Dear Kaouther:

Welcome back! I am glad the guy you posted about in your first thread respects you and is your online friend, that he is no longer flirting with you.

“when I went to school I was fat.. shy girl that no one likes her.. always alone”- this was a painful experience for you. When we have a painful emotional/ social experience early in life, that experience tends to continue to be our experience as we proceed into adulthood. We get older, we are no longer in school, we may live in another city or country.. and yet.. we are still alone. (This was my experience as well: being shy and always alone in school, and later in life).

“At high school I became a friend with a girl I know and I thought that we are best friends until I realized that we are not”. You realized that because she didn’t share her secrets with you, because even thought you listened to her and supported her, she said: “no one is here for me”.. when you called her to go for a coffee or a restaurant, “she always say that she don’t have the money”, but one time she told you that “she always go out with other friends to coffees”. When you were sad about a boyfriend at the time who “don’t love me he is also using me”, she didn’t even ask you what was wrong with you.

My input regarding that former friend: I don’t think that the story was that she was a happy girl and a wonderful friend to others, but not with you. When she told you “no one is here for me”, that means to me that she felt lonely herself no matter where and with whom. Reads to me that she was quite troubled herself and therefore not a good friend to anyone. When she told you that she goes out with oth4er friends, maybe she lied, maybe she went out once with other friends, not always.

In college  you took the train with three girls. The two girls were closer to each other than to you, and one of them who appeared to get closer to you, told you to stop talking to men she was interested in, and otherwise wasn’t there for you when you needed her. When she needed you, you were there for her (ex., meeting a professor), but took another friend on a trip while telling you beforehand that she had no place for you going on that trip. Yesterday she called you to go out but two hours in, she asked if the professor can join you, so you feel that she intended to use you, so to not be alone with the professor. (I don’t understand: a student socializing with her professor???)

Yesterday, your classmate who never talks to you, “acts like we are friends and he asked me to give him a ride.. now I’m alone.. my friends are fake.. it’s okay about being alone, I’m used to it.. should I stop making efforts and live for myself?”-

My input: we are people who need people, meaning everyone needs friends, at least one friend. We are social animals, and like other social animals, we are born with the need to socialize. So it is impossible to be content or happy not socializing.

Let’s look at the friends you had, or the people who acted like friends: every one of them who did use you, is a person who uses others as well, or at least, is willing to use others. If you meet a person who you see is using another person, figure that this person will use you as well. In the quest of finding a friend, see to it that the person you are considering to have as a friend is not in the habit of using anyone!

When you do decide to go on an outing with another person, see to it that you are not used. For example, going for coffee, see that the other person pays for her own coffee. If you do give a person a ride, see to it that it’s not a ride that’s very long, and if it is, ask for gas money. Or if you give a person a ride twice in a row, and then the two of you go for coffee, that person should buy you coffee. If she/  he doesn’t, then it’s not working for you.

In other words, give and take, see to it that in every social outing, or in a series of two or more social outings, you are receiving as well as giving.

Try to accept that person A will prefer the company of person B over yours at times, just as you prefer the company of a particular person over another. We have to learn to share friends.

See to it that you are treated with respect at all times and that you treat others with respect as well. It is okay for a friend to spend time with another friend at times, without you. But it is never okay for a friend to disrespect you, or showing no empathy for you.

Does this help?

anita