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... but I feel like for mostly every one of my friendships after my college years, that I've been the one working harder to maintain the friendship. The one exception is my best bud, who I have known for most of my life. But other than him, I feel like I need to call, invite out, and facebook my friends more times and with more initiative than they will with me. And these friends run the gamut from social people to nerds.
It goes for acquaintances too. I feel like if I facebook someone, they won't respond, but every time someone facebooks me, I usually respond.
Are these the symptoms of somebody who is not as social as they think they are?
I have in the past until I got tired of it and the friendships died. To me it means that they weren't as into me as I was into them. I had my light bulb moment with one ex-friend after knowing her for 30 years. I always felt this friend was really funny and cool. I knew her since we were 5-years-old and I loved her like a sister. Over the years I always made the effort to maintain the connection even after college...well into adult hood. The last straw was inviting her over and her blowing me off then later I see on FB she hung out with some other people. I realized that our friendship was one-sided. I never told her off or got all dramatic but I pulled back and now she is just a hi and bye acquaintance.
Yeah I feel that way, making the effort to keep in contact and keep things going. Figure it's time to cut the losses. If people want to be freinds they will contact me for once, rather than me being the person saying "hey want to do this, that, the other thing, want to go out for dinner, etc"
Sometimes, yes. I quit trying with a lot of those people years ago. I figure I've had the same email address and phone number for over ten years...if someone needs to get a hold of me, it's not difficult and they're more than welcome to. I'm just not going to chase after old friends who can't be bothered to reciprocate my efforts.
Friendship is really up and down sometimes. It can be frustrating when people don't reach out as much as we do. I have had a lot of friendships like this. Some I let go, finally. Finally! Some I keep at it.
One friend I've known for 20 years really has frustrated me (She was always glad to hear from me but her life was so different than mine, so many times I felt if I just quit calling.... what would happen...) but recently we talked about some of it by email. I was surprised!
She had given me advice about finding people at work or through volunteering to find my like-family friends. I thought... what? Was she excluding herself? It felt like she was! When I emailed her, asked her if she was including herself (better than my orginial wording of excluding herself)? She wrote back and admitted she wrote without thinking. And we wrote back and forth and she said I was like a sister to her with what we share.
So, sometimes you have to be honest. See what happens. Nothing will change if you let the status quo stay the same without action. And if you give up on a friendship without doing this, who knows what might have happened.
I feel the same way. I'm really tired of it. I get lonely sometimes, but I'd rather be alone then ALWAYS being the one to maintain relationships. It's sad really, but I grew up in a military family. We moved a lot so I guess that's part of it. That's why I got into activities that I didn't necessarily need other people around. Hiking, kayaking, rollerblading... stuff like that. It sucks though. :-( Hopefully one day I'll meet someone right for me!
Yeah, amongst the people that I could possibly call "friends", Im the only one who ever makes contact. If I didnt text/call, Im pretty sure theyd be comfortable with never talking to me again.
Its kind of sad if you think about it, makes you wonder how good of a friend they are or even if they were a friend at all. Maybe Im just an annoyance or some "duty" they have.
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I don't think so...
