SilkRoad
Lay the coin on my tongue
- Joined
- May 26, 2009
- Messages
- 3,932
- MBTI Type
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 6w5
- Instinctual Variant
- sp/sx
Does anyone react this way to being told a friend doesn't want to hear their problems anymore? My guess is he was highly embarrassed as a first reaction that he's been talking about stuff to a friend and the friend has been wishing he wouldn't the whole time. He had to save face. I mean, I can definitely identify with Silk Road, but it seems weird to expect him to be immediately contrite.
Yeah, I hear you. I have had to take that into account and try to see it from his perspective. On the other hand, I put forth a big effort to say things like "I'm not trying to say you've been wasting my time by telling me about this stuff, I don't feel that way at all...I just have to step back now for the sake of trying to still be friends with you. You telling me about your confusion isn't helping you solve it, and it's not doing me any good." I don't know if he took that on board.
I do not know about the specific situation, but I have found it hard when a friend comes to me about the same situation for years and won't do anything to actually address the problem. I feel distressed when my friends and loved ones are distressed, so I can understand if they don't really want to change the way they are doing things, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with being repeatedly distressed by something that doesn't distress them enough to do something about, if that makes sense.
Then if that same person, when I am having a problem, can't be bothered to listen to me, I definitely feel very hurt. I need to feel like the relationship is reciprocal to some degree and I need to feel appreciated if it can't be. Wish I didn't, but that is definitely an Achilles heel for me.
^Yeah...it's about this, to a large extent. And I'm not just being bitter/nasty when I say that this person talked to me at length about how confused they were, and I always tried to be sympathetic, offer gentle advice, etc etc...but when I tried to talk to them about my issues, they usually offered a quick pat answer (and then went back to their own stuff) or were dismissive.