Friendship Issue

[missbelle]

My friend lives a ways from me. I am a bit of a loner to be honest. She is one of the only people I am close with. She was really cold with me last time we spoke, I senses it immediately and asked her what was wrong and she accused me of not being a good enough friend and that our friendship is one sided, that she always calls me.

1) Yes right now (the past couple weeks) it is one sided because I am putting all my time and energy into artwork. I have told her I was very busy. I am barely making ends meet. Barely enough to make rent. I don't know if I will make that happen.

2) I do occasionally call her, but its at the comfort level that I feel comfortable calling her. Which is about once a week on the phone. She seems to have entirely different idea of how much time we need to commit to each other. Remember, she lives far away.

3) My phone has minutes and I have little spending money for making out calls so I am very careful about making them. I like to save them for potential clients and job opportunities.

4) She says I make her feel worthless. Honestly, just the fact that she was sticking up for herself made me feel like she was taking necessary steps towards empowering herself by voicing her needs but I am not responsible for her feelings about herself. She voices it in a way that makes me feel like I am responsible for how she feels. She is a serial dater and I feel like now that she is single she is latching onto me and being needy. She wasn't acting so needy with me this way when she was in her last relationship.

5) She has no feelings of sympathy for my money situation. I have told her time and time again that I am struggling and hustling for money. That seems to have slipped her mind.

6) I feel like I am in a relationship with a manipulative person. I feel she uses her kindness and giving because she needs alot of it back. She is a sweetheart but when she doesn't get it back she turns.

Someone who will use me to empower their feelings of self worth. While I understand the need for love, I feel I am dealing with a black hole.

I really don't have time for stuff like this. I need to focus on surviving.

Any thoughts?

[missbelle]

My way of dealing with it: I told her I was thankful she told me but that I was very busy, sincerely.

That is a simple truth.

[neverthere in reply to missbelle]

Hi there,

My idea of friendship is very simple.Keep the ones who makes you happy in life and asks nothing in return.In a real friendship,how often you see each other or how often you talk doesn't really matter.What matters the most is your understanding of each other.

Sometimes,this panic attack can lead you wrong directions,such as;concentrating more on one thing and less about everything else.It's also good to try to keep things the way they were and learn to live with it.Financial concerns are almost everybody's problem in this century and it' s one of the trigger points of PA.

My suggestion is if I may,if you love your friend and enjoy her company,hold on to it and make small sacrifices if you can,otherwise,go with the flow.

I wish you all the best

[sat77]

Unfortunately, we live in a world where people have expectations from relationships and even well meaning people may some times seem like they are being selfish or authoritative and even selfish people may, for a long time, keep seeming like they are the most caring. However, it takes time and emotional effort to build relationships and it takes hardly any effort to break the ties.

If I was you, I would avoid being judgmental, explain my situation and give the friendship an opportunity to survive these times. I would rather ask my friend, how we can help each other through these times. Unless one of the parties is being completely unreasonable, it should gradually smoothen..