I don't have "intimate knowledge", she has mentioned to me in the past that usually her partner finishes earlier and he therefore collects their child. As I said I've asked maybe three times in the last 12 months - hardly "repeatedly asking" is it? I sometimes work till 1 am so it's not like I'm always free TO ask. Same with texting - how is it passive aggressive to say "Hi, me (and whoever and whoever) are going to (wherever) for (whoevers) birthday. Do you fancy it?" If you don't just say "no thanks". I never sent a repeat text (to anyone about anything) as I've kind of got that it's a "no" from their initial non-response. I still think it's rude (of anyone) not to respond though.
Like I said, my main feeling is sadness. But I guess I have to accept our lives are on different paths now.
You're using things she's said against her to form judgments. That kind of thing makes people less likely to want to talk. You're coming at the whole thing from a position of entitlement, that your friend should want to have dinner with you overwhelmingly in spite of other things going on in her life.
If there's a non-response to a text about a day out or a night out or something, just accept that as the answer and move on, without resentment. People are not obliged to respond to text messages.
You're using things she's said against her to form judgments. That kind of thing makes people less likely to want to talk. You're coming at the whole thing from a position of entitlement, that your friend should want to have dinner with you overwhelmingly in spite of other things going on in her life.
If there's a non-response to a text about a day out or a night out or something, just accept that as the answer and move on, without resentment. People are not obliged to respond to text messages.
That's what I said...I'll accept it, move on and be grateful that at least nothing turned nasty like some of the other stories on here. Just came to a natural end.
I can only go off what I know though to be fair to me. My brother and sister-in-law love it when I visit home for example as they have a babysitter for my nieces and can go out (with their friends or each other) and have a break. In asking her, that's all I was trying to do.
Not to be unkind or disrespectful, but I've never understood this. When I have a tough time I prefer to be kind of left alone to get through it. The last thing I want is for someone to call up randomly and start asking questions.
For serious subject I talk to my wife and I think about things. I don't need mates phoning me up to offer sympathy which is, in reality, worthless.
For someone who keeps saying they are very understanding. You are not doing a good job of being understanding here.
I hide away when I am unhappy, others cling to friends, some just like a phone call to ask if they are OK.
No one is wrong but if you have been good mates for 20 odd years, then it must come as a shock when you find that they dont know you or indeed even care.
I considerer myself a good freind I'm there if they want me to be, and not if they dont, and even I haver been stung when I least expected it.
For someone who keeps saying they are very understanding. You are not doing a good job of being understanding here.
I hide away when I am unhappy, others cling to friends, some just like a phone call to ask if they are OK.
No one is wrong but if you have been good mates for 20 odd years, then it must come as a shock when you find that they dont know you or indeed even care.
I considerer myself a good freind I'm there if they want me to be, and not if they dont, and even I haver been stung when I least expected it.
It does make you stronger.
Exactly. Pork chop is being ridiculous. Clearly some posts have a touched a nerve....:D
Exactly. Pork chop is being ridiculous. Clearly some posts have a touched a nerve....:D
All I'm saying is that we should all let people live their lives with placing demands or expectations on one another. Friendships will endure or they won't.
All people in here are asking is that those that they lend a shoulder to cry on do the same when they need a listening ear. Also a true friend would call up if someone or their family member was having a tough time and just say 'how are you?'.
They aren't demanding that people drop everything and rush to their aid. Even the member you are berating for wondering what is so hard for a reply to an invite isn't demanding anything. Just wishing that a little politeness was shown.
All people in here are asking is that those that they lend a shoulder to cry on do the same when they need a listening ear. Also a true friend would call up if someone or their family member was having a tough time and just say 'how are you?'.
They aren't demanding that people drop everything and rush to their aid. Even the member you are berating for wondering what is so hard for a reply to an invite isn't demanding anything. Just wishing that a little politeness was shown.
All people in here are asking is that those that they lend a shoulder to cry on do the same when they need a listening ear. Also a true friend would call up if someone or their family member was having a tough time and just say 'how are you?'.
