I hate feeling trapped.
Literally - I hate being in crowds and physically feeling trapped in a small space with no way out - subways, airplanes, crowded meeting rooms, concerts, etc.
and
Metaphorically - When I was 15 and 16, I was dating a guy who had a lot of problems. It turned out that his problems ran deeper than I even knew, but of everyone he knew he shared the most with me. And I became placed in this trapped position. Should I stay loyal to him and not share what I knew with an adult who was in a better position to help him than I was ... OR should I "tell" on him with the aim of getting him help and risk him hating me for violating his trust? I chose to stay loyal to him. The situation ended crappily and, while I stayed loyal to him by not violating his trust, I don't think I was being a very good friend because I ended up not doing anything to help him.
And so I'm sort of in a similar position now in this damned if you do/damned if you don't scenario. I feel trapped. I'm trying to take my time and think things through. The path of least resistance is to do nothing, and it's tempting because it's easy. It's harder to stick your neck out and risk losing a friendship and being hated.
I have to think about what I would want if I was the other person.
3 comments:
True Friends Stab You in the Front is one of my favorite sayings. (I think Ogden Nash said it).
I would be willing to bet that your gut instincts are always the way to go but maybe you haven't always followed them. I would say to you to trust them because you have thought them through and are prone to behave as i would tend to do, which is a knee jerk reaction to fix it now and think about it later.
When put in a situation as your friend has put you in, i would not worry so much about losing that friendship because no friend should be angry at any attempt of yours where you are only trying to help and do the right thing. I would be more mad at them for putting me in that position in the first place.
It's why i love that other quote: Eggs Should Not Dance with Stones. (Charlie Chan said that one i think.) I used to have both of these written on my office whiteboard for years and years.
I left out the word NOT as in 'NOT prone to behave as i would do....'
In other words. Risk losing the friendship and do what you think is right. If having a friend like this often puts you in this position to me that is an unbalance where one friend is always having the job of lifting the other one up but there is no vice versa. And what kind of friend is that really? Always being on the rescue team is not really being a friend, it's being an unpaid (and unqualified) counselor.
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