i'm busy =?= i don't like you

[sandhawke]

Awkward situation. A parent of a kid who knows one of my kids emailed me to arrange a playdate. But my kid doesn't actually like this other kid. The initial email was constrained to a time we were busy, so it was easy to just say that. But then the reply was, "okay, how about one of the next few weekends

Comments

[kimberlogic]

Not a parent yet but this issue has come up in my work as a nanny and it seems pretty complicated. Somewhat ironically, the younger kids I take care of (5/6yrs) seem really comfortable saying "No, I don't want to play with that person" and can offer some details as to the specifics of that feeling but they really don't want to have to say that to the kid or parent-of-kid that is asking for a playdate. The older kids (7/8yrs) seem painfully worried about saying no regardless of their issues. We've talked about how you don't have to like everyone or play with everyone but you do need to be polite. But the no-thank-you usually gets done by me or a parent and being "really busy with activities" seems to be a preferred fallback phrase from some of the parents. Once or twice, the 8 year old has had a bad interaction during a playdate and come right out and said "I want to go home, you (friend) aren't being nice or fair and I don't want to play with you anymore" and myself and the kid's parent tried to help them resolve the issue. That worked well once but the next time, the 8 year old was like "nope, done, home now." And so we said goodbye and left. I felt like I needed to honor her needs.

As an adult, I'm struggling with tangential issues. There are people are really want to get to know better but I'm shy and they seem very popular/busy so I'm hesitant to ask for time. That seems fairly normal though Molly had some good feedback in this thread that makes me think I should ask and that I shouldn't assume right away that busy=uninterested. The harder issues I'm having involve whether I always need to be inclusive of all the sweeties a given partner has, whether it is ok to like one more than the other, etc.
And hardest of all… I have two friends that I love dearly but both of those friendships have been feeling unbalanced for a long while. One, I've put a lot of effort into and feel it isn't seeming to help much. The other, well, I love that friend but it has literally been about six months since we didn't spend all our time together talking about her. I'm not sure whether to say something or just spend less time together for a while. Has that happened to you? If so, what did you do?

I feel silly having all these issues as an adult but it seems like maybe these sorts of conundrums aren't as rare as I'd thought ...

[veek]

I also have a friend who talks pretty much only about themselves, and even turns most things I say about my own life into stories about them. Honestly -- I've pulled back. :/ And when I do get together with them, I set the intention of practicing my listening skills.

[kimberlogic]

Thanks for sharing this. Perhaps one of the situations is resolving itself - that friend isn't make any effort to get together or following-up to proposed plans. This has happened before but contact resumed with some guilt/blame thrown at me for not being more active in communication. Bringing up that sir had been the one to fade out was just refuted … anyway. More to ponder - will try to embrace some middle ground.