This isn’t my typical kind of post but more of a rant, venting and confession all-in-one. That’s the energy I’m bringing today, because my heart has been heavy lately pertaining to why I stopped chasing friends.
I’m sure many can resonate with this one.
To be clear, there’s a difference between showing up, making an effort and *chasing*. And if that word doesn’t cover every base for you, you could also say I stopped *fighting for* the wrong friends. Like, if something was off or wrong, didn’t seem quite right or there was existing tension or confrontation in friendship…I was someone who would break their neck in an attempt to salvage or save those friendships. You know what I mean?
So there’s a few things I’ve recently unpacked when it comes to my past and present friendships. Baggage that I didn’t realize existed hit me like a tidal wave. Then things started making sense and questions began rising as I put the pieces, all the way from my childhood, together. And it wasn’t until I reached my mid thirties when I started putting my foot down (the breaks, really) and stopped chasing friends.
The results weren’t super surprising – they were a long time coming.
I stopped chasing friends as an adult in my mid-thirties, and the results were low-key expected.
I learned a really unhealthy side of loyalty from a young age. That whole, “Blood is thicker than water” kind of loyalty. Yeahhh, I came from one of those family dynamics. The thing is, it should be this way, but unfortunately blood is often tainted with jealousy, unhinged strife, limited acceptance, enmeshment, unforgiveness, involuntary support and unrealistic, superficial expectations.
TBH, friendships can be tainted this way, too.
Anyway, I realized I had learned that loyalty meant self-sacrifice, even at the expense of my own peace, security and individuality (beliefs, thoughts, opinions). I’ll never forget when 3rd party family drama had me prove my loyalty by unfriending them on social media. It’s crazy because even though I’m an adult, who can actually say to Hell with that, still hasn’t truly reconciled with those disconnections.
So, in friendship, I went in with the idea that not only did I feel I had to prove my loyalty to others in order to ensure relational standing with that friend and to receive acceptance and approval from them, but I also had to remain loyal through toleration. So when a friend hurt my feelings or behaved in ways that weren’t that of a true, respectable friend, loyalty meant not only accepting these things but tolerating them.
Moreover, in silence.
I also learned that if there’s a problem, to assume the problem is *me*. In light of the “[insert sound] Is it me – am I the problem?“…yes, self-awareness and reflection in our lives is ab-so-lutely necessary!
BUT, also, nobody is blameless, flawless and perfect. Doi.
So, in my early adolescence, whenever I confided in someone about a problem I was having with a friend, more often than not the default response I heard was, “Well, Carissa, maybe it’s something you did. ”
At the end of the day, I needed to assume the problem was me and I was responsible – that I needed to look within, find what’s wrong with me, and make a change. This was dangerous to be told, again and again as early as 12 years old, especially as someone who was bullied by another girl in 6th grade.
Therefore, from this, I often took away that if I wanted to see change, I needed to change myself or conform and adapt to others. And in friendship I did this almost unknowingly. I can look back and see the ways I had chameleonized to my friends and friend group. Sometimes, I now ask, “Who WAS that person?” because I didn’t recognize those parts of myself and many memories are an absolute blur.
I also took away that by assuming I am the problem, I would then be called to – yet again – prove that I was worthy and loyal. I would over-extend and over-explain with people-pleasing tendencies, that is until I felt better (about myself) and felt secure in the friendship. My worst fear was for those friends to hate or dislike me – how awful is that?
When I chased or fought for friendships, the results have always backfired. Okay, again, when I say *fought for*, I mean showing up in friendship in the midst of turmoil, discomfort or stagnancy. I don’t really want to put this in the same box as chasing since that can be defined as more of a negative, whereas when you care about something and love someone, you’re not quick to just *give up* but are proactively showing up even when things get hard.
You know, in life, you fight for the people you love and care for.
I was the person who would speak up and say things like, “Hey, what’s wrong with us? Why have you been leaving me out of the friend group lately? I haven’t heard back from you in a while – did I do something? I feel ‘_blank_’ after you ‘_blank_’.”
To me, fighting for a friendship simply means you care about that friend enough to speak up, whether pertaining to a specific incident, hurt feelings, violated boundaries, unmet needs, or even the symptoms and consequences of drifting away or falling out. When we fight for that friendship, we are willing to endure some hardship and overcome some strain in order to grow and get to a better place.
That means we will also fight for friendship during times of conflict, discomfort, and confrontation or when effort and priority become one-sided. When we’re willing to lift the veil on the hard things (the uncomfy things), it’s out of genuine care.
But I find that, today, friends are less likely aware of let alone pointing out and able to endure the hard things; in today’s climate, silence, pretending problems don’t exist (or zero self-reflection), using time as an apology (or band aid over conflict) or simply walking away from friendship when things are no longer convenient or easy is the greater norm.
I grew up very much in a social environment at home where the silent treatment, victim reversal and guilt tripping were commonplace, which makes it odd that I am actually not the type of person who avoids conflict and weaponizes silence, but instead calls out infractions and brings uncomfortability to light.
In turn, by doing this, I am almost always met with hyper-sensitivity, passive-aggressiveness, deflection or defensiveness. More ofen than not, friends have made situations about themselves and responded by wiping their hands clean of friendship altogether. On occassion, there have certainly been friendships I fought for, and continued to chase, in an attempt to restore them.
I’d never felt more dispensable when I stopped chasing friends. When I bent over backwards to try and make friendships work, I was met with so much resistance and flat-out fatigue and I was blind to how quickly and easily they were willing to let go or had already, even when that friendship was seemingly healthy!
I rarely had friends where we fought all the time or had major blowups, so it was quite shocking to have friends walk away so easily over considerably normal discrepancies. No wonder friendships are so often viewed and treated as dispensable, and we’ve become comfortable accepting that.
Now that I am an adult, looking back over the course of my friendships through life so far…I am exhausted, to say the least. I am just tired of tip-toeing around people’s feelings. Yet not doing so has still cost me friends, which is why friendships equate to walking on eggshells for me. They make me incredibly anxious as I’ve gotten older.
And if this has taught me anything, it’s this: to not hold onto something [so hard] that wouldn’t even stick around if I wasn’t.
In turn, I’ve never felt *fought for*. If you felt this, too, then you know what I mean. I know it’s pretty cheesy, but in friendship there’s this longing to feel meaningful to someone else. Like being in their life, no matter how big or small, is a blessing as much as it is a privilege. More importantly, you feel it, so you’re not afraid of losing it.
But because I’ve been accustomed to chasing friends who wouldn’t even fight for me, I’ve only learned that friendships will just fizzle or blow away in the wind if I wasn’t the one holding onto it.
[End rant].
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