You think you're friends..

mickeyrat said:

hedonist said:

But a friendship (any relationship, actually) takes tending to by those in it. You can't just...show up...take take take...over and over.

You need to nurture what you're growing. I need to do the same. It's incumbent on both, all, parties.

Someone treats me like shit consistently? Not gonna roll with it (why would I?). I'm gonna cut them loose. There's enough heavy shit to deal with in life without some asshole making things unnecessarily complicated and messing with my head.

I also hold myself to those same standards.

I was hoping to see something along these lines.

Like citizenship, friendship requires certain responsibilities.

I can be a citizen of a country and not participate. But to have citizenship.... well I think that means I act on those responsibilities. Same with a friendship it also has certain responsibilities. And each party is held to account or should be, through honest communication. But so often we fear being vulnerable.

But if the things that make friendships successful - not just taking, and giving too, etc. - feels like a task or work, then what's the point? I don't think I'd want to have a friendship where it feels like I'm having to put actual effort in rather than those things just coming naturally (i.e. for my friendships, whatever support or help or nurturing that goes towards that friend happens naturally because I'm happy to do it and I like to bring my friends pleasure or happiness or support, not because I'm working to maintain the friendship.... It's not a marriage on the rocks that requires rescuing! If I start feeling like a friendship is work rather than just fun and pleasure and kinship and a natural tendency towards closeness, maybe it's not such a great friendship.

I think nowadays since we have access to social media, and can connect to literally thousands of people at any given time, that if one feels that someone who they say is their 'friend' and for some reason, no longer has something they want any longer, one can toss that person aside and pick from that vast pool of other people to be 'friends' with, and not feel any remorse for the other person's feelings.

People can be really shitty.

PJ_Soul said:

RKCNDY said:

I think nowadays since we have access to social media, and can connect to literally thousands of people at any given time, that if one feels that someone who they say is their 'friend' and for some reason, no longer has something they want any longer, one can toss that person aside and pick from that vast pool of other people to be 'friends' with, and not feel any remorse for the other person's feelings.

People can be really shitty.

That's true, people can be shitty.... I think I've lowered my expectations when it comes to people in the last number of years to be honest. That way, I'm still hugely appreciative and grateful when people are awesome (maybe even more than I used to be, since it seems more rare and special now), but also not all that angry or disappointed when they're shitty.

yeah, I've been doing that, but people still have been shitty after being what I thought was cool for a few years. Oh well, their loss.

PJ_Soul said:

BinFrog said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

losiento got banned??? bloody hell....

Oh well.

Who was that guy, anyway? Felt like he was only around for maybe a week??

Losiento is vox clamantis in deserto: a voice crying in the wilderness.

Losiento, wherever you are, a quote for you:

“Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
-Edward Abbey

SPEEDY MCCREADY said:

My favorite?
You think you met a decent person.
You think you are building a friendship.

Then you realize a short time later, that the person is nothing but a fucking lunatic.

:@)

How many times has THAT happened to me? Too many to count! .... Makes you wonder how many people you dismissed as lunatics who actually could have been great friends. :-?

SPEEDY MCCREADY said:

There are a lot of fucking weirdo's in this world.
And for some reason they all seem to find me.

:@)

I hear ya. I'm a weirdo magnet too.

BinFrog said:

Sometimes it's the lunatics who make the best friends. The only "normal" people are the ones you just don't know verybwell yet.

Yeah, I guess there is a difference between lunatic and weird.
I cant handle weird.


:@)

i think we all have our own perceptions of what normal is, and any deviation is considered "weird". i don't mind weird people. they make things interesting.