Ok so for the past few weeks I've been pretty annoyed with the circle of people in my life. All for different reasons but it seems to all be stemming from one basic thing : I'm not sure where that line is and I think at some point I crossed over the line of being a good friend a long time ago.
Everyone loves to have someone that they can depend on, and I have become that dependable person with ALL of my friends. And no thats not a bad thing...not until it starts to become one of the things that you resent about yourself.
I have always been the girl to go to the end of the Earth for the people that I care about. In any way shape or form, whether staying up late hours with you helping you through one "mini crisis" after another, being there to hold your hand through legal problems that I forewarned you about in the first place, or just needing someone to chill with. There is no limit you get the idea.
Now this mental click dawned on me a few weeks ago when I was on the phone with a girlfriend. She had been going through something with her boyfriend and I made her ask herself the question "Who is the initiator?" Then I started to comb through the people that I care about in my own life realizing that in 99 percent of my relationships I was the initiator. The person that would constantly reach out to see how my friends were doing, the person that would make the efforts and go the extra miles.
In all honesty my thoughts could never simply just be stated, lets face it the way things appear to us isn't always the way they really are. So i decided to take the three weeks to do a little experiment with all of my friends. In three separate instances over the tree weeks I would not "initiate" contact with them. Just to see if they would notice, who would contact me, and who wouldn't. When they did hit me up what they would say etc. So ten friends, 3 separate cases over 3 separate weeks and the results weren't that surprising.
Three I still haven't really talked to, 6 I only talked to when I finally did hit them up, one hit me up without anything but immediately started launching into his own problem. No greetings or warm up, just straight to the center of the book.So...I think that it is safe to say that I am right on this.
But you want to know what the funny thing is. All ten of these people know, literally KNOW what it is like to be the constant initiator, or to be brushed off for a later time or whatever it is, whatever form of neglect because in reality thats all it is. How do I know? Because I have helped them all through it at some point or another. Its easy to spot it when its being DONE to you but not when you are doing it to others.
So fellow readers, what should I do? NOT be the person that I am, to not care about the people I care about. Because it is wired in my bones to be that way. What? Drop them for being a this way? Idk know. I actually revealed this to one of the people that was in the ten and he said I was complaining, and didn't even try to see my point. Even though out of all of his relationships with the people around him, apart from me, he was in fact the same person that I was.
Robert Brault once said that "sometimes its the person closest to us who must travel the furthest to be our friend." And you know what. That was probably one of the realest things he ever said. But you know what folks. I'm tired of going the extra mile. Im mentally and physically exhausted.And even reading this now im not even sure where to proceed. Except maybe to warn you, never underestimate how good it feels to be appreciated.Because even though I don't want a parade with 23 trombones and 40 midgets doing back flips for the things I do. Maybe just maybe, person 1 would say thank you every now and then. Or maybe person 2 would call me up and take an interest in my day. Or 3 would appreciate me enough to stay out of trouble after I have bent over backwards to help them each time. Or that when person 4 is having problems where his girl is going crazy, he'll try to work through it himself instead of running straight to me.
To the guilty offenders that read this, unless you want to lose a person that genuinely cares, you'd look at my offenders and learn. And to the initiators like me, I don't know where the line ends and begins, but unless you want to end up like me, I'd find it.
"There comes a time where being the thing that makes us assets to other people, bring ourselves the most pain in the end" Di'Nisha Robinson 5/3/11 ....And that's the realest shit I will ever say.
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Everyone loves to have someone that they can depend on, and I have become that dependable person with ALL of my friends. And no thats not a bad thing...not until it starts to become one of the things that you resent about yourself.
I have always been the girl to go to the end of the Earth for the people that I care about. In any way shape or form, whether staying up late hours with you helping you through one "mini crisis" after another, being there to hold your hand through legal problems that I forewarned you about in the first place, or just needing someone to chill with. There is no limit you get the idea.
Now this mental click dawned on me a few weeks ago when I was on the phone with a girlfriend. She had been going through something with her boyfriend and I made her ask herself the question "Who is the initiator?" Then I started to comb through the people that I care about in my own life realizing that in 99 percent of my relationships I was the initiator. The person that would constantly reach out to see how my friends were doing, the person that would make the efforts and go the extra miles.
In all honesty my thoughts could never simply just be stated, lets face it the way things appear to us isn't always the way they really are. So i decided to take the three weeks to do a little experiment with all of my friends. In three separate instances over the tree weeks I would not "initiate" contact with them. Just to see if they would notice, who would contact me, and who wouldn't. When they did hit me up what they would say etc. So ten friends, 3 separate cases over 3 separate weeks and the results weren't that surprising.
Three I still haven't really talked to, 6 I only talked to when I finally did hit them up, one hit me up without anything but immediately started launching into his own problem. No greetings or warm up, just straight to the center of the book.So...I think that it is safe to say that I am right on this.
But you want to know what the funny thing is. All ten of these people know, literally KNOW what it is like to be the constant initiator, or to be brushed off for a later time or whatever it is, whatever form of neglect because in reality thats all it is. How do I know? Because I have helped them all through it at some point or another. Its easy to spot it when its being DONE to you but not when you are doing it to others.
So fellow readers, what should I do? NOT be the person that I am, to not care about the people I care about. Because it is wired in my bones to be that way. What? Drop them for being a this way? Idk know. I actually revealed this to one of the people that was in the ten and he said I was complaining, and didn't even try to see my point. Even though out of all of his relationships with the people around him, apart from me, he was in fact the same person that I was.
Robert Brault once said that "sometimes its the person closest to us who must travel the furthest to be our friend." And you know what. That was probably one of the realest things he ever said. But you know what folks. I'm tired of going the extra mile. Im mentally and physically exhausted.And even reading this now im not even sure where to proceed. Except maybe to warn you, never underestimate how good it feels to be appreciated.Because even though I don't want a parade with 23 trombones and 40 midgets doing back flips for the things I do. Maybe just maybe, person 1 would say thank you every now and then. Or maybe person 2 would call me up and take an interest in my day. Or 3 would appreciate me enough to stay out of trouble after I have bent over backwards to help them each time. Or that when person 4 is having problems where his girl is going crazy, he'll try to work through it himself instead of running straight to me.
To the guilty offenders that read this, unless you want to lose a person that genuinely cares, you'd look at my offenders and learn. And to the initiators like me, I don't know where the line ends and begins, but unless you want to end up like me, I'd find it.
"There comes a time where being the thing that makes us assets to other people, bring ourselves the most pain in the end" Di'Nisha Robinson 5/3/11 ....And that's the realest shit I will ever say.
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