WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
How do I make my friends with benefits relationship work? How do I tell my friend that I don’t want to bre roommates anymore? How do I get my best friend to forgive me for doing the unthinkable? Am I giving too much?
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Dr. K recently I’ve felt very lonely…people who I thought were my best friends turned out to not be who I thought they were. They betrayed me, and have made me feel useless. This has caused me a lot of distress because I did everything with them. I know that UNCW is a huge school but I’ll be seeing these friends all the time..there is NO escaping seeing them. I have applied to other schools and I am thinking about transferring. I don’t want to transfer because of a group of friends…but I don’t know any other option. I just want you opinion of what you would do, and keep in mind no matter what I will see these friends everyday, unless I leave the school.
Dear “Don’t know what to do”
I’m sorry that you feel lonely because your friends betrayed you. BUT, as much as you do not want to see them again, switching schools isn’t the answer. You are at UNCW to get an education not to maintain a specific circle of friends. I wish that I could offer you some magical tip that would make your loneliness go away, but I’m afraid that all I have is something cliche. Give it time. You may never reach a time where you forgive and forget the betrayal, but time will give you some distance from the hurt and lonely feelings. In the meantime, find other things to do and other people to hang out with. Seize the opportunity to become more focused on school, take on a volunteer project, or join a campus organization. Use the time that you use to invest in that friendship and invest it in ways to enrich your life. You know … this might be the ideal time to study abroad or become a national exchange student (attend another school in the country for 1-2 semesters). It will give you the physical distance that you seem to crave and allow you to improve yourself in a meaningful way.
I have a roommate who always thinks she is right. Whenever I approach her about being wrong she always shuts me out. She will go as far to go home for the weekend. Why do you think she is doing this. I know that she is choosing the avoiding method for conflicts, but since she keeps running away I don’t know what to do?
Forgive me or being blunt, but who likes being told they’re wrong? Seriously, what result do you want from this conversation? If you just want to point out every time she’s wrong, put a note under her pillow or in her backpack. If you what to lecture her on how she needs to be more open to other people’s opinions and perspectives, I’d rethink that conversation. Certainly your roommate doesn’t want to hear information that contradicts her image of herself. But by leaving, your roommate may be sparing you the tongue lashing that she readily bestows upon others who point out her flaws. I would keep my mouth shut … and invest in pillow stationery.
So I possibly could be living with a bi-sexual roommate next year, and that bothers me. I’ve tried to talk to the person about it, but every time I try I get shut down. What do you think is this cause of this interpersonal conflict?
Well … it depends. What exactly have you been trying to talk to your roommate about? Have you been trying to discuss the origins of his/her bisexuality? Have you been trying to debate the morality of her/his bisexuality? Have you been trying to share how much you DON’T KNOW about bisexuality? Have you been trying to brainstorm ways your roommate can hide his/her bisexuality from your friends and family? If someone was trying to engage me in a conversation about how much me being me bothers him/her, I would avoid that little chat as well.
I recently felt betrayed by roommates, whom I thought were my best friends. At first my behaviors were very aggressive and all I wanted to do was leave UNCW and never see those roommates again. I even wanted to take one of them to court for something that had happened last year. Since then I have calmed down some, because I realized that I should not pick a school because of who I live with or who I am friends with. Could you help me figure out why I was so aggressive at first with this interpersonal conflict with my roommates?
Your initial reaction was normal. Perceived betrayal engenders a strong desire to retaliate. The problem is, our responses to betrayal are sometimes more extreme than the actual betrayal. Someone hurt your feelings; you want to hurt that person back. And because your behavior was motivated by hurt, you were not able to make sound decisions.
Jealousy and Envy seem to have inner weaving definitions and characteristics, but the text, The Dark Side of Close Relationships, asserts that despite the interweaving the two are mutually exclusive emotions. I think, even though they can be “technically” defined separately they will almost always accompany each other in scenarios which involve people one knows personally. For example, I have a girlfriend who seemingly had a wonderful marriage to a loving husband. To me it seemed that she had herself on the right track; house, dogs, husband, education, etc. Shamefully, I was very envious of her, because not only did I have none of those things at the time, but I never had those accomplishments. Jealousy is supposed to accompany a feeling of fear and threatening. Though it may seem that this friend threatened me in no way, in a sense her life was very threatening. The envy prompted the feeling of jealousy, because she passively threatened my self image. The world sees women who are married as being more accomplished and womanly. For some reason a married woman commands more respect than an unmarried woman. Among friends, in the work force, and other areas of society. My question Dr. K is, was I legitimately feeling jealousy in this situation, as it is defined in the text, and can jealousy and envy ever be mutually exclusive when dealing with close relationships?
I think that envy and jealously are different terms, but I also believe that envy can be the ‘if’ part of an ‘if – then” statement. ie, if you allow envy to spawn jealously then yes they are interconnected. However, if you recognize that, as you pointed out, it is a sociatial norm for a married woman to comand more respect then, you have succomed to that social pressure and have allowed your envy to create jealously in yourself. Rather, as you so othen do Shauna, I would expect for you to buck a socialtal norm and make your own path. You are very headstrong and I think that with a little thinking about it, you can make yourself become less jealous about that particular situation by not letting your envy control you. I guess that is the crux of my argument, if envy CONTROLS your emotions, then jealously will follow suit.
Shauna
The question here is “do you accept textbook definitions of jealousy and envy or do you continue to embrace the everyday, layman’s understanding of these terms?” Remember, according to the textbook, envy is desiring something you don’t have and jealousy is the fear of losing something that you already possess. If the former, the two are separate; if the latter, the two are connected. As to your specific situation, I don’t see how envy created jealousy UNLESS your married friend’s life causes you to be afraid of losing the high social status that you have achieved as a single person. As you have stated, society says your status is lower, so in the Real World, you haven’t lost any status because you never had it. However, in your head, you were equal if not superior to her. And when Real World social pressures threatened your view of yourself, you became afraid that you were living a lie. If you want to blame your married friend and social norms for bursting your bubble–fine, your envy of her lead to jealousy. I just think that’s ALOT of work to justify feeling bad about being single at that point in your life.
I work in the restaurant business and have noticed that gossip is a prime way of communication among managers and employees. While service to the customers is always the main focus, gossip throughout the restaurant has definitely become another key element of every work day. In a recent conversation, I was told (although I didn’t care to hear it) some compromising information about an employee’s future with the company. This issue was already dealt with by managers the day before, and the employee’s job was safe for the time being. However, the other employees continued to gossip about this employee getting fired with extreme exaggeration, although the issue had already been resolved. So, why is it that people tend to override the definite facts and listen to the gossip, even if this so-called ‘juicy information’ is far from the truth and actually old news?
Lacey
Everybody loves a good story. And adding to the characters in a story or the action is the easiest way to attract listeners when that story has been told a million times before. Given that gossip is valued and normative at your workplace, it is not surprising that a story about someone everybody knows “still has legs.” If everybody knows the real story and accepts the embellishments as harmless fun, then there is no actual problem. But, if the add-ons become malicious and/or compromise customer service, the gossip will need to stop.