They aren't demanding that people drop everything and rush to their aid. Even the member you are berating for wondering what is so hard for a reply to an invite isn't demanding anything. Just wishing that a little politeness was shown.
Listening ears shouldn't be offered only in the hope of the favour being returned.
All people in here are asking is that those that they lend a shoulder to cry on do the same when they need a listening ear. Also a true friend would call up if someone or their family member was having a tough time and just say 'how are you?'.
They aren't demanding that people drop everything and rush to their aid. Even the member you are berating for wondering what is so hard for a reply to an invite isn't demanding anything. Just wishing that a little politeness was shown.
You're clearly a very kind and understanding person. Thank you for making me feel better about my earlier post:)
Porkchopexpress - I do get your point in reply to what I said earlier, and it has made me rethink myself a bit, but, just on your last point, I want to say that I would honestly never, ever, lend a listening ear or do anything else for anyone in the expectation of getting something back; nevertheless, it does hurt when it seems that no one is there for you.
I've loads of Fair weather friends.
I'm of the opinion that it says more about me that them.
Decided that its time that i dismissed these so called friends. After a really shite xmas, a xmas that i don't want to repeat i'm getting rid.
I've loads of Fair weather friends.
I'm of the opinion that it says more about me that them.
Decided that its time that i dismissed these so called friends. After a really shite xmas, a xmas that i don't want to repeat i'm getting rid.
And do i feel better for doing it!
I kind of know what you mean Sarah. I have had so many friends let me down over the years, that I got so that I was almost frightened to make new friends. However, I do have a few really good friends now, but realise that most of the others were just aquantancies who have used me for their own benefit. True long-term friends are not that easy to come by. One friend gave me two used presents all wrapped up this year, they were obviously from the charity shop where she works. There were all scratched and dirty.
I kind of know what you mean Sarah. I have had so many friends let me down over the years, that I got so that I was almost frightened to make new friends. However, I do have a few really good friends now, but realise that most of the others were just aquantancies who have used me for their own benefit. True long-term friends are not that easy to come by. One friend gave me two used presents all wrapped up this year, they were obviously from the charity shop where she works. There were all scratched and dirty.
Please don't let me be the one who would stick up for someone who is a friend of a stranger, BUT, could those gifts not simply be all your "friend" could afford? I see nothing wrong with giving gifts from the charity shop. One man's brass is another's gold... Etc, etc... Maybe you are too fussy and your passing this fussiness down to your child? No one wants fussy children in the world. There's far too many of the ****ers as there is. >:( Either get rid or re-educate. Please. For all our sakes this Christmas.
I envy male friendships. They just seem straightforward and uncomplicated. If no-one gets in touch for months at a time, there's no emotional soul searching, or analysing why they haven't! A quick grunt hello and they just carry on from where they left off!
I envy male friendships. They just seem straightforward and uncomplicated. If no-one gets in touch for months at a time, there's no emotional soul searching, or analysing why they haven't! A quick grunt hello and they just carry on from where they left off!
I envy male friendships. They just seem straightforward and uncomplicated. If no-one gets in touch for months at a time, there's no emotional soul searching, or analysing why they haven't! A quick grunt hello and they just carry on from where they left off!
Nope, that's how emotionally unevolved males conduct their friendships. Some men are more sophisticated.
Please don't let me be the one who would stick up for someone who is a friend of a stranger, BUT, could those gifts not simply be all your "friend" could afford? I see nothing wrong with giving gifts from the charity shop. One man's brass is another's gold... Etc, etc... Maybe you are too fussy and your passing this fussiness down to your child? No one wants fussy children in the world. There's far too many of the ****ers as there is. >:( Either get rid or re-educate. Please. For all our sakes this Christmas.
Love, a homo atheist (AND, what?!!!) LOLz xxxxx
I take in what you are saying and I wondered if the cost of presents is the reason why. I don't object to anyone buying me things from a charity shop and often buy things for myself in them. However, I wouldn't give someone something that was dirty or broken as these things were, at least it could have been cleaned up a bit. You can get some good things in charity shops or car boot sales.
