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We all have that one friend. They will just blow any situation up. A work issue, a relationship issue somehow always escalates, and then you have to be the shoulder they cry on. You have to pick up the pieces, calm them down and tell them how to solve it. They’re sorry - they always are. They didn’t think it would go this far - they never do. And you know what? They’re just plain wrong - you know this. They’re dumb&%$#s. But hey, you have history. What do you do?
Firstly, we have long-standing ambivalent relationships because of anxieties, fears or attachment issues we developed in our childhoods. Often, these were friendships that grew when we were separating from or expanding our idea of ‘family’. They shaped how we entered an adult world, often guarding or guiding us. They saw us in ways we couldn’t reveal to our families. So they are very crucial to our sense of identity. It is not easy to grow past this. However, some of this ambivalence we feel comes exactly because we’re growing past this. We’re no longer willing to accept behaviour we once did because we have grown out of the limitations of the friendship.
Second, in friendships, we teach people how to treat us. We allow some people we love to take liberties, but even those need to be defined. So yeah, you can get drunk and crash at my place, but if you borrow money, I would need it returned when you can. We forget to articulate these boundaries to our friends. We expect them to ‘just know’, or we take our lack of boundaries as a measure of our love for them. As with children whom you love unconditionally but still need to get them dressed, eating healthy and going to school, we have to set expectations and define them. This provides a friendship with structure. You can be kind about it; for instance, say you have an important EMI coming up and you need the money back by the end of the month instead of just demanding it back. Make these accommodations for the feelings of our friends, but have your expectations met.
At the same time, ask yourself if your expectations from your friendships are unrealistic. Do you have too many ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’? Are you restricting their sense of independence or personhood? Is your friendship all about you always being in control? If a friend is constantly falling short of your expectations, then maybe you have too many and they're set too high. Are you pursuing a ‘perfect’ friendship? What does that look like to you? Consider if it’s not something anyone can live up to. Perhaps what’s wrong is you need to let go a little and build spaces in which the friendship can comfortably fail.
What does this mean? If you’re expecting your money back in a month, set an earlier deadline because you know they won’t make the first deadline you give them. If they’re always late and you know this about your friend, take a book along and expect lateness. If you know they will ghost you at the last minute, fix up two out of three events and ask that they show up to at least one. Make allowances for, accept, who they realistically are. A friend, however close, has an independent sense of being and must make their own choices and mistakes.
What do you do if your friend is blowing up the neighbour’s house? Condemn him, smack him on the head, but also know you’re going to have to stand by him when he’s trying to pick up the pieces.
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