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Simply based on your post my impression is that you are dominating the taking. Everyone is selfish to some degree...understandable. However, it can become one-sided. If only one friend or family member is choosing not to be there for you that might simply be them. If multiple people (to quote you...everyone you've ever known) are responding to you this way the common denominator is YOU, not them. You accuse them of wanting to talk about themselves, but you are doing exactly the same thing....you are being as selfish as the people you are accusing. A lot of me, me, me, me going on in these conversations. How glorious everything about you is.
I can see why it appears that way, because in this post I am going on and on about myself, but that's just because I have to explain how I feel. I don't act this way with people, I don't even tell them things about myself. My friends bombard me with their news and their problems before I am even allowed a chance to say anything, that is why I don't talk about myself. I post it on FB because that's what FB is for, sharing things about your life, but I never just approach a friend and start talking about myself. In fact even when my friends come over to my house to visit, we never talk about my life, it's still always their life. 99% of the time the conversations are about them. I have a shelf full of like 300 movies, but when my friends come over, they bring a bag full of their movies and that's all we're allowed to pick from. All I'm doing in this thread is venting because I am not getting my fair share of time to talk about myself, something I don't think is selfish, it is needed. But it needs to be 50/50, not 1/99 like it is with my relationships and friendships.
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To someone who isn't having such a fantastic life, hearing someone else gloat is exhausting and a turn off. You are sort of bragging. Braggarts get old; and fast.
But how do you explain the other 45 years of my life then? I have only been having a great life for the last year and a half. I used to be depressed, I used to work 65 hours a week, I rarely went anywhere, and I still got treated like this then. But as for "gloating", half of my friends on FB do the same thing, that is what FB should be for and not whining and complaining. And the posts where I am "gloating", they get the most likes. Just not from my close friends. I have people all the time telling me they love following my travels and that I should be a travel blogger (something I am in the process of doing).
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All that is important to YOU is yourself; your adventures, your travels, your desires, where you want to go eat, the festivals you insist they accompany you to. You want to be the focus and center of everything that involves these other people.
No it just comes off that way in my post because I am having to explain how I get no support or respect. That doesn't mean I need to be the only one that gets support and respect, it means I want it to be equal. We ALWAYS go where my friends want to go, so I should be allowed to be unhappy about the fact that I never get to pick where we go. I am not saying I want them to listen to me 100% of the time.
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At some point when a friend or family member feels they are getting the short end of the stick they'll start limiting their time around you because you suck the air out of the room.
Funny you say that, because this is how I feel about a few of my friends. I actually have to take a break from them because I can't mentally deal with their energy anymore, because they are demanding of my time and mental energy which I barely have enough of to start with.
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The manner in which you described the times you were "there for them" even sounds like it was an inconvenience for you, an obligation. Not something done out of caring.
I don't know how you got that from what I said. I love birthdays and I always want to spend someone's birthday with them, and mine with them too. I write everyone's birthdays on my calendar and I dont make plans for that day. I don't consider it an obligation, it's more of a tradition to spend birthdays with someone, especially in my family. When my dad was alive, I was the only one that spent Fathers Day with him one year and he was pretty upset that my brother wasn't there.
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Because you say everyone around you does this it is past time to look at yourself and how much you are demanding of them.
I am not demanding anything, they are the ones who are demanding by dominating the conversations and our plans together. If you're talking about giving suggestions on where to go, that's not being demanding. I still deserve respect in the form of a reply, you don't think it's rude for someone to not even reply when you send them a message?
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IMHO you need to become more sensitive to when the scales need to be evened out before you lose another person.
I haven't lost anyone, unless you're talking about the ex boyfriends, but losing them was my choice. And honestly I have tried to let go of a few of these friends but they contact me on a daily basis and I feel bad not responding.
I wouldn't say it is normal in the sense that this is good for you. But does it happen? Yes. When people start ignoring you, it means you did not pick up on social cues to stop doing what you are doing. Your actions did not build a relationship with them in the past and will not in the future.
There was once a lady who kept sending me long texts and inviting me to all kinds of activities. When I told her that we needed to end the friendship because of her behavior, her response was that she believed she was trying to help me out of my shell. I thanked her but told her that I wasn't interested in being helped.
