Major Character Flaw

LegacyUser

Hi, I really hope someone can point me in the right direction with this..

I am 29 (f) and ever since the new year I have been looking back on my life, friends and situations and I am not liking what I am seeing...

I seem to fall out with everyone that is close to me for some reason or another..

I have had 3 really good friends at various stages in my life and I have fell out with them all. I honestly dont know if it is all my fault or not but I am presuming it is, the problem is I cant remember what happend to make us fall out.. The last good friend was 5 years ago. I havent seen or heard from her since she got with her now husband. We were inseprable and did everything together and it really hurts that we are no longer friends.

I have just signed up to facebook and I joined my old school and see the friends I used to have...

I find it hard to make friends generally and because of that I only have one and my fiance. I really want to try and sort out why I seem to drive people away before I drive my fiance and my last remaining friend away for good. I know I can be a bit moody sometimes and I am trying my best to keep that under control but its only every around "that time of the month" when the moodiness comes out and its only my partner who see's me moody and he knows to avoid me!!

Is there any self help books or anything that I can read or do to help me!?

That_Guy

Have you tried counselling to maybe better yourself as a person? I don't mean to say that you're not a good person but if you really feel that you need some help I think counselling would be much better than reading a self help book. Talking one on one is a bit better than reading somebody elses ideas and opinions.

Hope this helps.

PCPhoto

I really don't know what to say which can help you :

you have identified what you think is the problem - IMO that cant be the reason, it could be any number of items..... from your friends lives just too busy to maintain a friendship .... maybe your life is too demanding and you may not have time to meet up , keep in contact with friends.

I know my life at the moment is crazy - I don't have time to meet friends for coffee/lunch ...or goto the cinema, I work hard all day and just want to come home and watch TV - dont want to do anything else except RELAX !!!

LegacyUser

That_Guy wrote: »

Have you tried counselling to maybe better yourself as a person? I don't mean to say that you're not a good person but if you really feel that you need some help I think counselling would be much better than reading a self help book. Talking one on one is a bit better than reading somebody elses ideas and opinions.

Hope this helps.

I tried counselling a couple of years ago when my partner and I were going through a very bad patch.. he was very aware of my problem with holding down friendships but didnt really talk about it at all..

I would consider counselling but the only drawback atm is the cost, I cannot afford it right now and I have tried the free counselling services before but they told me they cannot give advice or guidance as they are only there to listen..

papajimsmooth

Unregistered wrote: »

I have had 3 really good friends at various stages in my life and I have fell out with them all. I honestly dont know if it is all my fault or not but I am presuming it is, the problem is I cant remember what happend to make us fall out.

This is common in life, people change. There are numerous reasons why you drifted apart from your friends, maybe you went to different colleges and didn't see each other as much, or maybe one of you's didn't go to college and didnt like to be around the other. The point is not to blame yourself, im sure if you look at there facebook pages you will find that they are very different people to the ones you remember

Try to find something you can do where your with like minded people(dance classes), just make sure to go on your own because if you bring your fiance you will probably not socialize with anyone else there.

Things will turn themselves around, but your the one who will have to do the legwork to get there.

That_Guy

Unregistered wrote: »

I tried counselling a couple of years ago when my partner and I were going through a very bad patch.. he was very aware of my problem with holding down friendships but didnt really talk about it at all..

I would consider counselling but the only drawback atm is the cost, I cannot afford it right now and I have tried the free counselling services before but they told me they cannot give advice or guidance as they are only there to listen..

Free counselling? Never heard of that. So you have to pay to get advice. Bit ridiculous.

Do you have a hectic life? Do you have a job that demands a lot of your time? If you do then it might be holding you back from going out with people and socialising etc. It could be just that you have priorities a bit wrong when in actual fact you should be balancing it out between work and play. Give equal time for both.

If you don't have that much of a demanding job then I'm not sure what to say to help alleviate some of your problems.

banshee_bones

I would strongly recommend counselling. They will be able to talk you through the anxiety that you are feeling at the moment. Perhaps you should also try and get back in contact with these people once you have sorted yourself out. Second chances and life being too short and all that...

That_Guy

banshee_bones wrote: »

I would strongly recommend counselling. They will be able to talk you through the anxiety that you are feeling at the moment. Perhaps you should also try and get back in contact with these people once you have sorted yourself out. Second chances and life being too short and all that...

