Posted by kara lynne on October 21, 2003, at 21:45:18
I feel like I'm having a breakdown. Some of my friendships seem threatened, and I'm very conflicted. Some are old and ready to go; patterns from the past where I had to compromise myself in order to be loved--or to appear to be loved. Others I'm unsure about--what is my part, what is theirs. A couple are email friends only, which presents another dynamic entirely.
In one instance I had been having a pretty steady dialogue with someone (email only) for a couple of months. We talked about some important things and she was initially very helpful. After a while I stopped hearing from her. I inquired a few times and got no response. Eventually, left with no information, I began to infer the worst possible scenario: this person had decided not to talk to me anymore because I'd done something wrong, but I didn't know what it was. I guess you could call that my family dynamic, and one I might go to as an unconscious default position. If someone isn't talking to me it means I have done something wrong, but I don't get to know what it is---just be punished for it with rejection and silence, and probably for life. So maybe I'm too quick to project. On the other hand, when someone is important to me I respond to them--it seems so basic to me. Unless there is some reason why I can't, or one of the natural things that come up in life occurs to cause a delay--which of course I understand can hapen to anyone.
So after a couple of months I finally wrote a letter expressing my distress, saying I had taken the friendship seriously and could only infer something happened to make her want to stop contacting me. She wrote me back about a month later (yesterday) with her response--after I had finally let it go in my mind. She offered her 'perception' that I am too sensitive and quick to judge and condemn others when they don't 'behave' as I like. She suggested that this was a pattern in my life; a life I may add, she knows precious little about in any meaningful way. Then she said I had done nothing to make her mad up until that point, but inferred that the last email would be just that impetus, if she weren't being big enough to grant me such a transgression. In the next sentence was a veiled threat that should I continue to get my back up because she wasn't able to respond, than maybe she wouldn't...followed by the lovely command to 'chill'.
I wrote her back and said that if my being honest was going to prevent her from writing then so be it. Also that perhaps I wouldn't be the only one to wonder about a friend not responding to a post for three months--and did that make me oversensitive, or she a little..insensitive?
Miraculously she was able to respond to this email the next day--where she just couldn't seem to be able to do in the preceding months due to endless computer problems. She said that she-- "this insensitive person" she mocked, does not take well to guilt tripping and wished me a good life.
I wonder: How is it alright for her to feel free to offer me her unsolicited psychological take on my oversensitivity--may I even say to trounce over boundaries which were not her's for the trouncing...and yet when I volley it back over to her side it's a resounding GAME OVER!
And here we are again: I was threatened that if I didn't behave a certain way she wouldn't be my friend, and lo and behold...Interesting, because I was the one ultimately judged and condemned, as she accused me of doing. God, I never asked her to behave, just to respond! There is a meaning behind that word 'responsible'...
In my estimation a true friend might not have taken that route, not that we're longtime real life buddies or anything. And let's say that I am oversensitive. I am, ok, I get it: I'm oversensitive! Does that mean I don't get to have friends? I'm willing to concede that it gets the better of me sometimes, but a little information and I'm usually just fine. I certainly would want to give the same to my friends, and I have many times.
Thanks for listening. There's more where that came from, but it's a start.
Yours truly,
Alienated in Cyberland
poster:kara lynne
thread:271649
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031020/msgs/271649.html