That lady in your example was someone who was unwanted. I am not unwanted, the person who ignores my messages is my best friend of 30 years! We hang out on a weekly basis and take trips together, in fact we are going on another trip this weekend. By him ignoring my messages, it only tells me that he doesn't want to hear about my suggestions, which is how he is with everything else in our friendship too. When we visit each others houses, he will only watch his movies, not mine, he will actually bring a bag of his own movies over when he comes to my house. The thing is we love the same movies! He is the same way with music, when we get in my car, he always turns the volume down so he can talk, but in his car his music is so loud that I can't talk. He is like this with other friends too, not just me.
That reminds me of a poster on here that posts super long responses. I used to read them but now when scrolling through a thread and I see their name I keep scrolling. Just as I suspected there is a three paragraph response.
So, maybe OP there is something you are doing that is making your family and friends scroll passed you.
Sometimes close associates talk to each other and it gets around. Most aqauntaintances don’t know us.
But they are the ones that talk way more than me! My one friend ignores my messages but in person he doesn't talk about me, only him. My other friends send me long paragraphs, this one friend will send me 10-15 messages at a time before I even get a chance to respond. Another friend sends long paragraphs, a few at a time usually, and if I dont respond right away, sometimes she'll call me and talk about herself for sometimes 3 hours, that is why I stopped answering the phone when she calls.
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Stop FB. That’s is a place to brag. I don’t do FB.
FB is the only social networking site I use, that is how I keep up with events and festivals. I have a few Pages for my websites and blogs that I share information about. I have friends who "brag" on there way more than I do, but those posts seem to get the most likes so that is what people want to see, not depressing complaining posts. I used to do those and only got a few likes, now that I post positive things I get way more likes. Not that it's about how many likes I get, it's what people like to see, and they even tell me they like to see posts of what I am up to. I belong to a lot of groups on FB too, for my interests and hobbies. I don't use FB to brag about how great my life is, I use it to connect with like minded people and keep up with events. All I'm saying is I have noticed a trend where on FB, my closest friends seem to ignore my most-loved posts. And one of them will make a comment when I don't like her posts!! It is so unbalanced.
I told her I didn’t want to be forced to maintain a friendship only through FB. Not everyone wants to maintain friendships just by liking posts or by superficial communication.
I don't maintain friendships only on FB, I see them in person regularly, except for one who lives 1500 miles away. FB is just a way for us to keep in touch anytime and share things.
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The OP also seem to interests but doesn’t seem to want to spend time talking to people about their interests. They may view her as a time suck.
That's ALL I do is talk about their interests though! That is why I'm complaining, because I do it for them but they dont do it for me. It isn't just about interests though, it's mostly about just what is going on in our lives. For example I have been searching my entire life for what my life purpose is, what job I should be doing. I finally figured it out, and my best friend of 30 years has nothing to say about it. I casually mention it in conversation, and he doesn't say a single word, just changes the subject to something about this movie he wants us to watch or something. So I talk about this movie with him for the next half hour.
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I also don’t now why someone who is clearly in her thirties or older would need someone to wait around opening presents with her like she is 5.
It is a family tradition for us to celebrate birthdays, other families do it too. The thing is, my brothers kids were there, but he and his wife didn't want to be. Grocery shopping was apparently more fun (or for him, sitting in the car, which is about the most boring thing I could think of). My mom was so upset about this too that she said maybe next year we shouldn't even invite them. I said ok maybe not him and his wife if they clearly don't care (she never has, but my brother used to care), but I said I still wanted to see the kids (they are 5 and 13).
It might be because your online persona is different from what your family and friends know.
This is from your other thread:
"I don't have a job right now, I am currently living off an inheritance while I take some courses so I can work online (office and computer skills). I am sure my budget would be pretty low, I would most likely take the cheapest I could get. Right now I live in a mobile home that is paid off and my lot rent is $300, but I don't plan on moving until my mother passes away so not anytime soon."
I'm not sure how that quote relates to what you said.
My family is not on FB, so that wouldn't pertain to them. And the only way my online persona is different is because in person, they don't let me talk about myself so I have to just sit there and talk about their lives all the time. It's like they don't want me to have a personality, I just exist to talk about them.
