Iconoclastic

Meagan, although it's been 30 years ago, I remember my twenties well. These are passionate years. You feel everything so deeply. These feelings motivated me to write a lot of heartfelt love songs and poetry during those years. It was equally as painful when I got dumped or stood up, or felt that I had been let down. But I always reminded myself that ultimately, what other people do is really none of my business, we don't have to take it personal because they are really dealing with their own personal issues and it usually has little to do with us. The illusion is that we have been victimized. The reality is that you can only be victimized to the degree that you allow it, at least when the pain is emotional and not physical. The question becomes, how do we detach our feelings from what others do or don't do? Why do we take it personal? The problem is, we are attached to our expectations of how we think other people are supposed to act. The solution, from my perspective, is to strive to see everybody else as a free soul, on their own personal journey, working out their own personal issues in the best way they can. When they seem to be letting other people down they are really letting themselves down because they are missing opportunities to build their own character. The law of karma will, sooner or later, put these people into the receiving end of their thoughtlessness. They will, as we all must, experience what we do to others, not as a punishment, but as an opportunity to learn compassion and empathy. When you waste time blaming the other person, you are missing several possible opportunities yourself. Your lessons could be anything from learning forgiveness, to learning detachment, or simply learning how to allow others complete freedom....even to hurt you! I have found that the hardest lesson in life has been to learn detachment while holding onto passion and feeling. It's a fine line to walk but it has something to do with letting go of expectations. I'm still working on it.

thanks for the great comment joe! i find that i write for two reasons: too learn from my experience, and to open the door for others to learn from their experiences.

if i can talk about it, then maybe others can too!

Meagan, I think a bigger problem in any friendship/relationship etc. is when people don't express enough anger/hurt/resentment early on before it seethes and boils. It eventually comes out and makes a huge unwanted impact. I also agree with Joe Shaw above in that we have no idea what the other person's issues/experience/thoughts are at any given time. As a person who has been accustomed to hold things in, I have learned that sometimes it is better to speak your mind so things won't fester and come out worse later. If the other person has a problem with it, it says more about them than it does you. I'm only a few years removed from my twenties, but my early twenties were a very tumultuous emotional time for me. But that is all part of the road.

i agree joe, we do tend to boil over when we don't express our feelings (good or bad) - the problem i find is, when women try to express their feelings (especially when those feelings are negative) men stop listening and start putting labels on women, i.e. nag, needy, etc.

because of this women feel like they are caught between a rock and a hard place - do you express your feelings and get told how horrible you are? or do you hold it in until you boil over, and then become horrible?

i don't know what the answer is...

I have experienced this dilemma more than I care to remember, as it is my father that I've had to deal with. I've learned to hold all of my emotions in and be the perfect little girl when I'm around him. It's my defense mechanism and it's served me well in the past. But I realized that by letting my fear of his reactions keep me from expressing my emotions I built up a wall 100 miles thick between us. He didn't know the real me; he saw only what I wanted him to see. And I was always dreading having to have any contact with him.

When I tried to express myself, most of the time it didn't work out so well, sometimes it did. But even the times that didn't go so well at least he saw the real me, he knew, he might have understood and he had the opportunity to change. There was no way for him to change if he didn't know or understand. And I felt immensely better having said what I felt, even if I did get told I was overreacting. And the times that it did work out and he did understand made me happier than anything, and they were worth all of the times that he just didn't understand.

There's nothing to a relationship if you can't share your feelings with the other, if you hold in all of your emotions; it's giving a courtesy call every now and then, a card on your birthday. A relationship where you have to work and risk getting hurt is worth much more than hiding yourself in a shallow one; always being angry and afraid you'll be hurt is simply no way to live.

I know he's not a bad father, he just does his job the best he can, the only way he knows how. I chose to tell you this because I know that my dad loves me, even if he can't express it the way I want him to; like Joe said, you have to learn to give others their freedom to learn their own life lessons, and to take their own path.

There's nothing to a relationship if you can't share your feelings with the other

That is so true! Thank's for the wonderful insight! I guess that I've decided there must not be a relationship to worry about, since I cannot share my feelings with that person.

I'm not sure if this thread is dead but figured I'd throw in my two cents.
I don't think there should be any problem with you telling your friend he hurt your feelings. Tell him once, get it out in the open, and then consider it water under the bridge.
What I (and probably a lot of other guys) would qualify as a nag is if you keep bringing it up and/or bring it up a year later in an argument.

That being said, I have a few friends that are great people, great friends other than the fact that they tend to flake out or not keep in communication very well. So I just factor in a flake-possibility into every plan we make, and make contingency plans in case they do flake. Like Joe Shaw says, don't take it personally.

thanks adam! a thread is never dead, and i appreciate your thoughts. the thing is, if we are going to value friendship, and not just casual acquaintance, don't we have a right to expect a few simple things, like mutual respect and consideration of feelings? i think, what i have found, is that this person was not a friend, and my true mistake was in thinking he was.