Okay recently I met this guy who often speaks of the value of a friendship and how one can dominate a friendship. He is always trying to see what value he has to people and what things can get people to come back to you. Today, he told me that the first time we met he had the assertive edge. All we had done is gone to a park and chilled for a bit. When we first met, I never thought of domination of any kind. All I wanted to do was hang out and talk. When you meet someone or when you talk with friends, do you ever think of what value you possess that keeps people to remain in contact with you or the domination you might have in a friendship?
My social circumstances are something that I analyze and try to understand. I think it's natural. You can put it in whatever terms you want; dominance, assets, or any other system of evaluation. But a) don't talk about, because that's considered weird and b) if you treat people exclusively like a resource and/or only attempt domination at all times, you're kinda like the most dickish dick amongst the CEOs of all the "too big to fail" banks. Seriously though, you should have resources to offer if you want healthy friendships. That's just the way the world works. Oh, and I don't recommend prioritizing monetary or material resources, whether to find your friends, or to offer up in friendship. ------------------------------- Here's am_Unition's Texas Two-Step Process (TM) for Lasting Friendships: 1) Make sure your friends are having a good time 2) Have a good time
There are friends that get more out of our friendship than I do. There are friends that get less. Most of the time these states ebb and flow - that's what friendship is, I think. There are times when you lean on others and there are times when others lean on you. I've recently come to the conclusion that one of my oldest friends - perhaps my oldest friend - consistently gets more out of me than I get out of him. In fact, that his friendship is usually draining on me. Sometimes, so draining that I do not wish to be friends with him anymore. However, I reached this conclusion in '93, '97, '02 and '08 so it's demonstrably cyclical. I make my piece with it and move on. He's my friend. I'll say this: if you select your friends by what they can do for you, your friends will select you for what you can do for them. And all of you will be very, very lonely.
I like this question and I think that lil could have some valuable insight to throw in. I will quote from a PM she and I were having a while ago, about a not dissimilar subject. We were talking about someone who is no longer my friend. He interpreted this quite wisely by saying to me this: "By 'part of your caseload' you mean that you have an inherited sense of obligation to this friend." Is that the case with this woman - perhaps because of your previous relationship and other shared events -- you have inherited a sense of obligation that you are now trying to shake? I defined "friends who are my caseload" as friends who generally take more from us than they give - that we leave an encounter with them feeling depleted rather than enriched - but we continue it, as Pierre said, because of an inherited sense of obligation. Nonetheless, you do not miss them when you don't see them, and you do not initiate contact with them.I was having a conversation with a possible new friend the other day and I mentioned my friend theory: There are friends who are your friends and friends who are part of your caseload.
Thank you for answering my question. Yes, a lot of what he was talking about had to deal with the social exchange theory. I have never heard this kind of talk before, so I wasn't completely sure what it was. He views friendships in this light because he never really had many friends before and claims not to be too socially experienced. He's trying to learn about friendship and social interaction really. As for what I want, I just want to be a friend.