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More Questions than Answers

I have found that you can learn a lot about people and interpersonal relationships by watching or even participating in the relationships of others. This is one of the great reasons that it is good to have friends that are friends with each other. It brings out more about all the people you know.

One recent turn in all this great learning is learning from the mistakes of others. Sometimes, by being outside of the situation you can know things that the people in the situation won’t know. One way this works is that people are often more articulate and willing to articulate when you are outside of the situation, but care about it and know what is going on in the situation too.

All of these things are true for me now in one such situation. I have two pals, A and B, who are very close to each other and have a deep fraternal love of friendship for one another. It is awesome and inspiring to know them and see their love. Lately, though A has made a mistake. Here’s the rundown…

A has the following temporary qualities that contributed to A’s mistake.
–Attitude. A has downplayed something. This particular something happens to be important to B. Also, A is probably incorrect in A’s underestimation of the significance, impact, and difficulty of this something.
–Particular Immaturity. One of A’s personality quirks is that A has a hard time taking correction, hearing criticism, etc. (I have this same problem, so I am rather understanding, and furthermore I am tuned into the whole probem, because I don’t want my trait to cause this problem for me.) I call this a particular immaturity, because I want to emphasize that it is local to just one part of A, but I also want to emphasize that this is a quirk that can be ‘grown out of’ or ‘matured past’ at some point.

B has a few qualities contributing to the situation as well.
–Sensitive. B withdraws pretty quickly when hurt or disappointed. B has that particular something that was mentioned earlier and A downplayed it. Now B’s emotions are festering, because B would like to share B’s something with A, but doesn’t want it to be so insignificant to A.
–Reactionary. B tends to learn ‘too quickly.’ B quickly noted that A’s attitude toward the particular something and reacted accordingly. B also has ‘learned’ that A doesn’t take correction well. So, B reacts by not giving correction, and just to be safe, doesn’t even mention or attempt to explain the situation from a B perspective.

For me, the hard part of all of this is watching as these two friends grow apart over a single issue. Harder still is noticing how it tends to spiral out of control. The distance between them will grow almost exponentially, like compound interest or something, because these things continue a centrifugal push until something, some event, (or someone?) comes in to change things up a bit.

I would like to jump in and help, but I have a hard time doing that, because both people are contributing to the centrifugal energy. Sure I could talk to A about the attitude issue, which started the problem and fuels it, but A really doesn’t deal with that sort of thing well at all, and my efforts could be all for naught. Also, A will be the first to tell me that I could just as easily have gone to B to fix the problem. This seems true at first blush, but I feel like B is right about the particular something. It is important and shouldn’t be downplayed.

Well, I guess now my dilemma is over. I now know that I ultimately feel that A should make the first step, even though I think that they both contribute equally to this issue.

The sad part is that A loves B so much, and is usually so good about playing up things of even minimal importance. This trait of A’s is part of what caused me all the grief and reflection about this whole situation! See, I know that A finds many things to be important, and B is high among those many things. I believe that if A knew what was happening behind the scenes and in the undercurrents of this whole issue A would be utterly heartbroken that A had a part in this. A would be even more heart broken to realize what fun, closeness, and mutual joy and happiness A missed out on.

I also know that B really loves A. So much that B’s heart is broken, because B wanted to honor and love A concerning/about/with this particular something. B is so disappointed because even though B truly wants to honor A in this way, B can’t because A has removed the honor from the particular something with A’s attitude toward it. B is also heartbroken because B would settle for the closeness, and the mutual fun, happiness and joy with A, but that too is gone and is now impossible (unless by some twist of chance A changed A’s attitude.)

Ending Thoughts
Now that all this is explained I realize that most people will have no idea of what I am talking about, which is intentional, but I also think that some people will have gotten lost even in the abstract. I wish that wasn’t the case, because I’ve learned a lot from seeing all of this. I wish I could share it.

I’ve learned that my actions have powerful impacts on my relationships — probably beyond what I see or know.
I’ve learned that learning some lessons should never happen. Such lessons as “That’s impossible” or “He’ll never quit” or “I’ll always be miserable” aren’t really great lessons at all.
Finally, I’ve chosen to believe that this is another attempt at driving people apart. I believe that ultimately evil drives us all apart, but that good pulls us together in loving, harmonious relationships.

Posted by David under Reflections |