Last week we looked at the difference between emotionally venting to a friend, and emotionally dumping on a friend. At the end of that post, I came to question if my current dumper friend, is confusing sympathy and pity as care and compassion as a defining feature of friendship. This week I wanted to explore that concept a little further.
While sympathy, and empathy are components of deep connections in the platonic sphere, they should not be confused with pity. Discussing this with my armchair psychology friend, by which I mean the friend who likes to pick apart and guess at the psychology and why’s of peoples behaviours with me, despite the fact that neither of us are in any way qualified in psychology, she mentioned a friend of hers. Let’s call this friend Maggie, that isn’t her real name, I’ll call her that for the sake of anonymity.
Maggie is a classic dumper. Every time she talks with my friend, she is down in the dumps. She complains constantly about the state of her life, while doing nothing to address the issues. She complains of loneliness and having no friends, despite my friends efforts to develop a friendship with her. She uses health issues as an excuse to isolate herself, and is constantly testing the people in her life waiting for them to fail. Once they make a critical error, they are cut off in the same way Maggie cuts off her own nose to spite her face. Maggie is never wrong, she is always the victim and nobody cares about her.
When my friend tries to suggest that other people might get busy, and forget things like Maggie’s birthday this is unacceptable, and when it is suggested that someone who hasn’t been in touch for a few months might be ill, or dealing with a crisis of their own, that is dismissed as an unacceptable excuse. If they cared enough, they would remember. They know that she is lonely, isolated, disabled and financially struggling. Nothing they could be going through would possibly compare to her own problems which should take priority.
Maggie disputes that they could ever forget her or her problems if they cared, because she is never shy about sharing her problems. In her mind, the only way they can express friendship is via sympathy, however, she doesn’t seem to realise that she isn’t displaying any for other people, and is actually holding people hostage via pity rather than a genuine connection. I don’t think this is a conscious thing, because nobody wants a pity friendship, they want to be liked and loved and celebrated. Seen, heard and understood. Validated.
Maggie is operating from a deep fear of abandonment which is turning into a self fulfilling prophecy. She is making the friendships all about herself and has no self awareness of how she is pushing people away. My friend feels like Maggie is the kind of person you could spend all day with, and it still wouldn’t be enough for her. She would complain of being lonelier when you left, or upset that you couldn’t come again the next day or more regularly. She doesn’t realise how much she is taking and expecting of others and how little she is offering in return. Nor is she open to hearing it. Maggie has convinced herself she will die alone and is almost ensuring that turns out to be true.
That’s not to say she isn’t grateful for what she does receive. When my friend sent her flowers on her recent birthday she was touched to tears and couldn’t express how meaningful this was to her or her gratitude. And although she isn’t in a position to return the favour on my friends upcoming birthday, I hope Maggie finds her own way of celebrating my friend and acknowledging her friendship and what a kind, patient, loyal and generous person my friend is. I’m no holding my breath though. She will likely fail to acknowledge the day at all, and use her own health and problems as an excuse for forgetting. Funny how she is allowed to forget and expects grace, but isn’t able to extend that same grace to others.
My friend does find communicating with Maggie to be exhausting, however she too remembers a time in her own life when she felt so alone and just needed someone, anyone to listen and care. She is paying it forward with no expectations of Maggie to really reciprocate, as she acknowledges Maggie doesn’t seem to have the emotional or financial resources to give back right now. I suppose you could liken her connection to Maggie as a bit of a charity.
The kind who is always calling asking for more donations, with endless problems and not enough resources to solve them without community support. The kind who kind of knows they are emotionally manipulating you, but does it anyway because it works. And people continue to donate time and money etc.. because it makes them feel good about themselves to help. To be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Unlike myself and my new friend, where I hold hope that in time she will be in a position to reciprocate and build a meaningful connection beyond sympathy and support, my current friend accepts that this is all it is likely to be between herself and Maggie, and she is ok with it for her own reasons. And she is able to hold some distance, holding space for Maggie, and feeling sympathy for her rather than friendship. Wanting to help, rather than bond. Each wanting to feel important, rather than truly intimate.
It takes all kinds of people to make this world go around, and there is a place for this kind of relationship between a giver and a taker. I admire my friend and her commitment to Maggie. She does care, but I wouldn’t go confusing it with friendship, which takes both people, caring about each other, and sharing much more than just tales of sorrow and woe. Caring and compassion are important elements in friendship, but they can’t be the only ones.
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
