I just dont "get" some people...

barbarawright

Having reread the first post, I'm just struggling to work out what the friend did wrong. How does saying 'X and I are going to London - why don't you see if there's still room in the hostel and join is?' translate as 'You can come along but we'll be eating separately and want to spend all our time on our own'. I've stayed in hostels and I can't imagine how a two=person room could miraculously be turned into a three-person room - surely it will have a double bed or perhaps bunks?

I would be fascinated to see a thread started by the friend... OP - don't dump her. She hasn't done anything wrong and is probably just as puzzled as you about why contact has been dropped. Why not just go out for coffee and have a laugh about how you're shy in dormitories (I doubt many people actually like them but London hotels cost a fortune) and maybe say you'd love to go on holiday with them if you could have more notice to make better arrangements. It's so much easier to lose a friend than it is to make one - it's always worth making a bit of efforts to keep friendships going. We see so many threads here where people say all their friends have let them down but I doubt it's ever quite so one-sided

aggypanthus

heretolearn wrote: »

Hi OP

I do feel that you over-reacted, and that she did want to be your friend, but I also sympathise as I've never been all that good at making friends either. I have problems at the point of acquaintances becoming friends, how to tell whether someone really likes me and wants to be my friend or not, so I know I've asked too much of people in the past and then been hurt by the knock back.

I've got better at it now but it took a bit of thought and effort to work out where I was going wrong. At one point in life I basically had no friends at all and probably scared off anyone who I zoned in on. Too needy.



I too had a need for 'best friend' - but once I overcame that idea and realised that friendship comes in all sizes and shapes, and sometimes what people can offer isn't always what you'd ideally want, things got a lot better and I have quite a lot of friends now. Some closer than others. And that's ok.

I think there were two lessons I really had to learn (and I learned them hard but I'm glad I did).

I had to ask myself what sort of friend am I to other people, really? I can be a bit flakey and selfish if I don't watch myself, too much thinking only of what I need and not about what my friends need from me - whether it's help, spending time together even if I don't initially feel like it, or giving them some space. You can only have a good friendship if you are a good friend yourself. This is something I'm still working on and I don't always get it right, but I'm trying, and it makes a huge difference. It doesn't mean I'm at their beck and call or let them call all the shots, but it's more of an equal effort, which I failed at sometimes in the past.

Then the other thing I've already mentioned. You have to accept that a friendship may not always be exactly on your terms, and that people have their own lives, and other friends. Be happy with the level of friendship someone can offer. I know that the person who is my best friend, well, I'm not her best friend. She has a group of people she's known a lot longer than me and while I'm sometimes included in their activities and they all seem happy with that when I am, sometimes I'm not. They are all going on holiday soon and I wasn't invited, and while the thought that I wished I'd been invited flashed across my mind, I accept that I'm not and I'm genuinely wishing them a great time. I'd love to be truly part of that group but I'm not, and never will be, and there's no point getting jealous about that. It doesn't matter if she has other people she is a bit closer to. She is still a terrific friend to me and the level of involvement I have with her (and the others) is something I value. Again, I used to have a close friend years ago and we sort of drifted apart and that was probably my fault. I still have some contact, and we have some mutual friends, but no where near as close as we were. She got married this year and I was a little hurt to not be invited, but understood. Numbers have to be limited and we are no longer close enough. Then I got a late invitation (several months after other people we knew). So I was a B list invitee. Was I offended or upset? No, I was happy to go to her wedding after all, had a lovely time, and appreciated that once she got to the point of being able to squeeze another invitation in, I got it. There are other people we know she wasn't able to invite at all and I know she felt a bit bad about it. It's made me realise that it's down to me to pick things up again now if I want us to move back towards the friendship we had.

You can't be jealous of your friends other friends. If they are closer, there is a reason for it. In the first case I mentioned, the reason is simply that they have a very long history together that I don't share, it isn't personal. In the second case I mentioned, the reason is that I did not maintain the friendship at that level myself.

With the holiday with your friend, they'd already booked up, and then your friend decided she wanted to include you as well. Were you a bit miffed you weren't included right from the start, instead of being happy to now be invited along a bit further down the line? This isn't really fair on her. You needed to fit in with their existing plan if you wanted to go, not ask them to change all their plans to fit with yours. The other person did not want to change their booking to share a room with you. You said yourself the only available rooms were large shared ones, and she didn't fancy that any more than you did. As their room was already booked, you had a choice, go and share a larger dorm, or not go at all. You can't really blame them if your choice was to not go. And there is nothing to suggest they would have excluded you from meals or activities from them, this is you imagining things because you wanted to feel excluded/hurt. Yes, you did. You built this up into far more than simply having to have a separate room from them because you were joining the holiday after theirs had already been booked.

She didn't have to invite you at all. But she did. So she wanted you there. she also extended the hand of friendship with the chat and the invitation to go over. But then you got the hump because she happened to be out when you wanted to pop in. That's the whole thinking of what you want and not what the other person wants thing. Was she supposed to sit indoors waiting for you for weeks until you decided to go over?

On her not replying to your text, not everyone sees this sort of communication in the same way. I have friend who would be offended by this, and friends who wouldn't give it another thought. Last week one of my friends complained to me that I hadn't replied to a few of their texts as quickly as they expected and they'd found that rude of me. I apologised and made a mental note that this is one of the people who gets hurt by that, and so to try to improve my response time to them in future :-) . Your friend is probably one of those who doesn't take it so seriously (like me and some other friends of mine).

I think, that if you would still like to be friends with her, that you can fix this. I think you should apologise for getting snitty over the holiday, tell her you felt a bit hurt by it at the time, but that you realise now it wasn't reasonable to expect her other friend to change their booking. And that you hope they had a lovely time. Ask her if it's ok for you to still pop over for that coffee? If she seems nice about it and still quite keen, then ask her what would be a good day for you to go and arrange a time. If she seems a bit non-committal or not too keen, then drop it. But in a week or so ask her out for coffee or a christmas shopping trip or something small like that and see what her response is. You'll see if she still wants to be friends with you. If she does, great! If not, then learn a few things from it all and move on.

:T
This makes great sense to me. Its taken me years to stop overthinking the nuances of interacting with other people. One bad experience can start an ever deepening groove in the mind, underming confidence.