Reply to I thought I'd made a new friend, but I guess I did not. Middle-age is rough.

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Reply to "I thought I'd made a new friend, but I guess I did not. Middle-age is rough."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is so the story of my life. I met a woman at the school who seemed like she really liked me. We worked together intensively on a volunteer project and then another one.
It then became clear that she acts like that to EVERYONE especially if she thinks you’ll be helpful somehow.
Like “do you have plans for spring break?” And she is super vague… turns out she’s going to London! I feel like a friend would want to talk about that. Or then she announced that she wouldn’t be meeting me at the gym anymore because she got a job. Never talked about the job hunting process or anything related to the job, or why she wanted it in the first place (her husband makes $$$$).
Just a lack of being real.[/quote]

That is not a lack of being real.  You could be talking about me, I don't like to discuss trips in detail with people.  I'm sometimes afraid it comes across like bragging--and some places I've been to so many times for work or whatever they don't even strike me as particularly interesting.

My job hunting isn't something I discuss with anyone except DH.  He makes $$$$, and that is not pertinent to my career.  Not everyone discusses every little detail of their lives with everyone around them.

[/quote]

I completely understand this, I do this too with most people. but I was under the impression that we were becoming close friends. When it turned out we were friendly acquaintances the whole time. Just a different level of friendship than what I was hoping for.[/quote]

[b]The whole "do you have plans?" while being vague about her own plans would make me wonder if she was fishing for a house or pet sitter.[/b] I've discovered that in recent years -- some neighborhood/school people will be very friendly and ask lots of questions, I'll naively think it's because they want to be friends, and it will turn out they are looking for favors, like they want someone to drive their kid to little League or they want to know if you are home in the afternoons in case they need someone to pick up their kid.

At first I was offended by this but now I'm better at spotting the difference between real "getting to know you" conversation and people pumping me for info they can use. The pointed questions while being vague about their own lives is a giveaway. Some people are just kind of users and see others as a means to an end. You have to learn to recognize and then not invest in them. At best it could be a mutually beneficial situation, but I ky if they have something to offer.[/quote]

If you ever wonder why you have friend problems - look no further. Someone asking if you have plans is being polite, not looking to use you.  :roll: [/quote]

You didn't read the entire post. It wasn't the asking if you have plans, it's asking if f you have plans, then you answer, then you say "so how about you?" and they are weird and evasive, and then you hear later from someone else they had plans.

At first that interaction would be baffling, because why not just say what your plans are? But then I realized that some people (not everyone) are very friendly but only because they are figuring out if you can help them out. They'll see you at a school event and make a beeline for you and then ask with this huge smile, "How are you?! Do you all have spring break plans?!" The instinct is to think oh this person must be very interested in me to be so friendly, but then they'll act cagey and strange. In reality, they are just hoping you're not traveling and can watch their family cat or something. I used to struggle to recognize this behavior and kept getting whiplash from the super friendly behavior and then otherwise being unfriendly. Now I recognize the signs that someone is just trying to butter me up for a request, as opposed to actually interested in friendship. Understanding this difference has made it easier for me to make friends, because I don't invest energy in the people just looking for favors and therefore don't feel hurt or used either. [/quote]

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