Pattern of cycling of friends

theTinker

This is a personal issue to me but i've been unable to solve it myself over a few years. I would like some honest opinions. What better place to get honest opinions than from strangers with time to kill . I'm trying to see what is going 'wrong' and why i have to keep friend 'hopping', how all my relationships with friends end in 2 years or less.


Historic run down of mates:
1: Kid friends were cool, couple girls and my brother. Played together until 10-11ish.
2: First teenage friends were my first group of guy mates. Unpleasant experience when in group situations and got bullied. Ejected and moved on after a lengthy period of being lonely.
3: Second teenage friends were group of girls, was fine but parted for various reasons(including school ending + i was a complete lying **** with serious depression as a teenager).
4: College friends were fantastic. It was a small group. I had a serious relationship with one of the girls(first love). When that broke. It got messy in the group so i moved on to another one as i didn't wanna cause hassle etc for everyone. It was fine and mostly everyone was on good terms with each other.
5: Left college, not many friends from there(1) 'survived'. Met some person online, who introduced me to my next (and one of the best) set of friends i've ever had. After 2 years of a very happy friends(hanging out most days), Big row one day with the girl I was closest to. I exploded in a horrible and unstoppable fashion(I didnt feel respected for a long time, and completely blew up at her, ending was inevitable after that I think).
6: One new friend 6 months after that who seemed to just go crazy one day and kept saying lots of stuff that was completely untrue, like complete fictional events and was holding these things against me. I knew she had some serious emotional issues the whole time but they were never anything directed at me so i loved her just the same.
7: One new friend after that and just 2 weeks ago, we got into an argument about 6 months into the friendship over text. Nothing huge, not too heated but emotional none the less. I felt she was speaking down to me, twisting things, belittling me etc, She is HIGHLY socially intelligent and manipulative due to her training. This condescending and belittling just gave me a flash of my previous 'best' friendship where i didn't feel respected. Anyways, explained the situation to her but she said she doesn't like to keep people around who fight with her for no reason. I didn't fight as far as i was concerned, I just told her to stop belittling me and twisting my words, and that i found belittling me was not 'nothing' to me. So that looks like its going to end too.

So thats my complete history of friends. There were one or two others who ended for less reasons (lost my phone once and lost the number of an AMAZING friend and she had lost her phone the day before so neither of us could get the numbers back )

As for the type of person i am:
Good:I'm very nice, friendly, generous, funny, always helps my friends out with problems, forms very close relationships quickly and often with people, never betray a trust really, odd ideas about things/people but nothing nasty or psycho. No close friend (even the ones i've lost, have even decided i was a 'bad' part of their life as far as i know)
Bad: Tend to avoid fighting then it pops when it hits a certain level and things cant get fixed then. emm....oh i DO have a bad temper during fights but i'm getting alot better at controlling it. Its very hard tho.
I can be a complete walkover sometimes, tho i often think thats because i dont want to lose a friend since everytime i have a fight with one, it ALWAYS ends and that scares me alot.

note:
80% of my friends have been female. Im male. Im just way more comfortable with females I think. I'm straight and i never lay my friends.

Questions:
Is this history of friends normal in comparison with your experience? Can anyone see a pattern or anything unusual that i'm missing? Im sick of cycling through them, its lonely between 'hops' and even tho i've become alot better at learning to make new friends. The cycles appear to have increased in frequency so im kinda worried about it. I hope i dont come off as not caring by calling these things 'cycles' and 'friend hopping'. I love my friends with all my heart and i get very attached and close to them, but im analytical by nature and see these things as patterns. Am I the ****** in these relationships? I know i must be somewhat responsible but i cant find where im going wrong.

Mr. Incognito

Lasting Friendships are about mending bridges after you have rows and not moving on to a new set of friends.

I think you should learn to chill and apologise rather than get guffy and move on.

I just told her to stop belittling me and twisting my words

You sem paranoid and insecure to be honest. I'd recommend going to see a professional as you obviously have social problems, perhaps linked to the bullying.

As for the most of the friends being female. Fella's are more no ****e attached sort of friendships whereas you can think you're a mate with a girl for a long time and not really be close but just keeping up appearances.

cantdecide

It might not make sense or sound silly but lower your expectations. Like any other kind of relationship, people aren't necessarily looking for the same thing as you.