I am not a fussy person and I don't understand what you mean by saying I might be passing it down to my child as I don't have a child. Are you confusing me with another poster?
We're going around in circles a bit on this thread. I'd make a few points:
- Think about how easy modern communication is compared to, say, 20 years ago. Back then, when there was no email, no texting, no Facebook, no WhatsApp, and so on, if you wanted to contact a friend, you had to call them, landline to landline. Now ask yourself how many of your current 'friends' you'd still have under those circumstances. One of the big problems we have is that the ease of modern communications is extending friendships well beyond their natural lifespans, and that's not a good thing. We have a tendency to think we are closer to certain people than we really are, and vice versa, they can become too close to us. 20 years ago, your friends were mostly people you worked with, people who you saw at your local pub, and people you knew through sports or musical organisations. Nowadays its more complicated.
- If you have six friends in your life, you are doing very well. NOT people you associate with, or acquaintances, I mean FRIENDS. In that sense, I have about six, even though I rarely see some of them, when we do meet up I still feel very close.
- This is something I've learnt in the last couple of years. It's a very hard thing to say but I'm afraid it's a reality for both men and women: Parents tend to prefer the company of other parents, especially when their children are very young.
- Finally, you have to learn to take the rough with the smooth with certain friends. I have a friend who is a complete pain in the backside when he is drunk. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to put him in the back of a taxi or apologise for his behaviour on nights out. Why do I put up with him? Because he's a real gentleman most of the time and he looked after me through several difficult periods in my life.
All people in here are asking is that those that they lend a shoulder to cry on do the same when they need a listening ear. Also a true friend would call up if someone or their family member was having a tough time and just say 'how are you?'.
They aren't demanding that people drop everything and rush to their aid. Even the member you are berating for wondering what is so hard for a reply to an invite isn't demanding anything. Just wishing that a little politeness was shown.
I agree if someone has been there for someone else though think and thin and they are now having problems you may not ask or even want them to drop everything but they could at least ask if your Ok and if your ill say Hope You getting better soon-everything works out if they can't even be bothered to do that then they never were your friend in the first place.
I envy male friendships. They just seem straightforward and uncomplicated. If no-one gets in touch for months at a time, there's no emotional soul searching, or analysing why they haven't! A quick grunt hello and they just carry on from where they left off!
Even that can depend on how close you are.
for about 99% of people I know if they walked up to me in the street and told me they never wished to speak to me again I wouldn't care.
My best freind though if she cut the friendship off and never wanted anything to do with me again I would be very hurt and upset.
These true tales are horrific and I sympathise with everyone, but I think friendship is romanticised too much in our society - friends are the new family, and so on - and it's unrealistic.
I've never really trusted anyone enough to feel let down by them - feel it, not be it - because I know most friendships are superficial. It's the way it is. The only ones which aren't, usually have a hidden romantic agenda behind them and so aren't referrring to friends really.
I have recently been very upset by who I thought was a good friend. I have been friends with her for over twenty-three years. She moved away from this area just over three years ago. When she came round to say goodbye the week before she and her husband moved away, I gave her a card and lovely present for her new home. She told me not to be sad about her going away, because we would always remain good friends and would email and text each other and keep up with each other's news.
We did this and the last long email I got from her was in June telling me all about a holiday she had been on with her husband for their 40th wedding anniversary. I wrote back in July responding to this and telling her my bits of news. I wrote again in late August (not having heard from her in response to my last email) and told her about our summer holiday for our 30th wedding anniversary and about some health worries I have. At the beginning of October, I sent her a birthday card, and although she is usually good at thanking me for her cards, I still didn't hear from her. By late October, I was getting worried about her and wondered if she was alright, so I sent a text asking if she and the family were all ok and asked if she had received her birthday card. I got a very short text back saying that she had got the card and had just been on holiday with a friend.
