What Kind Of Lookout Shall I Have In Life When... ??

[J_trustno1]

I feel the same vicious cycle is repeating?

Is there any permanent friendship of any kind in this world? Are there any permanent people in our lives?


I have had many people leave my life and being there temporarily and as soon as my role finished in their lives I am a complete stranger to them. It's been happening ever since I came into my sense (i.e. primary, high school, university and even now). I can't seem to think of one friend who was my friend for life. Never even had permanent in life. This isn't all about real world but also virtual/internet world too.

However, learned one of the most important lesson of life today which is no friendship is permanent. As soon as people realise that you can't do the same for them, they abandon you. Or when you become too boring or open up more to people they tend to withdraw. This time it happened on virtual world. I'm having self doubts now. I am back to the same feeling that I have been thrown down the deep end.

Hey, I try talking to them but it seems I am not that important anymore and maybe don't provide the support like others. No hard feelings, I should just toughen up and move ahead in life than depending on people. You can't depend on people regardless they are in real life or virtual life. However, this leaves me in a turmoil about future relationships. I feel that my future partner will leave me too or I will not have good friends in future. Starting to feel lonely over some stupid internet friendship (isn't that foolish of me? huh!). But being dumped last year (although, i did find out he was just fooling around with me while having a gf which i got to know this year) and now this friend leaving, it feels people don't value me as much as i value them. I don't know what to look up for and what to conclude from this? Shall I keep positive outlook of life or be stuck in that vicious negative cycle again?

Note: there was no argument from either side. I tried talking to that friend but they came up with an excuse and when I replied to their message, I never got any reply back. (I know they have seen the message but never replied). This happened in many occasions. I try hard being in contact with people but they abandon me. Is there something wrong with me? It's not that I am bugging them but I feel they are trying to get rid of me by avoiding me. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this in future? How much importance shall I give people in future and in how long?

Thanks

 

[macbeth]

I have to say that I value you. You really helped me through a tough night the other night. I know I was not that communicative and I hope I didn't upset you. You were so gracious when you message me and extended the hand of friendship. There is nothing wrong with you at all.

 

[J_trustno1]

Hey thanks Macbeth.. Sorry if you felt I was directing it towards you.. please don't feel this.

 

[Tanishq]

Jess, True friendships so do exist. I will say only this thing. :)

 

[macbeth]

No that's cool. It was a hard night for me and I just wanted to let you know it was appreciated.

 

[rightkindofme]

My best friend has been in my life since we were 12. Of course she was MEAN enough to marry a guy who lives in a different country so I don't see her as often at this stage. But we keep in touch. I just spent $200 to mail her kid clothes hand me downs because she named her daughter after me. (The clothes are all hand made otherwise it wouldn't be worth the $. I have a mother in law with serious talent.)

I am learning that each relationship in my life has a different amount of down time in between seeing people. Sometimes I don't see people for years in between visits because we live far apart. Sometimes people live nearby and I still don't see them more than three times a year.

That doesn't mean they aren't my friends. It means we are all very busy and this friendship isntourwhole lives. I can,I've with that. My friends get the time and energy I have leftover. These days that isn't much. I have to balance it among dozens of people I have tenuous connections with. No one gets a lot of me.

But I find that as the years go by I am close to someone for a while then we drift. We don't lose the friendship we just don't always have as big of a space in our lives as we originally had.

Black and white thinking makes patience with people hard. I have had to work at knowing that just because there are gaps in seeing people that doesn't make them stop liking me. The like keeps going.

 

[Chloekim]

There are genuine people out there. I have had very few friends who have been with me for years. Rightkind of me is right. They will drift in and out. But they are always there. It sounds more like the people u were friends with may be the ones not worth your time. Not the other way around.

 

[rainy_daze]

@jess_trustno1 , I have a brain that isn't doing well today, so sorry for being unable to come up with better answers to your questions. There were several parts of your post that struck a chord with me though:

I have had many people leave my life and being there temporarily and as soon as my role finished in their lives I am a complete stranger to them. It's been happening ever since I came into my sense

As soon as people realise that you can't do the same for them, they abandon you. Or when you become too boring or open up more to people they tend to withdraw.

Is there something wrong with me?

I've felt/thought those ways before.

I was friends with a woman who suffered from anorexia, and I believed she was a good friend. We enjoyed each other's company, and knew each other struggled so hard to live life. She cut me out of her life when she was better, by making different excuses each time we were going to meet up, until eventually I said "I'll leave it up to you when we meet". I never heard from her again.

When these things happen you begin to think there is something wrong with me. In the end though, unless someone says it is you, then in all likeliness it probably isn't. In the example above, maybe she was better, and didn't want to be around someone like me, who was (is?) entrenched in their own mental health problem. Maybe she felt we'd grown apart. Maybe she was too busy and then lost my number. Maybe there are a million reasons. I remember torturing myself mentally about this, thinking of all the reasons as to why she was acting this way. I was so hurt.

I try to realise now that sometimes I care for others in a way they do not care for me. I value people more than they maybe value me. I maybe see a deepness in friendships (or even in family relationships) that sometimes isn't there. I maybe expect that friendships will go on for years, when in reality people's lives changes so much, it isn't always possible. I realise how in the past I have given people too much of myself, while getting little support or happiness from them.

This can be a bad thing ^ if I allow it to hurt me. Instead, if I accept that not all friendships/relationships will be as deep or emotionally rich as I would like/am capable of, I find that it's not too bad when people float out of my life. I never thought I'd be comfortable with surface friendships that start and quickly end, but they seem to be common (@jess_trustno1 , like the ones you maybe had from university, etc, where once the course is over people suddenly forget about you?). These relationships take less effort anyway.

