Friendship breaking Factors
Author :
Tan
Blog :My Online Space
Date: 3/10/2012 6:01:00 AM
All through my life, I have seen a lot of friendships breaking. I have also experienced the same. Basically, I am a very friendly person by nature. But still, I don’t get very close unless I feel I am absolutely comfortable with the other person. Once I get close, it is for life. But still, I have also experienced harsh breakages. Not that I never made any effort to sustain those friendships, but they just never worked and I let them go. From my experience, there are a lot of factors that break friendships. In this post, I am going to jot down those factors.
Interfering in personal freedom
All of us need freedom at a personal level. We all have a certain comfort level with people indulging in our personal lives, we set some limits up to which another person can take freedom in us, we like to keep some of our personal secrets all to ourselves by not telling even the closest friends, spouse, parents and siblings, we like to make our own decisions without any external interference, we may like to be all on our own at times etc. Do you think that being the best friend of a person gives us the freedom to interfere in somebody’s personal decisions? Do you think it is correct to encroach into somebody else’s personal space? I had this friend in college who at the slightest opportunity, used to go through the Messages Inbox of my mobile; a fact I was not comfortable in putting up with. Not that I stored some dark secret there that nobody was supposed to see. But, I used to feel as if she was trying to investigate me and it used to make me mad. She also had this tendency to jump up and see the message that came to my mobile when it beeped to announce an incoming message. She also used to try to prevent me from interacting with somebody she did not like. At the same time, I never tried to stop her from being friendly with somebody with whom I had a problem. Due to all these factors, I used to feel highly suffocated in her presence until one day, I had to speak out and tell her what I thought of all her actions. Do I need to tell you that, that friendship does not exist now?
Emotional Blackmailing
This gives us a red signal about the person that he/she is not going to last very long in our life. This person always starts with “If you are my friend, you should ________________________”.This is also another factor that interferes with our personal freedom. We always stay in a constant fear as to what the person will think if we do certain actions. If you find such a ‘friend’ existing in your life, better think twice before proceeding with such a friendship. These people can burden you and make your life miserable.
Emission of negative energy
I know a person who has had too many tragedies in his life. These tragedies include a messy divorce of his parents, the mysterious death of his father and many other family problems that were too much for him to bear. He was an only son and did not even have siblings with whom he could share his grief. All these misfortunes made him a chronic negative thinker. His friends were more than willing to help him but he never tried to follow their advice even when he was the one who asked for it. Recently, I spoke to one of his friends who said that he started getting irritated because of this guy’s negative attitude and has stopped being in touch with him.
Another category of people always tries to induce negative things into you and try to pull you down. These people call themselves ‘your friend’ but they are never your well-wishers. They never support or encourage you in your endeavors and feel jealous of your achievements. Also, they badmouth you behind your back and try to get others to think about you in a bad way. After reading this, did somebody’s face popup in your mind? Better cut all ties with that person.
Selfishness
Some people befriend you solely for their selfish reasons. The friend that I mentioned in Point No.1 always used to make me feel as if I am being just used by her. When I say ‘used’, it means she just wanted me to satisfy her basic needs of going on errands, to accompany her to certain places like restaurants and shops, to get things done for her etc. All she thought about the times we were spending together was herself. I did not receive any real love or friendship from her and I used to feel very sad by her attitude. The numerous times I had tried to talk to her about this turned out to be ugly fights.
I have had broken friendships due to all these factors. It is a wise decision to not burden yourself for the sake of friendship when you strongly feel that you will be better off in life without a particular ‘friend’. Once upon a time, I was too naïve to understand all this. But, after removing and cutting ties with certain people, I have really had mental peace and happiness. Retain all the pure friendships of your life. Others are not friends, they are like cancerous growths that need to be chopped off.
Have you had bad 'friendship' experiences?