Then I heard nothing more. Two days before Christmas, I was concerned that I still hadn't heard from her and had not even received a Christmas card when we have always exchanged them in the past, so I wrote a long email to her asking if everything was ok with her and her husband and said that I was concerned about her. I also told her the good news that my son had just got himself a job after a long period of unemployment. I also mentioned that I was in a great deal of pain, couldn't walk properly and am wating for an op in the new year. Within one hour, I got a very short and upsetting email back. In it she said that I should accept that she had moved away and that she has no intention of ever coming back here to see me (even though I know she has been up here this year and visited other friends). She said that she has now made new friends where she lives and that her friendship with me will now go by the wayside and that is just the way things are. She ended by saying that she hopes I am not upset.
I thought about this all over Christmas and think it was a very unkind and nasty thing to do especially so near to Christmas. She was always made welcome here, I was always there for her when she needed me and she was often invited to various family events. In her email, she didn't mention about my son's new job or about my health problem and the upcoming op. I have spoken to a couple of my friends about this and they are all shocked about it. Am I being too sensitive?
Sorry this has been so long.
I don't think you're being too sensitive at all. I think she's behaved very insensitively and shoddily. I think it's fair enough if she thinks now that it's not feasible for her to continue the friendship at a distance, but, most especially as she originally made a point of saying you'd be sure to keep in touch and not let the distance affect your friendship, the decent thing to do would have been to leave it till shortly after Xmas to tell you that - after a polite text or card to briefly say she'd be in touch later - and at least express good wishes for your health.
Even if she hadn't made a point of stressing you'd keep in touch, she should have said what she did after Xmas as we all know how much stress Xmas can be and how important it is to most of us to have a peaceful and non worrying, special Xmas.
I think you sound better off without a person like that in your life, but I sympathise with your disillusionment after such a long time of heavy investment on your part.
Comments
On the other hand:
"To find out whether you can trust someone, you have to trust them." - Hemingway
If there's a non-response to a text about a day out or a night out or something, just accept that as the answer and move on, without resentment. People are not obliged to respond to text messages.
That's what I said...I'll accept it, move on and be grateful that at least nothing turned nasty like some of the other stories on here. Just came to a natural end.
I can only go off what I know though to be fair to me. My brother and sister-in-law love it when I visit home for example as they have a babysitter for my nieces and can go out (with their friends or each other) and have a break. In asking her, that's all I was trying to do.
For someone who keeps saying they are very understanding. You are not doing a good job of being understanding here.
I hide away when I am unhappy, others cling to friends, some just like a phone call to ask if they are OK.
No one is wrong but if you have been good mates for 20 odd years, then it must come as a shock when you find that they dont know you or indeed even care.
I considerer myself a good freind I'm there if they want me to be, and not if they dont, and even I haver been stung when I least expected it.
It does make you stronger.
Exactly. Pork chop is being ridiculous. Clearly some posts have a touched a nerve....:D
All I'm saying is that we should all let people live their lives with placing demands or expectations on one another. Friendships will endure or they won't.
They aren't demanding that people drop everything and rush to their aid. Even the member you are berating for wondering what is so hard for a reply to an invite isn't demanding anything. Just wishing that a little politeness was shown.
Thank you for understanding the way I meant it.
Listening ears shouldn't be offered only in the hope of the favour being returned.
And I'm hardly berating anyone.
You're clearly a very kind and understanding person. Thank you for making me feel better about my earlier post:)
Porkchopexpress - I do get your point in reply to what I said earlier, and it has made me rethink myself a bit, but, just on your last point, I want to say that I would honestly never, ever, lend a listening ear or do anything else for anyone in the expectation of getting something back; nevertheless, it does hurt when it seems that no one is there for you.
Totally agree. I would've responded earlier but was left speechless by his comments >:(
Unlikely. I think you're being a bit dramatic there.
I'm of the opinion that it says more about me that them.
Decided that its time that i dismissed these so called friends. After a really shite xmas, a xmas that i don't want to repeat i'm getting rid.
And do i feel better for doing it!
