The other week a friend of mine said, "I hope I'm not somebody's 'that friend', that awkward friend people keep around because they feel its their Christian duty." All of us agreed that that would be horrible. We all had examples of "that friend" in our own lives and we all assured each other that none of us was "that friend" to each other.
I admit I am currently ignoring a "we should keep in touch" e-mail from my present "that friend." Throughout the year, I have tried to keep up a friendly facade to his face. I feel guilty for ignoring him now but its gotten to the point where the mere sight of him exhausts me and I cannot keep up the act anymore. And because school is over, I no longer have to.
I've been thinking a lot about this. He is certainly not my first "that friend." But this is a case study so I'll focus on him. This is what I think I've figured out:
At first, I genuinely did think he was great. A little awkward and idiosyncratic, but seriously, who isn't? I myself am awkward and idiosyncratic. So whatever. I feel like this is important. I didn't ALWAYS see him as a "charity case".
Then I invited him to a Halloween party. At the party, we all played "The Story Game" where everyone writes a paragraph to begin a story. Then they pass the page along until everyone has had a chance to contribute their own paragraphs to the story. He was the only guy there. The rest were conservative females. He chose to write about things like rape, violence and incest. People were discusted and I was embarrassed. Despite this I never talked to him about it and I think I even thanked him for for his addition of testosterone to the party. I think it was more or less at this point when my real friendship turned into a charity friendship.
Then it began to creep me out that he always seemed to know what was going on on my Facebook wall. He would say things in class like, "I liked your status about the hippo!" when I had only changed my status to being about the hippo a few minutes before our class started. I was uncomfortable but I never talked to him about that either.
Then it really began to annoy me that he talked incessantly and never asked my opinion. In fact, he doesn't know who I am at all, because he didn't ask, or if he did, he didn't give me more than a few seconds to respond before interrupting. I felt used, like I wasn't a person but something for him to deposit his thoughts at. This has been my biggest cause for resentment. But I have never said a word about it.
I know I am one of his few friends, so I've tried to be "nice" to him. But you know, there's a reason people like that don't have many friends. Its because they don't know that what they do annoys people. And that's because those of us who are "ohhh-so-sacrificial" in putting up with them in the first place are all a bunch of non-confrontational fraidy-cats who don't actually care enough about these people to open up and just be honest! Or at least I am.
I'm not doing him a favor by silently enduring him. I'm just protecting myself from a potentially messy confrontation and encouraging his maladaptive social patterns! And that's really selfish of me.
How I reacted to him was wrong, stressful for me, and entirely unnecessary. I probably could have fixed things from the beginning if I had cared enough. I know I would never, ever want to be silently endured by someone I thought was my friend. I would not want to be someone's reason to feel like a superior good person because they have the patient stamina to put up with me long term. I would rather they just stopped being my friend.
Lesson: For the sake of other potential "those friends'" future friendships with other people and for my sanity so that I no longer ever have to have another "that friend" again, I resolve to get some balls.
But truly, this is often an issue I feel over my head in, so if you have something to add or point out to me, please do.
No comments:
Post a Comment