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Misanthropy
Sep. 21st, 2016 11:23 amFor me, friendship is something that takes at least a year of routine contact to develop; and, accordingly, I don't have a lot of friends. I'm a hardcore introvert who would be perfectly happy never interacting with anyone ever, so I wouldn't call myself lonely by any means, but I do miss spending time with friends who are no longer geographically proximate. Since I've had to move (for work, broadly speaking) every one or two years, I don't live close to anyone I've ever been friends with.
There are three people I've recently gotten myself tangled up with online, all of whom I also know in real life. Each of these people seems to be trying to become friends with me. They've exhibited warning signs of not being good friend material, but I didn't have anything else going on during the past year, so I let these things slide.
I generally don't ask anyone for help or expect anyone to understand my personality quirks, so the true test of friendship is for me to ask someone for help (regarding a concrete matter) or to ask that they understand something about me that is not 100% positive (regarding a specific incident). This is a "test" of friendship because it makes me vulnerable; and, because I am thereby making an offering of my vulnerability, there is only one correct response that someone can give in good faith: "Yes, I will try to help you" or "Okay, I will try to understand."
This process isn't actually that big of a deal. To give an example, one of the closest friendships I ever had was with a girl I ended up asking to send me an invitation to AO3. I was like, "Look, you've implied that you write fic. Guess what? I write fic too! Can you send me an AO3 invite?" She was like, "Awesome, no problem," and then we were friends.
After interacting with the three people I mentioned in various ways for almost a year, I threw out a test to each of them. This sounds manipulative – and it is! – but it essentially breaks down to, "If I'm going to begin devoting a substantial portion of my time and emotional energy to you, I need to know that it's worth it, and that you'll have my back instead of being a judgmental asshole." Unfortunately, all three of them failed in exactly the way I suspected they would but sincerely hoped they wouldn't. The person who likes to play power games abused the power she had over me, the person who is extremely neurotic projected her guilt regarding her own neuroses onto me, and the person who routinely makes bizarre assumptions was unable to maintain a linear conversation. The fact that they were unwilling to try to help or understand me really hurt, but I can't very well tell them, "I'm sorry, but we're never going to be friends."
Making friends at my age is super fucking hard, okay. At least my dog is my friend.
There are three people I've recently gotten myself tangled up with online, all of whom I also know in real life. Each of these people seems to be trying to become friends with me. They've exhibited warning signs of not being good friend material, but I didn't have anything else going on during the past year, so I let these things slide.
I generally don't ask anyone for help or expect anyone to understand my personality quirks, so the true test of friendship is for me to ask someone for help (regarding a concrete matter) or to ask that they understand something about me that is not 100% positive (regarding a specific incident). This is a "test" of friendship because it makes me vulnerable; and, because I am thereby making an offering of my vulnerability, there is only one correct response that someone can give in good faith: "Yes, I will try to help you" or "Okay, I will try to understand."
This process isn't actually that big of a deal. To give an example, one of the closest friendships I ever had was with a girl I ended up asking to send me an invitation to AO3. I was like, "Look, you've implied that you write fic. Guess what? I write fic too! Can you send me an AO3 invite?" She was like, "Awesome, no problem," and then we were friends.
After interacting with the three people I mentioned in various ways for almost a year, I threw out a test to each of them. This sounds manipulative – and it is! – but it essentially breaks down to, "If I'm going to begin devoting a substantial portion of my time and emotional energy to you, I need to know that it's worth it, and that you'll have my back instead of being a judgmental asshole." Unfortunately, all three of them failed in exactly the way I suspected they would but sincerely hoped they wouldn't. The person who likes to play power games abused the power she had over me, the person who is extremely neurotic projected her guilt regarding her own neuroses onto me, and the person who routinely makes bizarre assumptions was unable to maintain a linear conversation. The fact that they were unwilling to try to help or understand me really hurt, but I can't very well tell them, "I'm sorry, but we're never going to be friends."
Making friends at my age is super fucking hard, okay. At least my dog is my friend.
