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Old 12-06-2012, 06:10 PM   #16
orthodoc
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Sorry, limey... that's painful. Hard to know, sometimes ... my best friend from the time we were 7 years old drifted away a bit as we got into our 20s, and then got married without telling me or inviting me (she was my maid of honor). She had two friends stand up for her - friends I'd introduced her to. They didn't tell me, either. I've never known what that was all about - yet since my diagnosis she has come back, written me twice a week and made surprise phone calls (she lives 12 hours away). So I'm grateful that the pendulum has swung back. I hope it will for you, too, in time.
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Old 12-07-2012, 05:03 PM   #17
Aliantha
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sundae View Post
No.
Because you are not my friend.
Not now not ever.
























Of course I don't mean it,
Here.
I missed all that stuff about your liver Sundae. I guess the doc has told you by now that you can fix a damaged liver, as long as it's not diseased. Your liver is pretty much the only internal organ that can regenerate so to speak. I had some liver troubles myself some time back, but things are back to normal now. I just had to eat better and stay off the booze more or less. Basically give it a chance to fix itself, and it did in due course.

I hope you are as lucky. xx
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Old 12-07-2012, 05:12 PM   #18
Aliantha
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About the OP. I think friends come and go sometimes. Other times they stay. I have come to believe that you don't have to know someone intimately to have them be a friend to you.

I think a common mistake most of us make is thinking that because a friendship drifts apart or even seems to end abruptly, that someone has done something wrong or something. I've come to have a more fatalistic view of friendship over the last couple of years, and I now believe that a friend is anyone who wants to help you even with something small, and someone who you feel good about having in your life, and like all other facets of life, it's best to enjoy it when you have it and cherish the memories you create.

I just think life is not meant to be a one track thing. We all change (hopefully mostly for the better as we get older and wiser) and sometimes we need different things from our friends and what was once important maybe loses some significance, through no fault of anyone other than the changing nature of our lives.

Don't be sad when the boundaries of a friendship change. Instead, anticipate the arrival of another special person who may be just around the corner. So many times we close ourselves off to new 'friends' because we're too smug about the friendships we already have.

Those are the things I've learned up till now. We'll see what happens down the track though.
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Old 12-07-2012, 06:40 PM   #19
footfootfoot
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Thanks to Dana for turning me on to Richard Herring

Speaking about Friends:

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Old 12-13-2012, 11:49 AM   #20
Big Sarge
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Sigh... I really don't have any friends. I was very close to my officers when I was chief, but once I was gone they just drifted away. I think I bonded more with my soldiers on deployments than anyone. You could open up and share with them. Strange as it might seem, they know more about me than my brother or father.

To sift through this, it seems I can only form friendships based upon common/shared emotional experiences. I guess I'm pretty messed up. It is so sad when you realize that you'll spend your golden years alone. Well, I guess I won't always be alone. I'll have the ghosts of certain troops with me. They visit me in my dreams almost every night

Sorry for being such a bummer. This time of year is always hard on me unless I am deployed
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Old 12-13-2012, 05:31 PM   #21
Aliantha
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Sarge, you know that's not true. You have a number of very real friends here and you know it. Stop forgetting.
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Old 12-14-2012, 07:13 AM   #22
Trilby
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Sarge---you know you have friends here. Cyberspace is a bit different, yes, but we ARE here.

When I was a teen and in my 20's I had loads of friends ---- so many I couldn't properly attend to all of them. One year I went to six different christmas parties; now I go to zero. I think it's a combination of age, time and the nature of people. I've always admired people who had friends since childhood but my two best buds moved away and I changed schools so many times....and I was clinically depressed and stoned in HS so you can imagine the 'friends' I made there. Nobody really lasting; they're either dead, in jail or going to AA three times a day. I called one of my very best buds up about three months ago and the woman HUNG UP ON ME. I hadn't talked to her for ages so I don't know what I did; people change. Then you pretend the people you work with are friends---and maybe some of them really ARE---but usually it's work that glues you together and if you change jobs or shifts--poof! they are gone. Not b/c they don't like you it's just that everyone is so busy busy busy it's hard to take time to actually BE with somebody. I learned a hard lesson. A girl i worked with whom I thought of as a friend told me, "People you work with aren't your friend; they're your co-workers," and bazinga. It hit me.

