Dear sunflowerbird89:

You wrote: ” I met with all my friends and unfortunately, something went wrong. A friend (lets call her “Jane”) got very upset with me”- well, what went wrong?

You wrote it was not something big that transpired, but the consequences are big- the dissolution of five friendships and the long term negative consequences to you.

I think what it is that happened is very relevant to your thread. Share, if you agree with me.

anita

Hi sunflowerbird89!

It seems like you didn’t make any mistake. Of course you didn’t! Your cousin is the one who made the situation into something big. Although you tried to explain why your cousin reacted, this didn’t help. But, when you explained it to the others, they agreed with you. Then, Jane wasn’t around for the second explanation. Later, Jane responded to your “I miss you guys” email and she said she didn’t want to be friends anymore.

Did you ask her why? Maybe she just wants you to go out and party with them again. Maybe she misses the old you, just like you miss spending time with her.

I would do everything I could to try to get on better terms with Jane. Maybe you can invite her out for drinks and don’t mention anything in your invitation. Just say you guys should go for fun and have a good time. Then, if she accepts, you can have a good time, but maybe consider trying to get closure during that time. So, at the party, wait for a good time, and then bring up that your cousin made you feel really uncomfortable and just explain to Jane that he is a recovering alcoholic, and he gets anxious and angry when people encourage others to drink.

This part of it is really important. The way you bring this up matters a lot. The way I like to do it is like this, I think of people as pretty much all alike in that they all have an ideal version of themselves in their head. We all want to be a better person, and we’re struggling every day to become that better person who we want to be. But, most of the time we can’t do anything to change, so we’re frustrated and we stay who we are, instead of moving closer to that person we want to be. So, when you explain this to her, keep that in mind. Approach it like this, don’t criticize her or say anything about how you thought she was really mean, don’t say anything negative about her reaction. Don’t say anything negative about how she said she didn’t want to be friends, etc. You should say something like, “I really miss spending time with you guys, I felt so bad when my cousin got mad at you for telling me not to drink. I love drinking with you guys and having a good time! I hope we can work this out and spend more time together.”

Listen, it sounds really sincere and it will bring Jane’s mind back to the good times you used to have together. So try to do that when you say this in your own words. What this will do is, it GIVES JANE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE A BETTER PERSON. Jane wants to be that better person inside her head. She never gets such a perfect chance to rise to the occasion and be that person and forgive you for your mean cousin. But by you saying this in this way, she will not feel like you judged her for responding negatively, but she will be focused on the good times, and she might feel a little sadness that you aren’t together anymore, and she will want to take the chance to be that better person. What a perfect opportunity! She will do it.

If she won’t accept your invitation, you could try again later to see if she is in a better mood, but after a couple tries, if she still doesn’t want to, then you just have to move on. But, I’m hopeful that approaching the situation in this way might help you.

I would not just go out and not say anything about it. It will probably be a big elephant in the room. So, this is the best way I’ve found to bring it up and try to mend things. I hope it works well for you.

Dear sunflower,

It sounds to me that your cousin was standing up for you for good. You have done nothing wrong. If Jane’s jokes were benign and she were your true friend, would she get so defensive instead of just explaining it was a joke?

Younger age friendships are most often based on going out and having fun, and too often include putting up with jokes in order to be included. We don’t know better at first because it’s all we’ve known so far. It’s understandable that you need to feel like you belong to a group – friends are our second family.

I empathize your situation, feeling lonely and depressed, but it sounds that your friends were only good for that – the jokes, and not stick up for you when you really need them – lack of job, moving places. And your cousin, being the one with the problems, were the one to know better in this case.

Why would you have to put up with Jane’s obvious intent to cut you loose from the group? It is a hard lesson to learn sometimes that people “divide and conquer” in social circles more often than we would like to know and it looks to me that this is what she has done.
As for the rest of the group, in time things change and they may or may not turn around. People too often go with the herd instead of using their own heads to take decisions because it is easier. This is how you tell valuable relationships from unreliable ones.

Your’re “not that fun anymore” because there are actual things you have to worry about. You can’t switch your party mood on and off like a button. But no matter how hard it might be to meet new people and not hang out with the ones you are used to, you will meet other people eventually. And maybe not necessarily by drinking and partying if you are not in the mood for this. When so many people were pressuring me once why I don’t drink or stay late anymore I just found new friends in groups organizing mountain hikes. I didn’t know anyone on the events yet I wanted to do things no one would accompany me for, so I just went.

IN the mean time, you have important things to focus on your life – like finding a job.

sunflowerbird89,

Once your experience and knowledge is broadened it cannot shrink back, it’s the way we process experiences. You have this idealized picture of the company with these 5 friends which suddenly broke into pieces by that incident. But real friendships are not ideal and also they take daily basis effort to maintain, it means, to be present on every occasion. No matter how often you see each other, when you do, to be present, pay attention to what is going on, what you or the other person is doing or saying, where is they coming from.

You probably miss the comfort of being yourself with no masks, at least that’s what I understand. Usually we have this unconditional acceptance by our parents, and we take this feeling with us during our younger friendships. The world is still small and our social experiences are still limited to having fun. But we all develop in different directions and our small differences start to notice more and more over time. Our conscious perception of the other gets more judgmental with the more experience and knowledge.
Because of that it is much easier to make new friends when younger, and much more effort to maintain adult social life.

There is a saying that before it gets easier it must get harder. So now you are in a peak age of having experiences and experiment with different social circles without necessarily investing yourself in friendships if they don’t work for you. To broaden your exposure to social circles and meet bigger variety of people. Get some disappointments, learn from them and get over them, learn to use different masks as this is also an important social skill. Not everywhere and with everybody you will be safe being yourself. This is a privilege you should save for only trusted people proven over time. Yes, Privilege.

So instead of feeling bad about yourself for not being “socially comfortable” recognize that feeling as your personal defense mechanism you need before you make sense of the situation, and that when you eventually do feel comfortable, it speaks to you that the person in front of you is good for you. For the time being.

Dear sunflowerbird89:

You are welcome and it feels good reading your energetic post above. As you find a way to connect with another, please do use this forum to connect, this is one of the stated aim of the website: “to connect”- I am a real person, although not one you can see. But real nonetheless. I will reply to you every time you post.

anita