I was thinking maybe your close friends don't respond on facebook, because being as they're close friends, they interact more with you in real time, face to face?
But then when we ARE face to face, why do they still not care about my life? When I bring up anything about my life, he either doesn't respond at all or just might make a "hmm" sound and then change the subject to himself.
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And...you know...some people HAVE a facebook account, but rarely check in. Like my husband. I'm on Facebook everyday, but he maybe checks his page once a month. Just a thought.
My friends use FB constantly, even more than I do. There have been times where I don't post anything for 3 or 4 days. One of my friend sits on FB all day at work and posts about 50 times a day, another friend has her phone in her hand even while she sleeps and checks FB every time she wakes up, and she posts 5-10 times a day. My other friend who lives 1500 miles away, so FB is the only way she can contact me. My point is, my friends are on FB way more than I am and are way more active than I am, and they like other people's posts, so that is how I know they are just not liking mine on purpose. My friend that I go camping with all the time, he will like my posts of US camping together but not the ones of me camping by myself. It's just odd to me.
FP seems to be a center of your social life. There is a real world out there.
I only use FB when I am home, not when I am at festivals, camping, at my friends houses, or whatever else I am doing. But that still doesn't explain why they don't care about my life or support me when my life is going good.
If these "friends" are not interested in anything you have to say, don't really get back to you and all that.... How are they your "close" friends?
I've been through the same disinterest with a big group of "friends". It hurted me a lot and I didn't really understand why. I was also struggling with severe depression, and the "friendship" situation really didn't help at the time. So I have to ask, are you the "Karen of the group"? Is that dynamic like what you're going through now?
Otherwise, all what you're going through... That's your normal and it seems you learned this sort of thing is ok from your mom? Which might explain why you don't catch the red flags quickly.
If these "friends" are not interested in anything you have to say, don't really get back to you and all that.... How are they your "close" friends?
Well they are the closest of my friends meaning the other friends I have are ones I don't see as often. The main culprit of my complaints is like a brother to me, we met 30 years ago, our families even know each other, we owned a house together once, we hang out on a weekly basis and back when we lived in the same town it was sometimes a daily basis (even when we didnt live together). He isn't a horrible person though, I mean he does favors for me and fixes things for me around the house, stuff like that. But when it comes the other things, he falls short. That is why I have made other friends too, but they seem to be almost as bad as him (and worse in other ways).
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I've been through the same disinterest with a big group of "friends". It hurted me a lot and I didn't really understand why. I was also struggling with severe depression, and the "friendship" situation really didn't help at the time. So I have to ask, are you the "Karen of the group"? Is that dynamic like what you're going through now?
By "Karen" you mean the person that complains all the time? No, I never complain, that is why it has all built up and I have to release it here. My friends don't know each other though, so there is no group, I met them all in different ways (school, work, festivals, online groups)
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Otherwise, all what you're going through... That's your normal and it seems you learned this sort of thing is ok from your mom? Which might explain why you don't catch the red flags quickly.
That could be true (about my mom), she was married to my dad for 17 years before she left him for not respecting her and forcing her to do his activities but not taking an interest in hers. Another thought I had was about psychology how we put our best behaviors on display when we first meet people and then as the relationship progresses we act more like ourselves, you know how they say you don't really know someone truly until you've known them for a few years. So all my friends were equal with give and take when I met them. With the 30 year friendship, it almost feels too late to walk away now, he is more like a brother to me than my own brother (being there on my birthday this year when my brother wasn't, fixing things for me, etc.) but the women friends I have I have tried to let them go once I saw the way they were but that is hard to do because I feel bad ending friendships. With one of them I did bring up the fact that all we talk about is her and her response was to argue that it was because she is always going through problems and I don't have any problems to talk about. She got pretty defensive, so I just thought ok it's better not to bring my concerns up to my friends, to just let them contact me first which is what i've been doing, and they still contact me on a daily basis or every few days. I think they need me to talk about their life to, and that also makes it feel harder to tell them how I feel, l don't want to be a bad friend. But it just sucks the energy out of me sometimes and I have to step back.
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