There are some people (two? three?) I can go to with my sob stories and first world problems, but I'll never have the closeness I used to feel when I was younger and the world was a lot shinier. Maybe, someday, I will, like the women on Who the Fuck did I Marry? find a real man to have a real relationship with.

But i'm not betting on it.

this IS a rough time of year---I hated Christmas for a long time; alone in my one bedroom walkup, working 11-7am, my boys gone, my drugs the only comfort I had. I would sit and listen to the clock tick and think of killing myself. It was horrible. I was sooooooooo lonely and sad. I shot demerol so I would be unconscious.

but you know what? Slowly, very slowly, it got a bit better. Things got a little less painful (and things were pretty painful --- even the air motes hurt my skin) and I couldn't off myself b/c of the boys.

People are in our lives for a reason or a season and then they move on and other people take their place; better people usually, more enlightened people to help show us the way...and then THEY leave but OTHERS come....unclench your fist to accept the new thing.

Hugs to you Sarge. You're a good guy.
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Old 12-14-2012, 07:25 AM   #23
infinite monkey
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I go between thinking I am blessed with friends, and thinking that people don't like me and why would they...I've been told that if people really knew me they wouldn't like me. But my few IRL friends really know me, and seem to like me.

I have a good friend who I used to work with. We meet up every now and then and talk shop, talk life, talk men, talk jokes...everything. I've admired her since I met her (when we interviewed her lo those many years ago.) She's beautiful beyond belief, but is absolutely oblivious to that fact. She is in a committed relationship and they love each other very much. She and he don't really argue, they're both so even keel. She had a very rough childhood and yet she and her sisters have all done really well with their lives. They take care of their younger brother who is a bit on the slow side, but a really sweet guy. They are, for all intents and purposes, the parents to their parents. She is much younger than I am, but it's not like I'm playing the Wise Old Sage (though, surprisingly enough, she does ask me for advice on some issues. Me? Advice?)

I know that if you have a handful of really close friends you are lucky. I'm not easy to be friends with at times, when I'm isolating because I don't believe I have a damn thing to offer the event to which I am invited.

Tril, you're right about the holidays. I seem to be getting worse. I have my family, but I feel more and more like the black sheep. I know that this will pass. It always does. But as I get older I worry that I'm going to be some sort of recluse. In fact, sometimes I want that. My brother says 'no, you need people' and I wonder if I do.

I have not yet learned in any significant way that many people, as a general rule, will stab you in the back, lie to you, use you, and hurt you. I have not yet been able to recognize that from the get-go.

Anyway, just some semi-depressed ramblings.

Just, lonely peoples, we never know what can happen. We never know who can come into our lives...be it friends or something more. So we can only keep offering ourselves up on the sacrificial altar and know we'll probably fall off, but hoping that we might just have found the right mix.
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Old 12-14-2012, 07:54 AM   #24
Trilby
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may I ask---who told you 'if people really knew you they wouldn't like you' --?

being alone and happy= Merry Recluse

being alone and isolating=depression of some sort; rumination; fear; or, for me -- sometimes it's pure laziness. People can be so exhausting; even people I really like drain me.

I'm a sponge and I soak up other people's vibes and feelings but I'm learning how NOT to do that so much and eventually will stop altogether.

We've all been hurt in some way. You have to KEEP GETTING BACK UP. And if nothing changes, nothing changes. Force yourself to do one thing you don't want to do, just for exercise----go to the family gathering; go to the workplace lunch; go to the mall with someone....little by little things will get better. but it's a process----not an event!

I used to want Goddess to come to me in burning bush (ok, opened myself up for lots of jokes there) and Speak to Me. Well, turns out, she speaks thru others so I have to be around others-----but I DON"T have to be around others who suck. I choose warm and fuzzy.

I had a sponsor who was ex-military and schooled in interrogation techniques. She's a lawyer AND an RN. She takes on cases for state foster children and sees more shit in a day than I do in a year. She's a good woman, but she's not warm and fuzzy. I need warm and fuzzy; so, she's no longer my sponsor. I have a really super SWEET woman now. A lot of it is just KNOWING what you NEED. warm and fuzzy is okay. so is Drill Sargant----just not for me.
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic.

"Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her.
—James Barrie


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Old 12-14-2012, 08:01 AM   #25
infinite monkey
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Trilby View Post
may I ask---who told you 'if people really knew you they wouldn't like you' --?
My ex. You know, the person who I loved more than anyone. The one who I told early on that he put me on a pedestal and I was bound to fall off (but he said he would catch me and not let me fall) and the person I trusted more than anyone else on earth.

