Kat and Mary started out as strangers during a university camp. Kat even disliked Mary in the beginning as she hung out with a bunch of bimbo looking girls. However, due to the environment, they got to live together as neighbours in the same block. Through daily interactions, they began to get to know each other better and Kat found out that Mary is actually a studious and rather introverted girl. They soon became good friends and would share their thoughts and do everything together.
Few months into their friendship, Mary started telling Kat about the strained relationship between her and her boyfriend. Kat was there to provide emotional support for Mary through the difficult times though it ended with a break up.
After the breakup, Mary became a changed person and started flirting with guys and led them on. This was unlike Mary in the past and when Kat tried to clarify things with Mary, she explained that she didn’t have interest in any of them and only wanted to be friends.
Kat, on the other hand cannot accept the way Mary made “friends” and started to avoid conversations with her. Gossips about Mary added on to their cold war situation. Soon, they ended up like how they started, strangers.
Are there any suggestions on how to salvage this friendship?
Sup Chuan Ting,
ReplyDeleteThere could be a way, but mainly I've written the answer in Edwin's post. The same, as in fundamentally same, problem exists with Edwin's gf and every single feminine soul/mind/spirit/psyche in this world.
Girls/feminine want to be love; their greatest fear is that people, especially guys, reject them. They have a tendency to feel that way because of a defect or imperfection in their feminine soul/mind/psyche/spirit. These are all written in Edwin's post. And also girls want to be loved if only because it gives them confidence that they are very able to give life and love themselves. At the slightest suspicion of rejection or hurt, they go into doubt about their ability to give life and love. I leave you to read these in Edwin's post.
Apart from that, the friendship can only be salvaged if Mary recognizes her feminine defect and not give in to it! She is a victim of her less-than-perfect femininity, and once she sees that, or you tell her, she hopefully will understand and come to learn of her behaviour. But I expect it will take a miracle for her to listen to you, because a person in defect is very much unlikely to come out of it, unless touched by grace! So I guess all you can do is to continue to show your care and concern in actions, rather than in words. Show your care not in verbal or non-verbal form, but in actual.
Cheers
Hey Chuan!
ReplyDeleteSeems to me like it was a major miscommunication for both parties. Most people (and some social workers) would say that the best situation would be to talk it out between the two friends, but evidently that did not seem to work at all.
Maybe Mary may be unconscious in her behaviour towards the guys? If it was a long relationship then it may be her way of dealing with the lack of male attention, or the lack of other male friends in her life. I would personally have tried to give Mary the benefit of the doubt.
Kat seemed pretty strict on her ideals of behaviour, so I guess giving Mary the benefit of the doubt would not have come easily for her. But leaving it alone was the natural thing to do I guess.
I hope this friendship can sort itself out, i believe that it just needs some time and work (=
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ReplyDeleteIt sounds like this interpersonal conflict is best resolved when Kat and Mary are still roommates before the end of the academic year.
ReplyDeleteKat can try seize a good timing to recall how they met and how they became close friends who share each others' lives together until the breakup. This requires planning in advance on how to engage Mary so she would not stray from the goal of the conversation as well as paying attention to nonverbal communications in the process.
Of course, such conflict is not expected to be resolved in one night given that they are more like strangers now. It takes perseverance and routine engaging if what Kat believe she is doing is for the good of Mary.
That said, if even this fails, it would be definitely heart-breaking but best to stop mending this relationship. After all, like what Vanessa said, it is sometimes unwise to impose own ideals onto others' lives. It would be consoling enough for Kat to have tried her best in salvaging this friendship for what she feels best for Mary. After all, friendship do not last long. It is not uncommon for close bonding between friends to falter. Kat then would have to cope with this loss and bear this lesson in mind when she finds other good friends next time.
I think that it is quite difficult to get back to when they were closer. However, a litte time from each other might help them to start talking eventually and exchange apologies.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, time from each other is a good way for both parties to reflect on their actions and think about the relationship. I would not guarantee that they will be close friends again, but it is one way to get their friendship rekindled. It is up to them if they want to be close friends again.
As the saying goes, 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'. If this is a tru atory, I hope things wil eventually be back to the way it was.
Thanks for sharing this, Chuan Ting. It's interesting in that clearly Kat starts making value judgements about Mary's way with guys in the same way that she made a judgement about her external appearance (bimbo-looking) earlier on. The crux of this is that when two people discover that, in fact, they don't share values and/or a veiw of the world, conflict is possible.
ReplyDeleteYour classmates have offered interesting perspectives.
Just a couple language issues:
a) bimbo looking >>> I don't know what this means. It might be better to use more "objective" terms, more descriptive.
b) Mary is actually >>> Mary was actually
c) cannot accept >>> verb tense?