This title might seem stupid to people who don’t know me well; obviously you should have empathy for your friends and usually I do. recently, however, I have faced a communication issue with a close friend, let’s call him Anthony. Anthony has the tendency to speak over me mid sentence, interrupt conversations when they don’t center around him, consistently forget parts of my life that I consider important or exciting, and talk poorly of my other friends when they are not present. I’m not a very confrontational person, so I have been bottling these feelings up for quite some time now.
I used this exercise to try to see life from Anthony’s eyes. I realize that he has been working long hours and taking a heavy course load on top of that. He has also had some complicated romantic situations in the past year, and I know he takes every loose end as a failure. When I took a step back from the situation, I saw clearly that as Anthony has been facing barriers in many other aspects of his life, I have been distancing myself because I don’t like the way he has been treating me.
I won’t excuse his behavior because I can’t just move past the angst and discomfort he has caused me, but I know I need to take action. I want o move forward by working with Anthony and addressing our issues so that I can be someone he relies on again. I can see now that that is what he needs, and he has probably been acting to selfishly because he needs to know that someone else cares about him.
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