It was just a small part of a multi-level style of abuse. And I've never gotten over it, really. I've forgiven him, but I don't think the damage caused will ever go away. And it affects me. In way too many ways. I was sensitive to start with, but arent' we the kinds who typically become the target?
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Old 12-14-2012, 08:02 AM   #26
Aliantha
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Dazza is pretty anri social. I keep telling him hes asd, and he keeps on just doing the same thing. Anyway, i was going to say that he came home a few nights ago complaining about secret santa atwork and how he was going to get out of it. He was told the next day that theres no escaping it. lol. So anyway, i sent him to work with a gift for some fitness freak type chick.

I digress.

My point is, you can be perfectly happy and still want to avoid people. Poor Dazza married me, so hes shit outta luck in that department, but one day he might kill me off and go live on some deserted beach.
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Old 12-14-2012, 08:15 AM   #27
Trilby
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Ah, the ex.

You recognize that he was an abuser on 'mulit-levels' - right?

his being an abuser invalidates anything he said. HE was damaged; not you. having lived with an extremely emotionally abusive father i have come to KNOW in my bones (and after 6 years of CBT) that it's not me, it's HIM.

It really really is HIM. He's damaged, he's jealous, he's mean, he's miserly, he's socially ignorant and proud to be, he's a bully-------not me. He didn't like me from the day I first drew breath. I am healing. You can, too.

and both my ex's think I'm crazy. One of them thinks I'm damaged b/c I was born onn Leap Year! LOL! Now that is crazy!!!
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic.

"Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her.
—James Barrie


Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum
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Old 12-14-2012, 12:23 PM   #28
DanaC
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Oh, Sarge. This is a shit time of year for stuff like that.

I don't have a huge number of friends. A few close friends, and a number of less close friends. I'm in on and off contact with one of my oldest friends from school. We speak to each other maybe once or twice a year. See each other once or twice a decade :p We lost touch for a while, but fb put us back in contact. I'm glad of that contact, because we were so close. But when we meet up there isn't the same sense of connection (naturally). I think we both like to keep tabs on each other and know where each other is and that's enough.

I am a bit anti-social really. I don't like going out. I like being in my house with my dog. I like people (family or close mates) coming round for a visit. As much as I intend to get over to one of their houses at some point, it just never happens. Unless one of them comes and gets me in their car and forcibly (;p) drives me to their house for sunday lunch.

I find being sociable tiring sometimes. I like it, once I'm in a social situation and I get very into the conversation and banter, but then my brain starts to shut down and I have to be alone to recharge. And chances are after any social event, no matter how nice a time I may have had, and no matter how lovely it was, that evening will be spent with random, toe curling moments of embarassment popping into my head as I wonder if I was laughing too raucously, or why did I say that? or was I just grinning inanely, bet I looked a right wazzock...etc etc.

I've got quite good over the years at shoving those thoughts away.

@ Infi: that feeling of not having anything worthwhile to contribute sucks. I still occasionally feel surprised and pleased that anybody actually seeks out my company. Don't know whether it comes from years in school being an outsider looking in, or the years of being a baby sister desperately wanting to tag along with her brother and his mates...but the idea that someone might actively want my inclusion or involvement in stuff always takes me aback.

As long as I have that handful of close people I'm happy and pretty self-contained in my life. I worry what my life will be like when I eventually lose Mum. Because she's the one I am closest to in this world. She's effectively my best friend on a day to day basis. Movies and shared books and dogs and a smoke and a natter etc. It worries me sometimes that I rely so much on that friendship really.

I was lonely in a relationship that didn't work. I am alone now, but not lonely.
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Old 12-14-2012, 12:42 PM   #29
Trilby
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^wssx2^
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic.

"Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her.
—James Barrie


Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum
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Old 12-14-2012, 12:42 PM   #30
Lola Bunny
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Tis the season to be depress, huh? I'm feeling a bit sad too, and I don't even celebrate Christmas. LoL I used to want to be around people, now I don't care anymore. I just want to stay home, eat and watch something on the computer, and go to sleep. Maybe because I'm just tired of being around people who don't really care nor like me.

Sarge, don't worry, dear. You aren't the only one. I too don't really have any friends. I refer people as "my friend" for namesake. Easier to write a story about. True friends? None.
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