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Friendships are necessary for life to seem worthwhile. When you have friends you must know the boundaries not to cross, and how to obey/respect those boundaries regardless of what those boundaries are. These boundaries may not seem too important to you, however your friend(s) may seem to think otherwise. To keep a good relationship with any friend, you must respect his/her wishes. I wish I could see this stuff before I cross over this stuff.
When a person is isolated from the thinking of the world, the person tends to not obey the boundaries that other people have setup. The person may seem to think that spending as much time as possible with his/her friends is more important than asking permission to do so. This is wrong, as I found out the hard way. I have always thought that spending time with your friends, regardless of the time it is, was okay because we were friends. I found out that it is possible to "smother" someone with the intensions of friendship. I have always shown up at my friend(s)' work/home a lot without asking if it was alright because I knew that he/she would be happy to see me. Unfortunately I just found out that there are limits to how much time you can spend time with your friend(s).
With not knowing the limits/boundaries that people set regardless of which you are has caused me to exceed them with a friend. I have yet to fully understand the reasons behind the limits/boundaries, however I am also willing to obey them regardless. The reason I do not understand the reasons behind the limits/boundaries is because this is the first friend that I have had that has setup these limits/boundaries. I feel extremely close to this person, however being told that I am "smothering" him/her I something I am still having difficulties understanding. This will be one of those things that I will have to learn from as it happens. You could say that I am a little ignorant (lack of knowledge) about limits/boundaries that others set on friendships.
I seem to only learn through bad experiences, for example this time. I didn't see the harm in spending as much time as I did with this friend. He/she didn't say anything about decreasing the time until recently when he/she told me the phrase of "smothering" him/her. I had begun to think about the time I was spending with him/her just about a week before hand, however knew that if I was spending just a little too much time that I would be told this. Now it seems that it should have dawned on me before this to "back-off", however I am not that smart.
When I seem to do something wrong, it is never something small. The day that I do something wrong and it is a small thing, will be the day that hell freezes over. For someone like myself to learn it has to be something big, or else I will not see the harm that is associated with the problem. As it stands, I am finding it very difficult to understand the "smothering" that I was doing to my friend; however understanding is not necessary to obey the friend's wishes. I will obey his/her wishes because I value the friendship to the degree that I will obey whatever I am told, regardless if I understand the reasoning behind it.
This problem has arisen because of the Valentine's Day stuff. I have been brought up to think, thanks to my friends, that Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate the friendships that you have with your friends. I tried to plan that day with a specific friend to celebrate that day with a couple of my friends and myself, however it seems to have backfired. I didn't consider his/her feelings and seemed to become someone that I said I would never become, which is someone that would push and didn't consider anything else. This is someone that I refuse to be because it is the type of person that craves power. To do something like that to a friend such as him/her was wrong and I have been beating myself up, mentally, for it.
It has been acknowledged that it was a good thought that I had done for this friend, however I did the wrong way because I didn't consult with him/her enough to realize the problems. Now I have caused a ripple between this friend and myself that time can only fix. I hope, to the bottom of my heart, that I haven't caused a big enough ripple in our friendship that can't be fixed. The "smothering" that I seemed to have been doing, I will stop by doing just as he/she has told me and that is to stay away from him/her for an extended amount of time. I am not sure how much time is required, however to save our friendship I will stay away from him/her as long as it takes.
If this specific friend is reading this, I would like to say something. I am very sorry that I exceeded the boundaries that you have setup for our friendship. I will do as you commanded and stay away as long as is needed. I also would like to say that our friendship is too precious, in my mind, to sacrifice for anything and I will limit the contact that I have with you. I will limit the contact with you because I do not want to destroy the friendship that we have. It has been a lot to take in for me, and my mind has difficulties to process a lot of information at the same time. I will respect your wishes and stay away from you as much as possible. I will not "aim" for your shifts at work so that you can have all the peace and quiet that you need, and also I will not be seen at the house whatsoever until you say it is alright again. I would like to go blading with you when you go, however it is your call for that one too. I hope that our friendship can survive this because it would be sad to see a wonderful friendship like ours to end over something like this. I am so sorry to not seeing the problems with doing the Valentine's stuff with you where you see the day differently than I do. Perhaps next time that we talk that I will learn to either keep my big mouth shut, or to realize that you may see things differently than me.
My mind is currently a little screwier than before. I have been told by a friend to leave him/her alone for an extended amount of time, with the time not being specified. I didn't realize that I was "smothering" him/her and when I finally realized the problem (he/she told me), it was too late to save myself from his/her wrath. I seemed to have "stepped in it" and "stepped in it" a lot, however that seems to be my way to learn things is by that. I seem learn about things by going past the "boundaries/limits" and ending up cause pain/suffering for more than one person. This really sucks, however it seems to be my "track record".
