expectations or needs. And, if we cannot agree on mutual terms, we can agree we no longer fit, and it’s purely a matter of incompatibility rather than a lack of love, like or respect that has come between us and part amicably.

The cons to the ConFract include that it doesn’t feel good to be the person who wants to ask for less. The person who is saying “can we spend less time? Can I offer you less and still expect your friendship, and support?” Although this happens all the time in friendships, it is largely unspoken. One person pulls away until the other gets the hint and stops trying so hard. Or one person takes on a sudden amount of new and added responsibility, or goes through some emotionally heavy event and instinctively the other knows to allow them some space because sometimes giving less is loving more.

When Cynthia presented Nene with her contract, it also included things like not going to sleep on an argument and always talking things out straight away. Because in friendships ghosting is the most common way to end things. Breakups are hard and uncomfortable after all, and when there was no official getting together or monogamy we can tell ourselves there is also no need for an official ending. However, my friends know I will not turn a blind eye to a slow withdrawal from my life. I will attempt to talk it out, even if it fails. This too, is part of the unspoken contract of my friendship. It doesn’t always prevent the endings, but usually does offer a sense of closure, a reasoning or an acknowledgement that we no longer connect meaningfully. I would like to say it means endings are more amicable, but as in messy divorces which are also formal, this is seldom the case. Where there was love, there will be loss and pain.

The reason my friends put up with my unspoken conFract, is because ultimately they think I am worth the commitment. They know I am a good friend and they wish to continue our friendship. They understand that while it might be a little awkward – there is method to my madness and we can all feel a little more secure. Strangely it can keep the lines of communication more open than closed because I want to help my friends meet my needs. I don’t want to ask more of them than they can offer. I don’t want to feel let down every week if they continuously cancel.

It’s always better to know what we can offer each other and accept from each other. Better to know what to expect than to be either disappointed, or, alternatively, resentful because one is asking or expecting more than the other has to offer. And it is always useful to be able to openly communicate about these things. While you might think this formal approach would kill the free spirit of the nature of friendship, it actually gives friendship the respect and commitment it deserves.

There is no literal paper, no signatures, just a conversation and as Sinada Maitreya put it “sign your name” (across my heart!) Except it sings “I want you to be my bestie” instead of baby! ❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx