I don't like feeling mad. It would be like acknowledging that my friend somehow betrayed me when this is not about me.
Actually... isn't it about you?
It's not really about her at this point, it's about how you feel about her and your investment in the friendship, isn't it? Because you can't deal with what she has done?
You're not really focused on external things like helping her SO or helping her figure out what comes next pragmatically, you are focused mainly on your own internal feelings about the situation. That is what you are absorbed in.
It took me a long time to accept that it was okay for me to have a feeling reaction to someone's behavior. Right or wrong, a feeling is a feeling. I kept trying to dismiss, downplay, or bury them... and it just made me unhappy and got in the way of me maintaining my relationships. It is pretty liberating to be able to say, "Man, I am committed to this person as my friend... but she really upset me with what she did, and I'm not sure how to work through it. I want to love her and be her friend, but emotionally I'm just not even feeling it. What next?"
Like I said above, you seem to be primarily wrestling over your own internal feelings right now. If you don't accept how you feel, you can't get to the next step. Do you think you might feel worse about yourself if you acknowledge how you feel... as if you're a bad person too for feeling negatively about your friend?
No, I'm like that too. No, it's not that I don't believe my friend's truths anymore, but I don't know how much I can draw from my friend's opinions on matters we always discussed.
That sounds legitimate... or at least, you have to wonder in the future whether or not she can walk the walk that she talks about, and how committed she truly is to it.
I guess I would feel sort of abandoned and alone if I had felt like I was in solidarity with a friend like that... and then found out they weren't walking the walk with me.
Maybe it's my way of saying "people are human" and confirming I'm really one weird cookie. It's also because I don't want to give people the satisfaction to think I'm disappointed with them. And it's also my propensity for playing the devil's advocate. I mean, I still talked with my friend the whole night about this without ever being anything but completely logical.
I know I've talked to people before, even people who were not my friends and did not particularly like (a few even within the last few days, doh!)... where they approached me from a rational perspective, so I engaged them without rancor or annoyance or meanness, and discussed what they wanteed to discuss, so I could give them insight... but inside I just was really repulsed by them the whole time and really did not want to be engaged. I wasn't doing that to be two-faced, it just is like you say -- the logic thing kicks in and I can engage on that level and "do my thing" regardless of how I feel about them.
Why do you think people would find satisfaction in your disappointment of them? That they might have gotten through to you? If you could explain that part...? I'm not sure what you are saying.
I don't label people that way per se. I can like cheaters but I'm a political being. Think "Joker". It's all about sending a message. I want my attitude to reflect I don't condone certain actions no matter how I feel about that person.
Ah, got it. I can relate to that.
I have to do that here in my role as mod too.
So she has really put you in a bind, hasn't she? You seem to feel that if you accept her, then you are sending a message that you are accepting of cheaters... so she's almost collateral damage, in a sense; for you to keep your values clear and visible, you have to repudiate her, withdraw, etc.
I like my friend a lot. He's not suddenly unlikeable or all bad. But how can I ever have a chat with him blaming people for being bad and attacking the act of cheating? How can I be ok championing and justifying my values when the people close to me don't get them?
No wonder I'm confused about gender. You keep seeming to change it on me.
So he's a he? She's a she? I don't know which pronoun to use...!
Well, you bring up an interesting point. In your friendships, do you need more solidarity of opinion? (At least, in close friendships.) Or are you okay with having differences of opinion? It sounds like you don't want to discuss things you don't agree on, to avoid conflict or argument, so now you feel hemmed in -- you can't express yourself on certain topics because you know it will come off as a judgment of your friend and not just be some abstract vent about a particular ideal....
Does your friend not get your ideal? Or do they get it, they just didn't live up to your ideals this time?
Don't underestimate my intuition. I can't say I was super surprised with this episode. I warned my friend before about letting the SO go, because the other person was getting too involved and attached.
Ah, okay.
I don't want flawed people in my life. Everyone is flawed, that doesn't make us want to be friends with everyone does it? I mean why do YOU even discriminate between friends and other people anyway, if most people are deserving of your friendship? My whole life is based on the fact I never do something I say I don't, in stuff that truly matters.
Well, I'm a weird case and I'm trying to get past it. You know that SX thing I've got, coupled with my own deep feeling of loneliness? I actually would love to be close friends with everyone I meet and has aspired to be such; I've just been realizing that it's unrealistic and will never happen, and maybe isn't even good, so I've been learning to only invest in the people I really align with and LIMIT my most intimate relationships. But it is hard for me.
I think what I was trying to say is that, when I find people I connect with well, who are committed to me as a human being, who show unconditional love, who value me, who want to spend time and invest in me, and who I can also do that for.... then I'm willing to accept mistakes and flaws. Because at that point I know who they are, and I can tell what was a mistake and what is a character flaw. I've invested in them as a unique relationship.
So I guess I am saying: Is this person WORTH your commitment enough that you can and will commit to working through this flaw? Or aren't they? If they're not, then you can pull away. But if they are really someone you want in your life regardless, someone you are committed to as a person, then I would work on getting past this.
as far as the last bit... I take my word very seriously and tortured myself as a teenager over my own failures to live up to my own professed standards. I guess eventually it almost destroyed me and I realized I had to accept that people were flawed... including me... and find out a way to deal with that, because loathing of myself and others was not a productive or realistic path.
I don't label people as much as you think. I'm very flexible. I even interact with the social outcasts or the psychos and pariahs no one else wants to get close to. A friend is not just any kind of relationship for me though.
I'm not really sure what I was thinking about you in general, honestly. Just, in this situation, you were boxing. I tend to actually interact with and get close to the same groups of people, which might or might not be good because they usually have few people to embrace them and then I have to deal with that bond. But I can't say I'm close friends with them. My criteria for "special friend" is more demanding even if I want to feel close to and/or "know" everyone in general.
And my nature is to NOT be adaptive. I'm fairly inflexible. That might be the bane of my existence. But that's what also makes me good at what I am.
An ENFP, led by Ne, who is not adaptive?
I'm going to assume you're talking about your VALUES. I would expect you to be pretty adaptive in some ways, just not there I guess.
I can relate... I'm very adaptive and flexible in some ways, but I can't compromise on my rational approach even when I would like to. I can't lie about the nature of the universe, as far as I see it. I guess you would be similar in terms of your values.