Sometimes People Aren't Worth the Trouble of Trying to Maintain a One-Sided Friendship
There are times when I think I'm chasing people. I'll try to make plans, and "we" will, yet somehow I end up getting blown off. The person just never shows. Or ignores me online when he (or she. "he" is just a universal person indicator in this case. not a specific person.) clearly is talking to other people. Or I'll call/text and somehow the phone "never rang" yet he seems to get everybody else's calls perfectly.
No more.
I deserve better than convenience. I deserve friends who are going to be true and real, friends who are going to be there when they say they will, or at least call and let me know when they won't. If you don't want to do something, then say so. It hurts me a lot less to hear you're busy or you don't feel like hanging out with me than it does for me to wait and then realize you don't think I'm even worth a phone call to tell me you've got better things to do.
I'm not going to chase down people who are running from me. If people don't have the gumption or the guts to tell me they're busy, or they really don't give a damn about our friendship... why should I give the time to try and force it? People like that... well, I'm letting go. If he/she/they/whoever wants to play cat-and-mouse they can find somebody else. I'm done playing games. They can call me for once. At least I won't blow them off.
I read in a book once that some friendships are maintained for purely geographical reasons. (as spoken by the character Nadia in The View from Saturday) The more I think on it, the more it makes sense. There are some people that have passed through my life that I look back on, and I honestly can't figure out why we were ever friends. We never had much in common, our interests maybe crossed at one or two points, but it was never anything monumental. There are people whom I later found I despised. There are some people who were in my life for years and years, and I never really had anything to say to them, yet I found myself hanging out at the mall or in their basements on a weekly basis. WHY?
It was geographical. Why did I spend time with these people? Why did I put so much time and effort into fitting into their molds of acceptable clothing and behaviors? Now the answer is revealed: it was geographical. They were there. It was either them or nobody. Being a habitually social creature, the choice was an easy (though subconscious) one. Looking back, I'm not regretting spending time with all these different people. I got a feel for different personalities and the different interactions between people. I got a chance to see parts of myself in others, and I got the rare chance to change those behaviors in myself if I didn't like what I saw. I only wish the select handful of people who were true and loyal hadn't dispersed quite so far apart in the world. As I said, some friendships are maintained for geographic reasons, and as people distance themselves from one another, the friendship is harder to maintain, and apparently often not worth the effort.
I don't necessarily agree with my own logic. Does that make me a hypocrite? No, I don't really think it does. It makes me a critical thinker, examining all the angles of my situation. As of yet I don't really know how I'm going to handle this. I think I'm going to stop chasing people. Not all my friends, just the ones who think it's acceptable to blow me off or ignore me. These are not the qualities of a good friend, so why do I want to go running around trying to hang out with a bunch of people who suck at being a friend? It doesn't add up.
I'm going to have fun and surround myself with the people whom I feel comfortable with, and people that treat me with the respect and decency that a friend deserves. I am not, however, going to exert extra effort into attempting to arrange something with those people who think that there is nothing wrong with ignoring, ditching, and therefore hurting a person who obviously cares about the friendship. (that would be me)If or when any of the people who practice ditching me like it was their job decide they want to do something with me- sweet, I'll give it a shot, but to clarify: if it's one of those "I'm doing this because I feel like I have to," things- it's done. I'm not accepting any forms of hate these days. Hate no longer registers on my brain.
No more chasing people.
No more.
I deserve better than convenience. I deserve friends who are going to be true and real, friends who are going to be there when they say they will, or at least call and let me know when they won't. If you don't want to do something, then say so. It hurts me a lot less to hear you're busy or you don't feel like hanging out with me than it does for me to wait and then realize you don't think I'm even worth a phone call to tell me you've got better things to do.
I'm not going to chase down people who are running from me. If people don't have the gumption or the guts to tell me they're busy, or they really don't give a damn about our friendship... why should I give the time to try and force it? People like that... well, I'm letting go. If he/she/they/whoever wants to play cat-and-mouse they can find somebody else. I'm done playing games. They can call me for once. At least I won't blow them off.
I read in a book once that some friendships are maintained for purely geographical reasons. (as spoken by the character Nadia in The View from Saturday) The more I think on it, the more it makes sense. There are some people that have passed through my life that I look back on, and I honestly can't figure out why we were ever friends. We never had much in common, our interests maybe crossed at one or two points, but it was never anything monumental. There are people whom I later found I despised. There are some people who were in my life for years and years, and I never really had anything to say to them, yet I found myself hanging out at the mall or in their basements on a weekly basis. WHY?
It was geographical. Why did I spend time with these people? Why did I put so much time and effort into fitting into their molds of acceptable clothing and behaviors? Now the answer is revealed: it was geographical. They were there. It was either them or nobody. Being a habitually social creature, the choice was an easy (though subconscious) one. Looking back, I'm not regretting spending time with all these different people. I got a feel for different personalities and the different interactions between people. I got a chance to see parts of myself in others, and I got the rare chance to change those behaviors in myself if I didn't like what I saw. I only wish the select handful of people who were true and loyal hadn't dispersed quite so far apart in the world. As I said, some friendships are maintained for geographic reasons, and as people distance themselves from one another, the friendship is harder to maintain, and apparently often not worth the effort.
I don't necessarily agree with my own logic. Does that make me a hypocrite? No, I don't really think it does. It makes me a critical thinker, examining all the angles of my situation. As of yet I don't really know how I'm going to handle this. I think I'm going to stop chasing people. Not all my friends, just the ones who think it's acceptable to blow me off or ignore me. These are not the qualities of a good friend, so why do I want to go running around trying to hang out with a bunch of people who suck at being a friend? It doesn't add up.
I'm going to have fun and surround myself with the people whom I feel comfortable with, and people that treat me with the respect and decency that a friend deserves. I am not, however, going to exert extra effort into attempting to arrange something with those people who think that there is nothing wrong with ignoring, ditching, and therefore hurting a person who obviously cares about the friendship. (that would be me)If or when any of the people who practice ditching me like it was their job decide they want to do something with me- sweet, I'll give it a shot, but to clarify: if it's one of those "I'm doing this because I feel like I have to," things- it's done. I'm not accepting any forms of hate these days. Hate no longer registers on my brain.
No more chasing people.