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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Carolyn Hax: Good friend stretched thin

Carolyn Hax Washington Post

Hi, Carolyn: One of my greatest gifts in this life is my ability to be a good friend. I’ve been in so many weddings, it’s hard to count, and I rarely have just acquaintances. Being a good friend has become an integral part of my identity. However, lately, I’m feeling burned out. It’s not that my friendships aren’t reciprocal – my friends have certainly been there for me – it’s just I’m tired of feeling like the moon around a planet, like my whole life is about everybody else. I’m not sure how to start easing away from this role without hurting my friends and friendships. But, more importantly, I don’t even know what is required to make this transition. – Wannabe Planet

Priorities. That’s it, really. You need to set new ones that reflect what you want and need. It’s what your planet-friends have done.

The difference for you, I’m guessing, is your consciousness of the process. Where others support their friends and buy them birthday dinners and go to their weddings, for example, without much thought as to what these gestures Really Mean, you do it with an acute awareness of your role – and image – as good friend who’s there to please.

Likewise, the shift from being an omnipresent, ultra-sympathetic schoolyard-type friend to the more casual, job- and home-centric (but still loving) friend of later years, is gradual for some – a delayed callback here, a sorry-I-can’t-make-it there, an interstate move in the meantime. But for you it will stem from a conscious decision to stop basing your choices on what will make everyone like you.

That may make it feel unnatural. But it doesn’t make it wrong, and it doesn’t spell an end to your friendships, at least not to the healthier, more reciprocal ones. All it means is that you start accepting invitations only when you genuinely want to go – and making calls only when you genuinely want to talk, and sending gifts only when you have something you genuinely want to give, and offering a shoulder only when you’re ready to bear someone’s burden – as opposed to saying yes to any and all.

It’s taking your current, general ambivalence, and breaking it down, deliberately, to the decision level. It’s learning to ask yourself, each time a friend comes knocking, whether it involves time you’d rather spend on something else.

All of this will take time. But if you let it, it also will take the shape, I hope, of someone who looks more like you – and who will make a much better friend.