I think I'm a very bad friend

[Morani]

<tearing up as I write this>
This morning I came into work to find an email from a friend publicly tearing into me for being the cruelest person she's dealt with in years. (Email was part of a discussion thread that involved most of my in-person friends.) The whole thing was the result of her taking two unrelated things I said, combining them, and thinking the result was an insult directed at her. Before I had a chance to respond, two of my friends defended me and cleared it up and with the exception of the emotions, it's been handled and sorted out now. (Though our friendship will likely suffer because I feel she massively over reacted even if I HAD said what she thought I did and this is not the first time this year I've gotten this from her. For a while at least, I'm trusting her at arms length.)

Needless to say, it really hurt. Especially since I've give up a lot of free time and even changed my schedule or canceled plans on occasion because I've gotten frantic phone calls from her asking for help. (The upside is that I got reminded of how true and dear two of my friends are. But it'll be a couple of days before I'll get to the feel-good part of it.) I guess this is proof that there are still some places for me to apply that advice.

As a result of this shake up, I started to worry about this message when I noticed there were some responses.

Thank you for your replies and kind words. The timing could not have been better.
Some times, it's funny how things come full circle.

<hugs>

[Arakni Spellweaver]

Aye Morani, your advice was good.

I will add to what you said about the "don't give them more than they can handle" thing. I have a friend who's terrible about calling, or emailing. We're now several hundred miles apart, and I never hear from her. However, I know that if we are in her part of the country, the minute we (my husband and I) call her and say we are in town, her home, food, and love are freely given, and that she will re-arrange her life so she can spend time with us while we are in town.

I could look at this and say, she never writes, she never calls, she must not care about me anymore. Or I can look at it and say, she's a ditz and forgets that she meant to call until midnight, when it's too late to call anyone, and that she obviously does care, because look at how she is when I am in town.

Some people just work different than you do. One of the hardest things to learn (that I am still trying to learn) is that you can't get loved the way you want to be loved. You can only be loved the way someone else is capable of loving you. It's been driving me nuts because I have been frustrated with the game, so my guildmates keep trying to drag me to the Planes, to this zone and that zone and prodding me to start my epic quest and to start raiding and to do this and that and one night I told my husband, "ENOUGH I'm going to kill them all if I don't log!" I was able to calm down when he pointed out, "They know you are frustrated. They are trying to help you have fun in the ways THEY have fun. YOU would tell someone who was stressed out in game to pick up a tradeskill, because that's what you enjoy most. THEY tell people to get experience or start a big quest, because that's what they enjoy most. They can only help you in the ways they know how to help..." Oh. I guess he's right....

[Morani]

They can only help you in the ways they know how to help

Another simple phrase with so much meaning.