I spent a lot of time with this friend. I spent this time when he/she was at work and at home. I didn't realize that I was being forceful because I didn't pick up on any "warning signs" from him/her. I had a bit of a warning from a family member/friend that said that I should back off a bit because I was "overwhelming" this friend. The only difference between the phrases of "overwhelming" and "smothering" is that one is a positive thing and the other is a negative thing. I took the warning from this family member/friend under advisement and stayed away from this specific friend for most of the following weekend (this past weekend). I found out that it wasn't enough, and received a conversation from him/her that told me that I had gone to far.
I feel like I have sacrificed the friendship because he/she doesn't want to be around me. I did this by accident because I didn't see the harm in what I was doing; however that was just my ignorance of the situation. I have begun to realize that I will not see something if I don't want to see it. It is rather sick to say, however it is the closest to the truth that I can put in words. I hope that I haven't destroyed the friendship due to my ignorance, and I hope that he/she will accept my apologies for my stupidity.
I have always seen that Valentine's Day was a day for friends to share a day to celebrate his/her friendships. I have done this every year with my friends and didn't think anything of it. My friends also have loved ones that he/she is with on that day too, however we never centered on the loved ones although he/she would be there. This is how I had begun to overlook how others may see Valentine's Day. I know that many people celebrate Valentine's Day as the day of "love" and for many people Valentine's Day can be a lonely day. I am starting to realize that the reason why I was celebrating Valentine's Day with my friends so much was because they didn't want to see me feeling lonely. I think that doing such a thing has backfired for me because I never thought to ask what Valentine's Day really meant for this specific friend. The conversation yesterday was the first time that he/she told me that he/she saw Valentine's Day as a day that "lovers" celebrate together. When he/she told me that, I realized that I had "stepped in it" a lot.
Through the conversation of yesterday I didn't realize how far I had "stepped in it" until this conversation had started. I also didn't pry into any reasoning into not doing anything for Valentine's Day in the past because I didn't think it was proper for me to do so, however thanks to the conversation I found out. There is a birthday of a parent that is around the same time, so when this was told to me I realized that I "stepped in it" a lot more than I had thought. So as it went, things became worse than what it was originally.
As you can tell, this conversation was something that I didn't expect to happen, however I am glad it happened now instead of later. This gives me the ability to think over for the week about what happened, and try to understand my faults more at the same time. When this conversation was done I left after a while because it was a lot to take in all at once. For me to have this much information to be processed properly I either would have to have a "nap" or I have to go somewhere to let my mind wander. I chose to have the "nap" because I had a long car ride that night.
After the "nap" I went back to this friend and asked if he/she would like me to retract the invite on Valentine's Day, and his/her response was "Yes please". This was something that I knew I should have done the first time I was talking to him/her however I felt that I couldn't handle that much of an "information overload". If I had done the retracting in the first conversation, I probably wouldn't have worded it as calmly as I did when I did it. It was difficult for me to hear this friend to say that I was "smothering" him/her because I was doing exactly what I do with my other friends. This seemed to hurt a bit because I think I may have also sacrificed the friendship a bit too.
The friendship that we have together I hold very preciously. I wouldn't do anything to sacrifice it knowingly, however I think I have just done that. I do not know what to do right now because I feel that I need to apologize to him/her for what I have done, however in a way to not make things worse than what they are now. I only know of one thing to do; however I feel that I will make things worse in the process. I do not know what to do, and have no idea what to think at this point.
If this friend is reading this thought, I hope you are able to understand how much I am sorry about what I have done. I know that I don't think the same way most people do and realize that this is one of those times that I should learn to think like other people. I would like to apologize for my actions, feel really stupid about the way I did them, and hope that our friendship is still salvageable. Your opinion means the world to me and having you feeling the way you do about me, makes me believe that our friendship is on very shaky grounds right now. I will do as your wishes have been implemented towards me and stay away from you for a time. I will do this because of what I have said in the past. In the past I have said that there is no limit to what you ask of me to do, and this is exactly the same thing.
My respect of you and your wishes will be followed to the best of my abilities. Although I have begun to realize that spending that much time with you was wrong, I do hope that you are able to forgive me for it. I will stay away from you and give you any necessary space that you require. I will stay away until you say otherwise, and after that I will spend the time with you that you feel is proper. I once again would like to apologize for my actions and ignorance, and hope that it is possible to salvage our friendship.
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