I ended a 15 year friendship over this exact thing.
I loved my dear friend, but it became clear to me in recent years that my friend did not love me.
Oh, she was happy to come and stay at my house half the weekend and tell me all her woes and how excited she was to do pottery and about her job and the men she was pursuing.
But she could not handle a five minute conversation about comics or movies or books or art that I was working on. She would sit there silently and say 'I have nothing to contribute' or she would start watching TikTok WHILE I was talking until I gave up.
It wasn't as if I didn't try, I only brought up topics in those genres I thought might interest her, or referenced things she'd talked about in the past, but it starting being very obvious that she didn't want to have a conversation, she wanted me to listen and affirm while she told me things.
And it genuinely hurt my feelings, because I don't particularly care about pottery or glazing, but I listened and learned and asked questions and eventually learned enough to have an actual conversation on the topic with her. Because I loved her and that is what she loves.
A few weeks ago, I went to see a different friend and she asked me if she could play a video game while we talked. I didn't mind, I was used to trying to fight with TikTok for attention.
We spent five hours talking, actually talking. Five hours of me getting to talk about the novel I've been working on for nearly two years at this point and for her to tell me all about the construction and design of her favorite game franchise, and not once did I feel like I was fighting for attention. It felt very much like hanging out and playing video games when I was a kid.
If someone isn't willing to try to meet you where you're at, especially if you're doing it for them, it's not a good relationship. You deserve someone who'll meet you at your level of freak, you deserve to be listened to and treated with respect.
theartofmadeline
ellievsbear
baratheonpilled
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