Am I going insane or coming back from there?

[cjsmith]

Ever get to the point when you really want to talk to a person about something and you realize he doesn't want to hear about it? Ever want support from someone and realize that he's got faaaaaaar more important things on his mind than hearing about YOUR life and what's going on with YOU? That point where you suddenly wake up and see something you later feel like you should have known for years?

I have some stress about the whole interview/job-offer situation, and I am realizing that one person I really thought I could talk to about it is in this category. There is absolutely no way he wants to hear about this right now. It's the last thing he'd care about. Oh, he might be polite and hear me out before changing the subject -- or he might not. But he wouldn't ask questions or offer advice or basically care.

This is the second realization in, oh, a few months. I clued in about another long-time friend a while back. This one is situational, temporary; the previous one is less striking but chronic.

They hurt, in the moment; I'm stung, and I feel angry. But then I start to wonder about all sorts of related things. Can anything give me the "right" to a particular person's friendship or support? Am I simply expecting too much? If not, am I a bad judge of people? Do I do for others the things I wished others would do for me? Am I seeing things that aren't there, and would these folks happily be supportive?

I honestly don't know. Maybe I'm going insane. But maybe it's the other way round: could be I was delusional before and now I'm more aware. I can't tell.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'd call it a right, but I think it's reasonable to expect a certain amount of attention from a friend. If their own situation is currently overwhelming they might not have much to spare by way of time, but even so, they could take a moment to be supportive.

Beyond that CJ, I'm too far from the situation to be able to give you any good insight. But I hope you know you're always welcome to write to me if you want to bounce a thought off me.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- y'know what part of this is? Part of this is me being childish and *always* wanting a friend to be ready to listen fully to *me* when *my* life is in turmoil. Sometimes that doesn't happen, because sometimes BOTH people are in turmoil. That happens. And I don't like it: WAAAH. :-)

Thank you for the offer of the ear. You've always been there to offer an ear, and I appreciate that very much. (In the case of the job thing, I think I wrote it all already in my previous post. I'm just... I make decisions by talking, I guess!)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'll go back and look at your earlier post.

I've been mostly unable to read LJ for the last couple of months. The machine I used to use for checking it from work got an upgrade to its net nanny software that blocks LJ, so I've been posting via e-mail and not reading the friends page at all. Today I'm lucky enough to be using another machine that can (still) get to LJ, so I happened to see this.

That's all by way of saying that I haven't been reading your posts recently. But it doesn't mean I don't care.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*nod* I hear ya. There are lots of reasons for not reading LJ, few of which are "don't care". :-)

[airporter.livejournal.com]

That's not childish - it's human.

Adding 'talks through decisions' to my confirmed image of you. It fits, too!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I *so* talk through decisions. In fact, for a somewhat-introvert, I talk a LOT. :-)

[wooddragon.livejournal.com]

That is what I was going to say - sometimes, it's just bad timing. Maybe both of you have issues you're tussling over and it's hard for both of you to feel you got fair 'air time.' Which doesn't make it any less disappointing...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And as it turns out, this one came out better than I expected. I did get my air time, and so did he, and by now we're both in much calmer states anyway. MAN it is such a relief to have the job thing settled!

[wooddragon.livejournal.com]

I am so glad your 'job thing' came out so well. Having been in job hell recently, too, I know how emotionally debilitating and life-sucking it can be, so what a triumph to find something that looks good so quickly, after making the correct decision to change the previous situation.

I'm hoping your self-esteem will be right back where it should be shortly, if it isn't already.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! My self-esteem is slowly climbing out of the pit I had dug for it. :-)