She just said that she can't afford it at the moment.

cantdecide

You might just have expectations of your friends that are unrealisitic. People will let you down over and over again and you will have to lower your expectations of them.

This moody thing is also telling, IMO. There's no reasonable justification to get away with being moody full stop. I find that people who think it's okay to lay their moods at the feet of others tend to be self absorbed. Does this sound like your character flaw? If you genuinely suffer at that time of the month, I sympathize but even with your BF and it's okay to explain that 'I'm sorry, I hope you know I don't mean it- it's just my monthly horrors'. It's more considerate than just expecting him to understand or go to hell...

Loxosceles

Unregistered wrote: »

Hi, I really hope someone can point me in the right direction with this..
...

I seem to fall out with everyone that is close to me for some reason or another..

I see 2 paths on this issue.

(1)

The simple root, considering the high standard you set on yourself and the feeling you have of letting yourself down, is the distinct possibility that you may have a very high set of ideals that you think you are living out, but you mistakenly set that standard against other people who may not deserve to have it imposed on them.

I myself have had to learn that if someone is not alcoholic, not downright mean, washes themselves and has a work ethic, I pretty much completely accept them at face value and start from there because they won't gross me out, stink me out or p!ss me off. At which point, if I'm looking for a relationship, I'll need similar IQ so I won't be bored or driven bonkers. But when it comes to friends, I'm very accepting, and you may need to loosen or relax your standards in a major way, and do some live and let live. For example, if someone has a looser sexuality, or done something you think is dumb, or whatever it is. Maybe just lay off.

or

(2)

BUT if someone else passes judgment on you and tries bullying you and bossing you about, and it keeps happening repeatedly, you *might* have a very passive and soft-spoken personality, and may end up being a doormat on a regular basis unintentionally. Which, unfortunately, keeps happening to me in Ireland because ****I GREW UP WITH FRED ROGERS**** and Irish people didn't, and Fred taught me to like people just the way they are, and the Irish are completely not like that because alcohol and madness are/were more rife, and accepting an alcoholic just the way they are, would mean a whole pile of them would be vampirizing me in a matter of hours and shmoozing me for money. Whereas in America it would just mean I'd get along with everyone. Rough lesson to learn here. Oh well.

So *I* pretty much accept people across the board who accept me (who aren't alcoholics), and some people here aren't 100% comfortable with that- they think it's wishy washy or whatever, and unemotional, and if I accept them it means I don't care about them (wtf yeah it's the Irish, they've got this weird thing about fighting=love), so they want me to be just as psycho and judgmental as they are and fight them, which for some reason is their meter for how much they want to see if someone cares about them. Whereas if someone cares about me, they won't judge me, so for me, I grew up believing the precise opposite.

And this is a very common thing throughout this island, believe me.

Which has put me in a boat very similar to yours...I've had enough, and I'm accepting my inevitable aloneness. You do with your life what you want, you get what you want out of life, and it's not my business to judge or control that. For me the friendship comes out of sharing that path for a while, not from 'showing how much I care' by fighting with someone. wtf. Irish. meh.

I also had to learn in Ireland that alcoholics will always give you a massive amount of personality (in order to keep you entertained) but provide very little character (to depend on). I have ditched a number of friendships here due to this tiresome, repeating fact, and stopped having a 'local' so that I could stop smoking, preserve my liver's health, and do something more productive with my time. This happened because I did not grow up amongst alcoholics at all, and had to learn firsthand how tiresome and infuriating they really are and how much I had to restrain myself from choking a couple of them to death.

Moreso since the Irish contingent seemed ready to pile sympathy on these vampiric wrecks of humanity after occasions that said alcoholics went cuckoo-bonkers on me when I finally told them (in my best Mr T impersonation) to SHUT UP FOOL, and then their little pity party mates would judge the hell out of me, which is why I stopped the pub habit altogether before I knew I'd be having at the spirits counter a-la the Womens Christian Temperance Union (which my great-grandmother organised in Florida in 1919) with a sledgehammer and a Zippo lighter.

So when you add up the bullies and alcoholics here, it pretty much means I have to stay on Facebook with all my functional, successful friends in the States whom many Irish would likely judge as money-mad elitists and intolerable busybodies, and who remind me constantly that I did, at one point, have excellent social skills and was even a social butterfly, and still am. But here, my butterfly has been blasted with a volcanic wind of alcoholism and dysfunctional begrudgery and fluttered to the earth in a spiraling fall of deep, dark-hearted cynicism.