I kind of know what you mean Sarah. I have had so many friends let me down over the years, that I got so that I was almost frightened to make new friends. However, I do have a few really good friends now, but realise that most of the others were just aquantancies who have used me for their own benefit. True long-term friends are not that easy to come by. One friend gave me two used presents all wrapped up this year, they were obviously from the charity shop where she works. There were all scratched and dirty.
Please don't let me be the one who would stick up for someone who is a friend of a stranger, BUT, could those gifts not simply be all your "friend" could afford? I see nothing wrong with giving gifts from the charity shop. One man's brass is another's gold... Etc, etc...
Love, a homo atheist (AND, what?!!!) LOLz xxxxx
Nope, that's how emotionally unevolved males conduct their friendships. Some men are more sophisticated.
I take in what you are saying and I wondered if the cost of presents is the reason why. I don't object to anyone buying me things from a charity shop and often buy things for myself in them. However, I wouldn't give someone something that was dirty or broken as these things were, at least it could have been cleaned up a bit. You can get some good things in charity shops or car boot sales.
I am not a fussy person and I don't understand what you mean by saying I might be passing it down to my child as I don't have a child. Are you confusing me with another poster?
Your post is a bit of a puzzle.
- Think about how easy modern communication is compared to, say, 20 years ago. Back then, when there was no email, no texting, no Facebook, no WhatsApp, and so on, if you wanted to contact a friend, you had to call them, landline to landline. Now ask yourself how many of your current 'friends' you'd still have under those circumstances. One of the big problems we have is that the ease of modern communications is extending friendships well beyond their natural lifespans, and that's not a good thing. We have a tendency to think we are closer to certain people than we really are, and vice versa, they can become too close to us. 20 years ago, your friends were mostly people you worked with, people who you saw at your local pub, and people you knew through sports or musical organisations. Nowadays its more complicated.
- If you have six friends in your life, you are doing very well. NOT people you associate with, or acquaintances, I mean FRIENDS. In that sense, I have about six, even though I rarely see some of them, when we do meet up I still feel very close.
- This is something I've learnt in the last couple of years. It's a very hard thing to say but I'm afraid it's a reality for both men and women: Parents tend to prefer the company of other parents, especially when their children are very young.
- Finally, you have to learn to take the rough with the smooth with certain friends. I have a friend who is a complete pain in the backside when he is drunk. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to put him in the back of a taxi or apologise for his behaviour on nights out. Why do I put up with him? Because he's a real gentleman most of the time and he looked after me through several difficult periods in my life.
I agree if someone has been there for someone else though think and thin and they are now having problems you may not ask or even want them to drop everything but they could at least ask if your Ok and if your ill say Hope You getting better soon-everything works out if they can't even be bothered to do that then they never were your friend in the first place.
Even that can depend on how close you are.
for about 99% of people I know if they walked up to me in the street and told me they never wished to speak to me again I wouldn't care.
My best freind though if she cut the friendship off and never wanted anything to do with me again I would be very hurt and upset.
Maybe it's not your intention, but that is how you're coming across in your posts to MissCharleyP.
I've never really trusted anyone enough to feel let down by them - feel it, not be it - because I know most friendships are superficial. It's the way it is. The only ones which aren't, usually have a hidden romantic agenda behind them and so aren't referrring to friends really.
I don't think you're being too sensitive at all. I think she's behaved very insensitively and shoddily. I think it's fair enough if she thinks now that it's not feasible for her to continue the friendship at a distance, but, most especially as she originally made a point of saying you'd be sure to keep in touch and not let the distance affect your friendship, the decent thing to do would have been to leave it till shortly after Xmas to tell you that - after a polite text or card to briefly say she'd be in touch later - and at least express good wishes for your health.
Even if she hadn't made a point of stressing you'd keep in touch, she should have said what she did after Xmas as we all know how much stress Xmas can be and how important it is to most of us to have a peaceful and non worrying, special Xmas.
I think you sound better off without a person like that in your life, but I sympathise with your disillusionment after such a long time of heavy investment on your part.