It isn't because I'm defective that people don't stay close friends with me. It's because people go about living their own lives, and sometimes I'm no longer as important. Honestly, that is fine, because I have managed to maintain some friendships along the way. But these close "permanent" friends I don't see often. If things go bad I can be there for them, and vice versa.

I believe relationships need to not be viewed in terms of time, jess. Give yourself a chance to get to know people and try not to expect too much. Understand that people may not be around in your life forever, or that they might well be. Try your hardest not to take offence when people leave you. (Easy for me to say).

I hope that large post makes sense. You sound so sad and lonely jess. I think feeling abandoned is such a terrible feeling, it makes you question so much about other people and yourself. I don't think there's anything wrong with you; I've spoken to you in chat a few times and you've always came across as an easy person to talk to.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Are you aware of the reason/season/lifetime saying for friendships? It has really helped me. I think it's important to realize that all relationships are different and there are no guarantees. If you go into every relationship looking for a lifetime companion, you will most often be disappointed as lifetime friends don't come along every day. If you see a relationship that doesn't last as a failure rather than realizing there were good times had, again, you will be disappointed as most relationships you won't have for a lifetime. I'm not trying to be harsh, but I think that changing your frame of mind can help. I'm not saying that you won't meet losers who are just bad friends, but don't discount every relationship that doesn't last to be a failure.

 

[rainy_daze]

How much importance shall I give people in future and in how long?

However much importance you want, and however much time you want, now that I think about it again. It's your life. If people don't value you or treat you in the way you deserve, i.e. by cutting you out, then it's up to you how much this impacts on you.

I guess I wonder if you know the answer to this question - how much time do you want to give people? How important do you want/will you allow others to be?

Good topic. I feel a bit emotionally drained, but I'll come back. I hope you feel better about this soon, jess.

 

[Changing4Best]

John Lennon said that we make plans, but life happens the way it will (or words to that effect)..

I've lost many a friend, especially since I've moved 3 times to different states in the USA.. The moves were all by necessity, not by my choice. I really had no say in any of them! My future husband asked me to move from NYC to NJ and then we needed to move to Florida (because he needed something that was not available in NYC or NJ). Once he died, I could no longer afford to live in Florida (it is a tourism state and thus everything is expensive and I only live on Social Security) so I moved to a less expensive area of the country: North Carolina.

Each time I moved, I lost all my local friends. However, I have had one friend online that has been with me since I lived in New Jersey. We stay in touch by Facebook and email quite often, though we used to visit personally when I lived in NJ. That was back in 1994.

I have a few Facebook "friends" that I went to High School with, but we rarely write. Even my family is kind of out of touch. My sister never calls me, though she does send me phone cards so I will have minutes to call her. None the less, she usually is studying for college, even though she says she will never use the info she's learning to get a job. It is like her studying is a hobby or something!

Her daughter rarely calls me, maybe once a month or so. She works 2 jobs and so I often call, but there is no answer. Eventually she calls me back, but rarely initiates a call on her own to me.

Unfortunately, my hubby and I were never able to have kids.

So I spend most of my time alone. I'm working on making a new friendship with a woman whose husband just died, on the basis that we are both widows. We keep planning to go out for coffee, but then something gets in the way, sometimes for me and sometimes for her. Either way, so far it has not really worked out other than short phone calls.

But there is one friend who is always with me and that is God. When I am lonely, I read the Bible, pray, listen for His voice and bask in His love. It really does help.

 

[Hope4Now]

@jess_trustno1 I am feeling both empathy and compassion. I have had few friends stay in my life for a long time. I am lucky, though, to have my husband--my good and deep friend--but I always have a nagging fear that our relationship will not last either. For the most part, most of the people who are my current friends are via circumstance. Perhaps I'm cynical and untrusting, but I know that what you say has some truth in it:

as soon as my role finished in their lives I am a complete stranger to them.

Yet, I am still friendly with these people. I still aim to get close to them. Figuring once in a while, one might stick. The relationship might deepen beyond the circumstance. It doesn't happen often, but it has once or twice. One of these people is in my life in a different circumstance, and I am risking the trust that he'll be around for a while.

So many times in my life, friends have abandoned me. Most of the time, it is because their lives and priorities change. I think they don't have much idea how deeply this hurts me. They're just caught up in their own stuff and don't have the time or energy to reach out and put in what it takes to keep a relationship going. Some of these people were very important to me, so I have reached out repeatedly over time and gotten not much response. Only one of them--my oldest friend--do I continue to make the effort even when she doesn't respond. I'm not willing to let that one go. I send a holiday card every year with a letter, and I try to call her once in the summer...always hoping that perhaps she'll emerge from her own preoccupations with her family life to realize there's an old friend out there who would like to reconnect.

Or when you become too boring or open up more to people they tend to withdraw.

This is really hard for me...knowing how much to open up to people...how much to make yourself vulnerable. You can't develop a deep relationship without doing this, yet it is so easy to get hurt. I struggle with this all the time. Sometimes I move too fast to deepen a relationship, or I reveal too much and it makes the person withdraw. Other times, I don't give up enough of myself and the person withdraws, sensing I am closed off. It is a tough call. But, if we want to be connected with people, we need to take the risk and know we can handle the abandonment if it happens.

I wish there were easy answers. I guess the easiest answer is that we need to be our own best friend. Then, go from there.