So if you want to ask yourself why it's hard to have friends in Ireland, be sure not to blame yourself. Because many people are probably blaming themselves too and shouldn't. Maybe if we all got together or something, we might have a movement of Irish persons who desire a more functional and forgiving social standard.

lox.

R.D. aka MR.D

Hi op,


I have lost friends and i've distanced myself from people also.

I have a suggestion:

Are you excessivly negative? Do you constantly say things to people who might see it as being a negative about their life etc?

However, in my experiences people change friendships all the time.
its most likely nothing to do with you and just the passage of time.

cafecolour

It's a bit odd to say you can't remember why you fell out. Did something specific happen or did you just drift apart. For instance, if your last friend suddenly got a new fiance, she would likely then be spending most of her time with him and maybe you didn't make the effort for whatever reasons to keep closer in touch.

Basically, are you falling out for a specific reason, does it seem, or are you just drifting apart over time - as happens with a lot of people and their friends - and you just aren't replenishing your friend pool?

LegacyUser

Loxosceles wrote: »

BUT if someone else passes judgment on you and tries bullying you and bossing you about, and it keeps happening repeatedly, you *might* have a very passive and soft-spoken personality, and may end up being a doormat on a regular basis unintentionally. Which, unfortunately, keeps happening to me in Ireland because ****I GREW UP WITH FRED ROGERS**** and Irish people didn't, and Fred taught me to like people just the way they are, and the Irish are completely not like that because alcohol and madness are/were more rife, and accepting an alcoholic just the way they are, would mean a whole pile of them would be vampirizing me in a matter of hours and shmoozing me for money. Whereas in America it would just mean I'd get along with everyone. Rough lesson to learn here. Oh well.

So *I* pretty much accept people across the board who accept me (who aren't alcoholics), and some people here aren't 100% comfortable with that- they think it's wishy washy or whatever, and unemotional, and if I accept them it means I don't care about them (wtf yeah it's the Irish, they've got this weird thing about fighting=love), so they want me to be just as psycho and judgmental as they are and fight them, which for some reason is their meter for how much they want to see if someone cares about them. Whereas if someone cares about me, they won't judge me, so for me, I grew up believing the precise opposite.

And this is a very common thing throughout this island, believe me.

Which has put me in a boat very similar to yours...I've had enough, and I'm accepting my inevitable aloneness. You do with your life what you want, you get what you want out of life, and it's not my business to judge or control that. For me the friendship comes out of sharing that path for a while, not from 'showing how much I care' by fighting with someone. wtf. Irish. meh.

I also had to learn in Ireland that alcoholics will always give you a massive amount of personality (in order to keep you entertained) but provide very little character (to depend on). I have ditched a number of friendships here due to this tiresome, repeating fact, and stopped having a 'local' so that I could stop smoking, preserve my liver's health, and do something more productive with my time. This happened because I did not grow up amongst alcoholics at all, and had to learn firsthand how tiresome and infuriating they really are and how much I had to restrain myself from choking a couple of them to death.

Moreso since the Irish contingent seemed ready to pile sympathy on these vampiric wrecks of humanity after occasions that said alcoholics went cuckoo-bonkers on me when I finally told them (in my best Mr T impersonation) to SHUT UP FOOL, and then their little pity party mates would judge the hell out of me, which is why I stopped the pub habit altogether before I knew I'd be having at the spirits counter a-la the Womens Christian Temperance Union (which my great-grandmother organised in Florida in 1919) with a sledgehammer and a Zippo lighter.

So when you add up the bullies and alcoholics here, it pretty much means I have to stay on Facebook with all my functional, successful friends in the States whom many Irish would likely judge as money-mad elitists and intolerable busybodies, and who remind me constantly that I did, at one point, have excellent social skills and was even a social butterfly, and still am. But here, my butterfly has been blasted with a volcanic wind of alcoholism and dysfunctional begrudgery and fluttered to the earth in a spiraling fall of deep, dark-hearted cynicism.

So if you want to ask yourself why it's hard to have friends in Ireland, be sure not to blame yourself. Because many people are probably blaming themselves too and shouldn't. Maybe if we all got together or something, we might have a movement of Irish persons who desire a more functional and forgiving social standard.

lox.