If you think you might have a tendency to expect them to be on their best behavior always then you might tend to get a bit heavy with them, too. You should realise that they don't necessarily want to please you and probably know that they will put themselves first and let you down on a couple of occasions.

On the plus side, you get to put yourself first, too. You probably think that your 'loyalty' is commendable but in reality, this doesn't amount to a hill of beans in teh real world. Paddle your own canoe. Put yourself first and if you get some companionship along the way, good and if you get some who will let you down, cut them loose for you both because you can't really demand that they change to please you.

Eric Cartman

try going out with/seeing girls that arent in your group of friends, women will tend to stick together more than take your side. it seems like the relationships breaking up have caused the end to some friendships

marbar

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Fella's are more no ****e attached sort of friendships

exactly
you also seem to be mixing up friendship and relationship a fair bit.
if things build up like that i'd say it's easier to have lots of different groups of friends that you don't see too much of all the time, that way you're less likely to have any issues with anyone. be a floater

theTinker

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

I think you should learn to chill and apologise rather than get guffy and move on.

I do apologize when i wrong someone. The moment a friend tells me i made them feel something bad, I ask them to explain what happened in their opinion and always apologize for the fact that my actions made them feel bad. Then also for my actions if i deem it something i'd done wrong or need to be more careful about in future.

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

You seem paranoid and insecure to be honest. I'd recommend going to see a professional as you obviously have social problems, perhaps linked to the bullying.

I'll definitely give the first part a think. Do other posters see this trait from my posting too? Second part, not so much. Unless it becomes apparent i'm in over my head. I'll give the professional a miss for now and try sort it myself.

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

As for the most of the friends being female. Fella's are more no ****e attached sort of friendships whereas you can think you're a mate with a girl for a long time and not really be close but just keeping up appearances.

I'm really starting to consider that too. I've had very few male friendships in my life(father related + bully related preconceptions limit this i believe) but the 2 i have currently are definitely many times less dramatic than all the female ones. But the male relationships are no where near as..'close'..which i like.


@ cantdecide, Twice in your reply you mention people pleasing me. Do i give the impression that im expecting them to be alot more into satisfying my needs than acceptable? I guess this goes along with your opinion that im expecting too much. Perhaps. Ill definitely give it a think aswell.

marbar wrote:

you also seem to be mixing up friendship and relationship a fair bit.
if things build up like that i'd say it's easier to have lots of different groups of friends that you don't see too much of all the time, that way you're less likely to have any issues with anyone. be a floater

Would you mind elaborating on the friendship/relationship bit? If im mis perceiving typical behavior in the wrong context then i'd love see an outsiders opinion on it. When i say relationship, aside from the 'serious relationship' girl in college, all the others i mentioned were just person-person relationships. Friendships. I think i might just use the word relationship differently than some, eg any person to person relational link if that explains my intent clearer?
I dont think I'd like to be a 'floater'. Idea actually seems very unfulfilling and also as a defensive move instead of fixing the problem. In say that, I have made more 'isolated' friends lately in order to spread things/consequences out a bit more. eg: don't lose a group if i lose one friend.

Thanks for comments so far

shapez

As my Mam always told me... "You'll only ever count your real friends on one hand"

Maybe these friendships aren't based on the most stable of foundations. During college and things I've seen people drift together as friends, in a sort of mutual desperation (that word is way too harsh but can;t think of an alternative right now) The 'friendship' can be very intense and they can spend loads of time together etc (more often they not they go from acquaintences to best friends forever in a really short space of time) but often it's based on need more than anything else so when one of them finds something else to fulfil them that's the end of the friendship.

Like someone else said, in a true friendship you stick out the rough times.

Not sure that helps you with future friendships, just an observation

Affable

theTinker wrote: »

7: One new friend after that and just 2 weeks ago, we got into an argument about 6 months into the friendship over text. Nothing huge, not too heated but emotional none the less. I felt she was speaking down to me, twisting things, belittling me etc, She is HIGHLY socially intelligent and manipulative due to her training. This condescending and belittling just gave me a flash of my previous 'best' friendship where i didn't feel respected. Anyways, explained the situation to her but she said she doesn't like to keep people around who fight with her for no reason. I didn't fight as far as i was concerned, I just told her to stop belittling me and twisting my words, and that i found belittling me was not 'nothing' to me. So that looks like its going to end too.

.

What does she do as her training? I've met people like this and they are disturbing. End of the day if shes trying to control and you get that vibe then steer clear. Her problem.