Have you ever had someone say those words to you that gave you some indication they were interested in hanging out with you and becoming better friends, yet all your repeated attempts to make that happen with them were rejected? I have and it’s something that has been a big challenge for me to face in my recovery.
Friendships were never an abundant commodity for me as a child. I grew up relatively alone and didn’t have many friends throughout most of the my grammar school years as I didn’t fit the image of what other people thought “cool” was. That began to change by my senior year as I started going through a two decade long chameleon phase where I became what others wanted me to become. During the majority of that time, I was never in short supply of friendships to spend time with. But as I’ve worked on my recovery and my relationship with God these past two years, it seems as if I’ve returned back to those childhood days when I was just being myself and hardly anyone took an interest into getting to know me. While I have grown accustomed and even have learned to enjoy the large amount of time I spend alone these days, it hasn’t stopped my want and desire in life to have a few more friends to hang out with. Unfortunately, on many occasions lately where I think a person is expressing interest to get to know me better and become a closer friend, I’m experiencing the opposite of that happening. A few days ago, I had two of these situations occur on the same day that tried my patience and resulted in me not only having to call my sponsor for help, but also having to pray quite a bit to let some resentments go.
The first was with a person who offered me in passing about two months earlier, an interest to hang out and attend some recovery meetings with me. Upon finding out my huge interest in movies, he also expressed a similar desire to have me join up with his group of friends when they occasionally went to one. Over the course of the two months since, I attempted to contact this person on three separate occasions. Some might say that one unreturned call would have be enough of a sign for them. Others might say that two would. In my case, I have usually tried three times only for the fact that too many people these days aren’t listening to their voicemails. Or maybe I’ve just been a glutton for punishment. Either way, he finally returned my third call. During it, I told him I was following up from the last time we had seen each other and that I wanted to take him up on his offer to hang out again. I was quite surprised when he replied that he didn’t remember telling me that. And even more surprised that he rejected all my attempts I made during that phone call to set up anything up for the two of us to ever hang out again. When that call ended, I felt extremely sad and frustrated for the fact that I never would have contacted this person in the first place if they hadn’t expressed interest in hanging out with me.
The second time this happened was ironically only a few hours after the first occurred. It was with a person that has been a casual friend of mine from recovery meetings for some time. A month earlier, he had contacted me with two free movie tickets and indicated he’d like to use them with me. So as not to draw this out into another long story, I’ll put it quite simply. He consistently said his schedule was too busy and let four weeks go by until he finally decided to just give me the tickets to use for myself. Sadly, they were the least of what I was interested in, as I would rather have gotten to know this friend better.
The moral of both of these situations has been the same for me. It’s about accepting that people aren’t always sincere about what they say in passing. Sometimes people suggest to others the idea of hanging out solely because they think it will make the other person feel better. Other times they might have a genuine moment of sincerity, but if no actions are followed through on their suggestion, then truly it was only ever a selfish thing on their part.
This is a repeated behavior that I have been on the receiving end of in the past few years and I believe my Higher Power has been trying to help me to see how I once did this with great frequency to others. Thankfully, I follow through today with those who I say I’d like to hang out with. I’ve learned that if I don’t, I’m not being very spiritual and that action will only end up hurting the other person. Because of those prayers with God and that conversation with my sponsor the other day, I see all of this so much more clearly now, and have been able to let both of those situations and resentments go.
As I move forward now, I’ve decided the next time someone says “We Should Hang Out Sometime”, that the healthiest thing for me is to let that person do the initial work in making that happen, since they are the one offering it. If it’s in God’s will for me to spend time with them, then I believe they will follow through with their suggestion. And if they don’t, I’m just grateful that I’m ok today to be alone, as sometimes that’s the best company one can ever have…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson