Back to Basics: Friendships
Dear Rina,
A lot has been going on in my life that I'll be elaborating on in letters to come, but I wanted to get your opinion on my views on friendship; something I've been reevaluating my beliefs and practices of. Recently, I broke up with my boyfriend of a little over two years and had a falling out with two of my closest friends. As I have been suffering from this loneliness and heartbreak, I can't help but wonder how it ended like this and why, through all of this, I can't help but feel this immense frustration with myself and these people I thought were so close to me. I went through the infamous stages of grief, but I noticed I kept coming back to the same feelings and thoughts over and over again. My process of reflection over these past few months can be summed up in the following questions: "why do I feel angry at myself and them," "why do I feel extremely frustrated," and "how can I be better moving forward."
In my newfound buttload of free time, I found this public speaker named Matthew Hussey. Hussey is a dating expert for women in heterosexual relationships and wrote a book called Get the Guy. However, if you look past his generic statements about the love lives of women and how men act, there were a few profound pieces of advice that I felt applied to every relationship, and this topic of friendships. From here, I'll probably start using the terms "partner" and "relationship" in the friendship and romantic relationship sense as I feel this topic doesn't discriminate between the two.
So we start with this video about self-worth and "why he treats you casually." He starts the video by saying, "he treats you this way because you let him." He talks about how when we like someone or when our self-worth is low, we can run into the problem of creating cognitive dissonance where we often make excuses for someone's poor behavior and give ourselves excuses to stay. At the same time, not pointing out someone's poor behavior doesn't allow the person to change and all this together allows them to push the boundaries to see what they can get away with. Hussey goes on to say how eventually it will get to a point where you'll leave and if your self-value is small enough, you'll either get back together with them or find someone else who treats you equally as poorly. At the end of the video, his solution is "trust your instincts by thinking of how your ideal partner would."
Something about this video made me realize that I've been making excuses for people until I've burnt out. I was angry because I carried this cognitive dissonance and consistently make excuses for them thinking, "that's just the way they are" or "if they just get X sorted out in their life, they'll get better." However, I have some qualms about his solution as I've come to realize that I didn't know what made a good partner for me. Up until this point, if you asked me what qualities my ideal partner would have, I'd tell you, "Oh, he'd have to have a good sense of humor and be intelligent and be caring and respectful." While this is all well and good, this probably describes 90% of people, and I found that my relationships had these qualities I listed, but it wasn't what I really wanted or needed.
Overall, I think I've realized that it's okay to let people go as space gives you the time to objectively assess your behavior and their's and how your relationship affects the both of you. I've also come to realize that I need people who challenge me to be better and not to love an idea of someone but love them for who they are and encourage them to be better if they want to be.
What makes all of this difficult is that the number of people I meet on a day-to-day basis is decreasing and it feels like my standards are increasing. The solution to this is to make an effort to meet new people, but the increase in responsibilities makes it difficult. I guess there's always an excuse not to do something. As I get older, I need to remind myself to stop making excuses and work on doing what I feel will make me a better person. I also noticed as I get older, falling into a mundane routine can get so easy. Growing up is hard...
So far, I've been more active in messaging friends and not holding back in telling them how much their friendship means to me. I've been more conscious of telling people what qualities I really like about them and trying to make the time to hang out with friends that mean a lot to me. When I go out with them, I've been trying to ask deeper questions about their life and interests to understand them as a person and help them reach their goals. I guess "leave them better than you found them" has kind of been the new motto.
I'm not sure if any of this made sense or if it was cohesive enough, but it feels really good to write to you. I miss you and I hope you're doing well.
Love,
Rachel
A lot has been going on in my life that I'll be elaborating on in letters to come, but I wanted to get your opinion on my views on friendship; something I've been reevaluating my beliefs and practices of. Recently, I broke up with my boyfriend of a little over two years and had a falling out with two of my closest friends. As I have been suffering from this loneliness and heartbreak, I can't help but wonder how it ended like this and why, through all of this, I can't help but feel this immense frustration with myself and these people I thought were so close to me. I went through the infamous stages of grief, but I noticed I kept coming back to the same feelings and thoughts over and over again. My process of reflection over these past few months can be summed up in the following questions: "why do I feel angry at myself and them," "why do I feel extremely frustrated," and "how can I be better moving forward."
In my newfound buttload of free time, I found this public speaker named Matthew Hussey. Hussey is a dating expert for women in heterosexual relationships and wrote a book called Get the Guy. However, if you look past his generic statements about the love lives of women and how men act, there were a few profound pieces of advice that I felt applied to every relationship, and this topic of friendships. From here, I'll probably start using the terms "partner" and "relationship" in the friendship and romantic relationship sense as I feel this topic doesn't discriminate between the two.
So we start with this video about self-worth and "why he treats you casually." He starts the video by saying, "he treats you this way because you let him." He talks about how when we like someone or when our self-worth is low, we can run into the problem of creating cognitive dissonance where we often make excuses for someone's poor behavior and give ourselves excuses to stay. At the same time, not pointing out someone's poor behavior doesn't allow the person to change and all this together allows them to push the boundaries to see what they can get away with. Hussey goes on to say how eventually it will get to a point where you'll leave and if your self-value is small enough, you'll either get back together with them or find someone else who treats you equally as poorly. At the end of the video, his solution is "trust your instincts by thinking of how your ideal partner would."
Something about this video made me realize that I've been making excuses for people until I've burnt out. I was angry because I carried this cognitive dissonance and consistently make excuses for them thinking, "that's just the way they are" or "if they just get X sorted out in their life, they'll get better." However, I have some qualms about his solution as I've come to realize that I didn't know what made a good partner for me. Up until this point, if you asked me what qualities my ideal partner would have, I'd tell you, "Oh, he'd have to have a good sense of humor and be intelligent and be caring and respectful." While this is all well and good, this probably describes 90% of people, and I found that my relationships had these qualities I listed, but it wasn't what I really wanted or needed.
Overall, I think I've realized that it's okay to let people go as space gives you the time to objectively assess your behavior and their's and how your relationship affects the both of you. I've also come to realize that I need people who challenge me to be better and not to love an idea of someone but love them for who they are and encourage them to be better if they want to be.
What makes all of this difficult is that the number of people I meet on a day-to-day basis is decreasing and it feels like my standards are increasing. The solution to this is to make an effort to meet new people, but the increase in responsibilities makes it difficult. I guess there's always an excuse not to do something. As I get older, I need to remind myself to stop making excuses and work on doing what I feel will make me a better person. I also noticed as I get older, falling into a mundane routine can get so easy. Growing up is hard...
So far, I've been more active in messaging friends and not holding back in telling them how much their friendship means to me. I've been more conscious of telling people what qualities I really like about them and trying to make the time to hang out with friends that mean a lot to me. When I go out with them, I've been trying to ask deeper questions about their life and interests to understand them as a person and help them reach their goals. I guess "leave them better than you found them" has kind of been the new motto.
I'm not sure if any of this made sense or if it was cohesive enough, but it feels really good to write to you. I miss you and I hope you're doing well.
Love,
Rachel
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