Some people are givers. Some people are takers. Most people I know are a little of both.
I’ve met people at the extreme ends of the spectrum – martyrs on one side and narcissists (or at minimum extremely selfish) on the other. I spend as little time as possible with people like this.
Those ones are easy to deal with.
Most of my relationships are more complex.
I have an old friend who’s been going through an emotional/mental crisis for the past few years. Being his friend during this time has been draining. He is very needy and demanding. He wants to rant and rave about himself incessantly. Not only doesn’t he listen to anything I have to contribute to our discussions, he doesn’t even remember having them because he’s so self-obsessed.
When I was grousing about this to a mutual friend of both ours, he said,
“Yeah. He’s completely unable to reciprocate and has been for a while now.”
That was brilliantly stated.
So what I have done with this friend is distance myself. After years of listening to his rants, offering support, suggesting counseling and therapeutic interventions to no avail, I finally accepted that I cannot my help my friend. All I can do is limit my exposure to his self-inflicted drama and insanity. I did this by limiting our contact to once a week for an hour.
It worked. Not only did my life get better, our friendship improved. I could listen more empathetically. He found other ears to vomit into on a daily basis and often his “crisis of the moment” was resolved before we talked.
In time, he found real help through therapy and medication.
The phrase “unable to reciprocate” echoes in my head now as I am restarting my dating life and rebuilding my social life. Since I’m the one trying to do both, I accept that I’ll be the person making more of an effort to re-engage old friends, meet new ones, ask women out for dates, etc.
The onus is on me to take action.
However, once a friendship/relationship has begun, if I’m the one who always reaches out and always makes the effort or invitation, then I need to look at the facts objectively.
I’ve had “friends”, colleagues, and family who always took my call but never made the first one. Those relationships eventually drifted apart once I stopped pursuing them. Only three came back together when situations changed.
That’s kind of sad. I think it’s because the other person doesn’t want to hurt my feelings by saying, “Hey Steve, I’m not interested.” I’d rather they did. Then we could say goodbye properly. But I understand. For whatever reason,
“…they are unable to reciprocate…”
It’s OK. It’s bound to happen.
I’ll be interested in a woman more than she is in me. I’ll befriend someone, only to find we have less in common than we thought.
When I become the one who initiates all the calls, sends the first text, touches base and asks for the next date, it’ll be time to evaluate.
Although I’m an optimist guy, I’m also a pragmatic realistic. I’ll push the rock up the hill* a few times. But if I’m the only one of us doing this, within a short time, I’ll look elsewhere for a person who wants to join me in a mutual relationship.
*Between this Sisyphus comparison and my Grinch story from a few days ago, this seems to be my week for tortured metaphors.