Petty and Selfish Friend- It’s Me. I’m the Friend!
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Honestly I didn’t read all that. It was too much.
This isn’t hard. It can literally just be:
Hey Lane and Morgan, I’m not help out with the dog anymore. It’s just more than I originally anticipated, and I can’t keep on doing it. Want to get together soon though to (insert whatever it is you like doing with them)?”
That’s entirely reasonable for you to say, and how they respond is on them. A decent friend shouldn’t respond with anything other than “Oh no worries. Thanks for all you’ve done so far!” If they do give you grief or guilt you, well that’s shitty of them.
You don’t have to explain or apologize or express how you feel.
You continue to way way way over think this.
No worries! I promised an epic line-item breakdown, and an epic line-item break down I provided. What can I say? I’m an overachiever ???♀️
Okay, phew. I tried to read through all the new comments but I’m not sure I can reply to everything, and this is starting to go in a different direction, so I’m just going to make one huge reply post.
To “So long and thanks for all the fish”
Thanks for your long comments! I intensely read some parts and skimmed through a few parts, but I really appreciate your feedback and the time you put in to type everything out! Would love to communicate with you privately if you’re open to that. I want to reply properly but I don’t feel that is the right place/setting for it. By the way, when you were describing your friend, I actually was worried for a moment that you might be someone I know in real life. Then I got to the “real butter” part and gave a sigh of a relief. ?To ?
I lost track but someone mentioned obsession with food and being invited out as thanks…both the whole restaurant debacle and the eating out thing happened years ago. Completely unrelated to the new puppy, and the situation was always that if I joined them to eat out, I would be expected to pay for myself. Yes, I see why it looks like I am obsessed with food. The thing is that where most people prefer cash or physical gifts, I prefer food. I also tend to give people snacks/food that they like as presents; maybe it’s like my version of a “love” language.
@ele4phant
I am replying to your comments out of order (and am probably missing a couple), but the thing you said about mental health/psychology stood out to me, and I think I see where I might have “gone wrong” here. Psychology IS actually my background, funnily enough. And this is perhaps where the confusion/misunderstanding lies…I use terms like “cold” and “unfeeling” to describe myself because I see those as neutral words that describe my affect/personality. To put it in slightly technical terms: My behaviour itself doesn’t violate the social norms of my culture, and it doesn’t cause significant distress in social functioning, so I don’t consider it a problem to be cold and unfeeling, especially since I am not lacking in empathy. What some people might see as me putting myself down is simply me describing myself. But I can see why those words have negative connotations in a general setting.I have no issues with social cues, but I was prepared for someone to ask! I’ll try and explain. The steamrolling thing is that with our meetings, it can become a “first come, first serve” situation and you need to speak up fast and loud to get your point across. Our team consists of members from different provinces/regions, and there are cultural differences. Certain members are more careful about speaking up or expressing an “extreme” opinion while I don’t shy away from it. Just as an example, this is something that can make me very unpopular, but I am passionate about trans rights due to my education and personal experience from when I was in the psychology field. (Without revealing too much about where I work or what I do, all I can say is that LGBTQ2S+ rights is a relevant work topic for my team.) It can be uncomfortable for other employees when I point out the areas that we need to improve on as an organisation. They might think we’re actually doing okay, or they don’t want to continue to address the issues, but are too afraid to say so “against” me.
From my point of view, I presented a situation here that made people assume I’m a people pleaser and can’t say no, or that I have low self confidence. I tried to present a markedly different situation to show how I’m the total opposite and that I am perfectly capable of saying no and making myself #1. Now I think it seems to you that I swing between two extremes or am overcompensating? But it’s incredibly difficult to “show” myself as a whole person on an online forum. I can only provide snippets and examples. You mentioned that I seem to care too much about what others think of me, but if I give you an example of where I couldn’t have cared less what anyone thought of me, it would make you think I’m overcompensating. I just can’t win! (This last sentence is a bit tongue in cheek. You were spot on that I wasn’t conveying this well in my writing. I was trying to not use too many emojis or say “lol” or “hahaha” all the time, but maybe that would’ve helped!)
Not sure if you actually wanted me to answer the question about what Morgan and Lane bring to our friendship, or if it was more of a rhetorical question. I did laugh when I read that though, because at one point in my life, I did wonder if we should stay friends, because sometimes I found them to be…wait for it…boring! So terrible of me! (Yes, this is another one of those tongue in cheek moments. I’m laughing at the irony and at myself.) That’s actually why I think they must find me boring, not because I don’t see my own value. If sometimes they bore me, I wouldn’t be surprised that the reverse is true too.
To everyone in general
The reason I posted was that I have encountered a rare situation in my life where choosing to put myself first would involve a deliberate action that would hurt another. This is hard on my conscience, which I think is a good thing though. Not having a conscience would be worse! Normally, choosing to put myself first doesn’t involve an intentional action that would hurt others, so this situation was new to me. It wasn’t really so much about, “How do I say no to people?” and in trying to explain that, I seemed to just make things more confusing. But I get what everyone is saying, and I appreciate the advice and suggestions (some more than others…lol). I wish I could’ve just magically allowed everyone to “see” Morgan, Lane, and me as the real people we are because that would’ve made everything a lot easier. I now have a much better understanding of and a lot of sympathy for people who ask for advice online and are limited in what information they can provide! ?You sound absolutely obsessed with yourself. I am not surprised to hear that psychology is your background. There is no reason to be trying to reply to every comment except that it allows you to go on about yourself.
This was a simple etiquette question. You got a simple answer, which is to tell your friends you realized you bit off more than you could chew with the dog sitting and need to cut back, or stop, your choice.
Please don’t reply to this.
Um okay.
Seems like all a bunch of navel gazing to me, but you’re the one with the background in psychology so okay.
Just tell them you can’t watch the dog anymore, and suggest get togethers that are mutually interesting to all of you.
It’ll be fine.
Also if you find Lane and Morgan boring and they find you boring and it’s hard to find things you all enjoy doing together, maybe actually you don’t have a lot of common ground and you aren’t the best fit for friendship.
Life is short. Social interpersonal relationships shouldn’t be this hard. If they are, maybe they aren’t worth the hassle.
Yes, the more you explain, the more muddled you/the situation sounds. Tell them enough already with the dog sitting and get on with your life.
Yeah. This situation is simply NOT as complicated as You keep trying to make it out to be… ??♂️
I think I might be a little late to the response train on this but you should never feel guilty for doing what’s right for you even with great friends. If you still want to watch their dog sometimes (like, actually *want* to), be prepared to tell them how often or how little you’re able to. No excuse necessary. Even if you’re not doing anything at home on the days they’re working, you don’t need to give them some excuse. When you’re chilling at home, you simply don’t have that pressure of caring for a dog and that’s totally okay because you weren’t the one who made the choice to adopt one. That said, if you *don’t* want to watch the dog anymore, it’s not really going to make you feel better in the long run if you even settle on X days a week or month. Because you’ll still be on the hook. As dog owners, they have a responsibility to find another sitter if their preferred one isn’t available and it’s really not even fair of them to make you the first call ever. You’re offering help to a friend in need but how drastic is that need if they haven’t asked anyone else? I’m guessing you don’t have a dog because you either don’t want one or because it doesn’t make sense for your lifestyle. So then why would you guilt yourself into being an on-call surrogate dog mom simply because your friends didn’t consider their own lifestyles before adopting said pup?
