On the aforementioned subject, that may or may not have been inspired by real-life events, implied rejection through absent reciprocation, as a reminder to myself, and the self-defeating nature of putting people on a pedestal
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Once in a while, I get the privilege of meeting some new people from whom I come to learn a lot in the very short span of a first meeting. Perhaps in the interests of self-improvement and character development, I might be keen to interact with them again or regularly, especially if I begin to find myself enjoying their company, or resonate with their principles as inferred through their work ethic and observed behaviour.
I reckon that for at least once in our lives, all of us might have the familiar experience of wanting to be closer friends with someone, only to find that this desire is not reciprocated.
Previously, I've written about the compatibility (or lack thereof) of cognitive, behavioural, and emotional needs, that predisposes different people to strong friendships or not, even before they have first met. Today, let's discuss how to recognise some of the common boundaries of tentative friendships, when you probably should not try your luck, and why you still feel like doing it anyway and ultimately ruin everything.
There are two seemingly paradoxical explanations from the perspective of self-esteem. Firstly, we could say that we only feel the sting of rejection (by a desirable person, programme, etc) because we feel like we deserve its acquisition; Or considering the converse, we may not feel disappointment if we had felt like we did not deserve it in the first place, and had come to "expect" the outcome that is rejection.
However, in pining for the validation of someone else or the admission of a programme, we might find ourselves trying to "overmarket" ourselves implicitly to the other person or the admissions board, and this behaviour may be interpreted as indicative of an inadequate level of self-esteem. This is because, if you had been confident in your "natural" abilities, character, or feel like the other person should be the one who feels lucky to have the privilege of your friendship, you would not be trying so hard to gain the affirmation of the object of your desire.
In doing so, we invariably begin to put the other person on a pedestal— when we should actually just don't do that. This mental model as manifested through your behaviour may come off as needy or clingy, but that we may be too blind or biased to notice. This is because in developing a fixation with a person or programme, we place a greater emphasis on them in our subjective experience, that skews our perception of the objective weight of our interactions, when from their perspective, you may just be a passing character in the story of their lives, but they had had an outsized impact on yours, that leads to this discrepancy.
Another self-defeating tendency that stems from low self-esteem or your position off the pedestal— that is highly destructive but that you keep doing anyway, is to periodically seek validation from the other person that they have something to gain from keeping you around, that you are a valuable friend to them, or asking them why they consider you worthy of their company. In their response, if favourable, you may seek some fleeting validation— but don't be fooled, they are not comforting you, as much as they are rationalising to themselves about the value of your friendship; they are resolving for themselves any potential congitive dissonance that you might have inadvertently triggered, that if they are keeping you around, surely you are of "value" to them.
In doing so, you forget that in genuine friendships, the friendship is not a means to an end, but that the other person's company is the end in itself, and the healthy balanced and reciprocal friendship should not be so frequently beset by such constant feelings of inadequacy. However, it may also be the case that you are just insecure because you indeed have a low self-esteem and feel like you don't "deserve" the person— then is it any wonder when you proceed to undertake actions (or inaction) that become destructive to your friendship, and feeding this self-fulfilling prophecy; right or wrong, you lose and you're the loser.
Since we can logically understand that our behaviour has such potential for deleterious outcomes, then why do we still feel the incessant urge to push things further? This may be because of the "positive" feedback loop that we have created within the relationship where nothing terribly wrong has happened yet, and we forget that not having a precedent for something does not preclude it from happening in the future. I discuss this "tipping point" in this piece.
I posit that as friends in an imbalanced relationship, the one who more desires a greater development than the other person may be inclined to "push the boundaries", because of this false sense of "track record" of increasing closeness. Every interaction unlocks a new set of adjacent possibilities— that includes crossing the "tipping point" and leading to the collapse of the relationship, but also the enticing possibility of further increased closeness. Thus, the blindness and bias described earlier applies here in the failure to assess the appallingly unthoughtful decision to push the boundaries in greedily seeking something more, than to recognise the clear lack of mutual reciprocation, and back off respectfully, or maintain the current status.
Instead, I suggest that a more healthy perspective may be to consider the adjacent possibilities that were already open to you prior to this point in your relationship, and recognise that this sequence of events that led to however close that you both are is an entirely serendipitous development that could not have been guaranteed at its inception— we often forget that history moves forward, and not backward, compounding our lack of gratitude in recognising what we already have.
I believe that in the end, the quality of friendships that we all seek are those wherein both parties are mutually appreciative of each other by the company of the other person as an end in itself, and that when we are disappointed by failed connections, we are sad merely at the fact that the reality is not different, forgetting that it could have been different had we been more careful to first learn how to swim, and notice the sharks. If s/he's not interested, remaining as acquaintances still keeps open the adjacent possibilities of leveraging the strength of weak ties, instead of being overbearing and discourteous to test the waters— and drown in it.
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