And in hindsight, I’m not sure that I agree with her. But I don’t pay her to agree with me, right?
Initially I don’t remember the thought of giving a disclaimer crossing my mind before my friend came into town.
But, over the course of our 10+ year friendship, there are times that others may (or may not have) received her better had they known that she can be a little off-putting at times, and at one point during this visit while my friends, her and myself were all watching a show, if I’m being honest, I felt it.
Like she didn’t want to be bothered.
Body turned away from the tv, head down, phone in hand and not making conversation.
I glanced over at one point and she assured me she was good.
The consensus was that she was rude and her vibe was off. One of my friends who came over decided not to come back because of her energy.
And that bothered me because I never want my friends to feel unwelcomed in my space.
The plan was to address this with my therapist the day after she left.
And my therapist thinks I should be a little more flexible on this one.
“Haven’t you ever had to give a disclaimer, say about a boss, like ‘just to let you know, they’re a little this and that’ so just be prepared” she asked me.
Of course I have.
So while my therapist feels like I should’ve given a heads up, a part of me feels I’m enabling her bad behavior.
This is a friend who I am in contact with often, constantly sharing our woes and what we’re thankful for, our business ideas, dreams and quest for constant growth.
Her response to this in the past when this behavior has affected other people has been “you know how I am/can be,”. Yes I do but am I wrong now for feeling like this is an excuse?
It also made me question our friendship. Like if she comes to visit again, do I really want to give people a disclaimer before they meet her? Do I want to have to tell people how they should receive others?
We are constantly growing and what if this was something she grew out of and now I have people thinking she’s somebody she’s not? That’s not fair to her.
For rest of the weekend only her and I hung out and it was great vibes and energy. We even hung out with one of her friends and had a great time.
But I told her before she arrived that my only plan was for us to have a great time.
So what I learned, is that by not being fair to myself I can enable others to not keep themselves accountable.
Nobody wins.
And I really ain’t got time to come back and write no long ass thesis about this no more so from here on out I’m addressing shit and moving on.
Sounds fair enough to me.