What do you do when a close friend cuts things off, saying mean things?
Find out with Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Reid: Oh, don’t let me answer this question. Don’t let me answer it. Don’t let me …
Cathy: Someone wrote in, said, “My used to be best friend told me to go away and die, what should I do?” This is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Reid: This is Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: And he had a snarky answer, so I was trying to …
Reid: Yeah. My real advice, Haters are going to hate. That’s the advice. There’s memes all over the place. Google search, it click on images, pick your favorite one …
Cathy: Cause meme’s make everything better?
Reid: Yes, hello. Hello. Something’s up obviously for your friend, if you guys are really friends. It could be a phase. Lord knows friends get pissed off at each other and then say things out of turn. A lot of people aren’t great communicators so they’ve been sitting on their own self-created powder keg for a while.
Cathy: That goes Boom.
Reid: And then they explode. Really what I would advise for you, and this sounds so cliché, but the book “The Four Agreements.” I would actually read that book. For you, don’t send it to your friend, cause if they told you to die …
Cathy: With or without a dead fish …
Reid: Yeah. Ooo, that’s great. A dead fish in the middle of the book, “Here, friend.” No, but one of the big pieces of “The Four Agreements” is don’t take things personally, and so …
Cathy: Which is easier said than done …
Reid: Yeah.
Cathy: But it’s useful.
Reid: With some practice what you’re realizing is your friend is in pain about something. This is all assuming that you didn’t pull some dick move on them, and they’re actually telling you to go “F” yourself because you did something. Okay? If they’re angry at you because you did something inappropriate or mean then maybe …
Cathy: The “Five Languages of Apology. Try to figure out how to …
Reid: Yeah, read “The Five Languages of Apology” and figure out how to apologize to them. But if something happened and they’re just telling you to leave forever and they’ve banished you from their life, well if they’re really your friend and nothing really happened and even if something did happen, time and some effort will usually create a situation where you can re-establish your friendship.
Cathy: One other thing you can do is be really gentle by yourself, because whether the friend comes back in your life or not, there’s a grieving process that happens. The best way I know is to treat yourself the way you would treat another friend or a close friend or sister or daughter who just lost someone who was important to them. Being gentle, getting yourself extra support, reaching out to other people, getting massages, giving yourself time alone to just feel what you’re feeling and processing it. Most of us don’t do that. We feel like we should be instantly better, we should be able to pop a pill or just be okay. Most of the time we process, we go through. It’s okay to grieve that someone who was really close to you all of a sudden said something horribly mean to you.
Reid: Yeah. “Go away and die” is not the most mature …
Cathy: It’s very three or five year old …
Reid: Response. Obviously when I can I realize oh, so something is obviously going on for you. It may or may not have anything actually to do with me, but I can have a little bit of compassion and realize or make it mean. If I’m going to make things mean, I might as well make it something positive. Oh, something’s really up for them and they’re just being this way, I just happen to be the target. Now I’m not excusing abusive relationships physically or emotionally or verbally, I’m not making that excuse but at the same time, something’s up, it may not have nothing to do with you. Can you hold to the best of your capabilities this friendly space for them to get their shit together and figure out what’s going on. If they come back and apologize to you, don’t rub it in their face too much. I know it’s hard, I know it’s hard. One it’s okay to lose friends. That will happen over time. My best friends from fourth and fifth grade are not my friends anymore. I’m not minimalizing the impact, and that kind of nay palm it response indicates something else is going on usually.
Cathy: Yeah. We really appreciate you writing in, we hope this helped. Let yourself feel what you’re feeling. It’s okay to be angry, and it’s okay to be sad. You can process it, there’s a lot of good ways to do that.
Reid: And that you even asked the question means you’re probably a pretty awesome person and a good friend.
Cathy: Yeah. If you have suggestions, please leave them below.
Reid: Bye.