"and accepting an alcoholic just the way they are, would mean a whole pile of them would be vampirizing me in a matter of hours and shmoozing me for money."

lol, why the hell are you hanging out with alcholics, what do you expect from people like that who prop up the bar all day? go hang out with loser alcos in the states (or any country) and you'll find its the same deal. Try not building friendships with non alcoholics.

Faith

I know several people like this, and it's basically because as soon as someone does something they don't like, they cut them out. They have incredibly high standards and are completely unforgiving. One girl I went to school with systematically lost all her close friends in about a 2 year period (we'll call her A). In one instance, she was supposed to go abroad for a few weeks with her best friend to work, but the friend had to change her plans. She let A know in plenty of time, before anything was firmly arranged, and yet she was completely cut out of A's life with immediate effect once this happened. Not only that, but A started bitching about her to anyone and everyone.

Next, A decided that another of her closest friends was spending too much time with her new boyfriend and not seeing A enough. She was promptly cut out of A's life.

Through all of this, A was one of my best friends. We planned to do a J1 together. It was all arranged, flights were booked, we were just looking for accommodation. At the last minute (I'm talking early May here, we were booked to fly out on June 1st), another friend of A's invited her to go to Florida instead of California because her parents had a house there. I was basically told I had to go to Florida with them or end up in California alone. I couldn't change my flights so I had the choice of either rebooking at massive cost, or flying to LA and then back to Florida, again at massive cost and time. I eventually decided I'd have to ask other friends if I could stay in California with them because I simply couldn't afford to go to Florida. A hasn't spoken to me since.

Now that was a bit long and rambling, but does any of it maybe ring a bell for you? Do you have a habit of cutting people out once they do something that you don't like? Are your standards too high? Are you unforgiving? You need to examine your own behaviour. To lose one friend may be a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness... What about three?

(Incidentally, A has pretty much no friends left now, as you might imagine.)

calahans

Loxosceles wrote: »

I see 2 paths on this issue.
....
Which, unfortunately, keeps happening to me in Ireland because ****I GREW UP WITH FRED ROGERS**** and Irish people didn't, and Fred taught me to like people just the way they are, and the Irish are completely not like that because alcohol and madness are/were more rife, and accepting an alcoholic just the way they are, would mean a whole pile of them would be vampirizing me in a matter of hours and shmoozing me for money. Whereas in America it would just mean I'd get along with everyone. Rough lesson to learn here. Oh well.
....
lox.

You are f*cked in the head

OP - People change a lot in the 20/30. Your pals are married etc, they have just moved to a new phase in their life. I am in my early thirties and my pals have changed a couple of times. I still have old pals but also new ones. My teen pals I only see infrequently now.

Your not a freak ... and dont worry about vampirism

Rosita

Some people here are giving advice about "drifting apart" and "losing contact" - both of which are inevitable functions of the passage of time, but that is not what I understand the OP to be talking about.

They are talking of "falling out" with people which seems to be an active thing rather than passively moving apart as the aformentioned things would be.

Certainly anyone who is constantly falling out with people needs to consider their own behaviour as it is impossible to live life that, and you can be assured that everyone else is not wrong all the time. That is a simple fact of life.

It is important to cultivate the ability to see other people's perspectives and to keep things in proportion when this differs from your own. I know two people who grew up together (one was best man at the other's wedding) and fell out at about 35 years of age over something and nothing to do with an arrangement to meet up for a meal. Presumably there were issues bubbling under which fuelled this dispute but ultimately it was mutual pig-headedness where a week without making contact became a month and a month eventually became 10 years and 10 years will presumably become the rest of their lives.

But one common trait I notice in the two even when they are in good form is a conviction that they are right all the time and a tendency to see defending their "argument" ro position vehemently as always a good thing, and a sign of conviction and character. Both are brilliantly stimulating company for that reason (if you enjoy a good rough and tumble debate) but obviously there is a dark side to this in that they maybe lack perspective. While people who see the world in black and white are often admired for their "conviction", unfortunately for them there are other people in the world and when you have to get on with them you have to inhabit the grey areas a bit more often, or at least acknowledge their existence.

I am always slow to jump out with the "you need counselling" advice when somebody maybe just needs to cop on and be honest with themselves, but moodiness is something that is palatable to very few and the root causes need to be addressed.