Dear LK:

“I am currently working on not letting external circumstances affect how I feel, but I am not there yet”- no human is ever there, being able to not be affected by negative external circumstances. We are inherently born to be affected by and respond to external circumstances all through our waking hours.

To be less reactive to external circumstances, to not react impulsively and destructively to external circumstances, that is doable and possible.

New Years Day, you were angry at your friend because he didn’t say or do something that you wanted/ expected him to do. Next you texted him that you want to  disappear from the friendship, so to create an alarm in him. You succeeded and he indeed was alarmed, messaging you questions, asking you to explain what you meant and pictures of yourself so to see that you are okay. You ignored his texts for a while, as his alarm increased and finally you talked to him. Next he blocked you, later you messaged him on WhatsApp, apologized and blocked him there, then unblocked him, then he blocked you.

“Although I told him I wanted to disappear .. in my heart I was hoping for a dialogue/ conversation between us and not a complete and utter blowup… I don’t understand how this got so out of control to the point where he felt like he needed to block me”-

– In your heart you were hoping for an honest dialogue, an honest conversation, correct? In your heart you did, but in practice you didn’t do your part in having an honest dialogue because you started the conversation that day with a threat, that you will disappear, leaving him to fill in the blanks, then you waited for him to get more alarmed, wondering why you are not responding. This didn’t create an honest dialogue- it was a dishonest manipulation on your part.

To have an honest conversation, you should have talked to him on the phone or in person (instead of texting), you should have told him specifically what you were unhappy with, or asked him what he meant when he said this or didn’t say that (whatever your anger was about). No threats, no accusations, just a conversation.

You wrote: “him and I had suffered from clashes in the past”, so New Year Day was not the first clash. Well, no wonder he blocked you. I don’t know about what he did wrong, but I can see what you did wrong.

Back to my first point: you can’t not care about what happens around you,  but you can change dysfunctional behaviors so to increase the chances that good things happen around you. If you started with an honest dialogue with him that day, there was a greater chance that you and him would be having a healthy friendship at this point, or soon.

anita