Reasons Why It’s Hard to Be Your Friend
You start crying in the middle of a conversation and won’t (or can’t) tell me why. You won’t accept consolation or talk about it. And later, you dismiss me, and act as if I’ve caused your tears, and I feel awful, like I’ve done something terrible (and sometimes I have, though I never know it—you never tell me—at the time). And you still won’t talk about it.
You get angry or annoyed with me and give me the silent treatment. If there are other people around, you act normal: you talk and laugh and joke around. But everything I say, you ignore. I’m not in the room for you. Aggressive silence. I try to respect your feelings; if you don’t like talking with me, it’s okay, I know it doesn’t have to happen that moment. I know this, yet I still sometimes try to push you; it’s only because it’s hard for me, and I’m confused.
I react very badly when you say things like: “All my friends hate you for this.” When I think about this later, I realise it’s no different than me talking with my friends about something that bothers me. I know that you’re not talking shit about me, and that your friends who don’t know me, they take what you say as it is, venting and frustration. And what does it matter to me what your friends think about me? But the way you say it, in the heat of an argument, it cuts like a knife. This is my problem, I know. I can’t bear the thought of there being dozens of people out there who don’t like me before they’ve even met me.
We communicate differently. We both miss each other’s hints and non-verbal signals. You come to talk with me when I’m busy doing something else and I don’t want to talk. You get upset if I don’t listen to you; you get upset if I say I’m not in the mood to talk. This is not your fault; this is how it is between people.
You refuse to see me as I am. Instead you want to see me as black and white. For or against. Right or wrong. Love or hate. It’s not like that. Why I say that sometimes I wonder if I can be your friend, I’m not saying I don’t want to be your friend or that I’m not your friend. I’m saying that our friendship is hard sometimes; that I don’t get you; that you don’t get me. This is the truth, though it doesn’t mean I’m lying when I say you’re one of my closest and best friends. Can’t you see that the truth is both of these, and it much more. The truth never ends, it exists and fluctuates constantly, it’s what I say and what I don’t say, what you feel and how you react. The truth is slippery and treacherous; not because it hurts (though it does, most of the time), but because it’s unfathomable, a house with so many rooms that they can’t all be imagined at once. I can only act on what you say and how I feel. I can suspect and guess, but too many guesses is like walls and mirrors that makes it impossible to see how the world outside really is.
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