Photo by Matthew Gerrard on Unsplash
I would like to think that I move on in friendships really fast, except for the close friends. There are many reasons to it. Firstly, friends that you grow up with would have found different enlightenment in life, which means that the goals and direction are never the same. Of course I do feel sad, but I also realised that I am also at the different stage of life.
I used to be the complainer when we go for trips together. I fully regret that. Saw this verse and it explains what I am doing wrong, which is repeating matters.
Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.
Proverbs 17:9 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/pro.17.9.ESV
There are things that I fully regret asides from being a complainer. For example stonewalling, not talking when I feel uncomfortable in social situations.
I fully take responsibility of that and feel the consequences of it.
But at the same time, a certain group of friends that I hung in uni don’t “get” what I am going through. I am considered very free, writing 35k words wouldn’t be hard, and I don’t meet clients and I have more time to exercise and cook at home. Basically, I am almost a tai tai.
Doing a postgrad has already alienated me from my friends. While I tried to not have this gap widen so much by trying to talk normal stuff, but something in my mind has changed. I have learnt a little bit more on basic “unacademic” psychology which helps me to understand people.
I could not tolerate one person in the group for holding people hostage in his emotions. Whenever we plan for outings, it has to be catered to him and his fiancée and thinking about the rest of the group. Not only that, whenever the petrol goes up which is more common due to the fact that Malaysia follow the world petrol prices, he starts complaining and sending old, unverified articles which I told him off once. He did that for a few more times and I just kept quiet because I realised it will make the gap of the friendship widen.
I was tempted to leave the whatsapp group when he did that to give him clues that he was getting too much but I know him being stubborn means that it will reflect on me for being equally reactionary. I did ask my level headed husband if I could leave the group since it was redundant anyway, and he said I should and I really need to protect my emotional self. He told me not to leave when he complains but leave when the group is quiet so that people won’t get different ideas. I check back the date of the last complaint and it was one month ago. Ok, good time to leave.
I know I went on a long story but it’s just to remind myself that I don’t have to be sucked into people’s emotional hostage and just do what I can to just maintain friendship. At the same time, I need to find like-minded community.