A short rant to a friend

[frugalone]

Dear Friend:

You don't stay in touch. You don't call me. I can't remember the last time I even saw you in the flesh. (Two years ago? Three?)

Yet you never fail to send me an email when one of your children is in a play, school-related or otherwise. And ask me to let you know if I want tickets.

Um...WTH makes you think I'm even remotely interested in seeing someone else's kid in a show?

I can barely make myself go to my own niece's dance recital every year (which requires hours of sitting thru bad dancing, lousy music, and sometimes smelly fake smoke).

I don't have kids, so maybe I don't understand someone thinking theirs are the center of the universe.

Anyway, why don't you give me a call so we can have coffee sometime? Adult time, anyone?

Thank you.

Your pal

[SteveinMN]

I'll guess that email (and others like it) went out to everyone in this woman's email address book. And that most of the recipients will file it in the electronic bit bucket. I don't think there's any real intent here to do anything.

If it's time for the friendship to dissolve you could let her know you're just too busy and leave it at that. Or most email programs allow you to block or filter out email from specific addresses.

[Valley]

frugalone...I think that sometimes when you're a little mad at life (which you seem to be sometimes), innocent comments or messages take on a much deeper and darker meaning than they were ever intended to. Your friend might have had some friends tell her to let her know when her daughter was going to be in a play, and sending out a general email message to everyone in her address book is much easier than remembering who might be interested in the event. Try not to take things so personally...and as Steve mentions you could always block her messages. I hope that your feelings aren't hurt by my message. I have a sister who takes things very personally, and it has cost her a lot of hurt feelings over the years!

[Alan]

I don't have kids, so maybe I don't understand someone thinking theirs are the center of the universe.


That's probably it. I know that my life completely changed once I became a father. Old friendships didn't necessarily disappear, although they did slide down the priority list. It wasn't anything personal, just an evolution.

I think your friend's invitation to attend their children's events is their way of keeping you in their changed life. It's up to you to decide whether or not you want to be there.

[ApatheticNoMore]

It's not personal, but that's because if you haven't seen someone for 2-3 years (and they don't live far away of course), there's no personal relationship at all there. There's no there there!

Yes you can block just make sure you never use webmail etc. (which as far as I know most don't have blocking features) - so what a pain you know. Individuals aren't required to comply with the "can spam" law (a little link on the bottom to opt out).

There are more polite ways to address it, of course, just: "I would appreciate it if you would stop sending me emails about your kids performances. thank you. Feel free to let me know if you'd like to do something sometime ..".

[Simpler at Fifty]

Wow.

[herbgeek]

wow frugalone - your thoughts sound pretty hostile. And I don't have kids either. Ever consider that her sending you invites IS her way of keeping in touch? People with kids do change their focus, and they have time constraints. As a child free person, you can either take that into account or go out and get new friends. As a child free person, you'll have to do more of the inviting and more of the staying in touch stuff. Or you can let the friendships die. And kids do eventually grow up and become less dependent. My friends who were hard to coordinate events with years ago, now have kids in high school or college, and getting together is easier. Wanting them to be different or wanting them to do 50% of the keeping in touch when they had toddlers just wasn't going to happen.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I guess I just see it that there's no friendship there to save and while that kind of email is clearly not turning the other cheek and spreading love and light in the world, perhaps if there was a more delicate way to get the emails to stop ...

[JaneV2.0]

Think about deploying your spam filter. If you're interested in maintaining what's left of the friendship, I agree that it's up to you to make the move. But chances are if all she has to offer is plays and piano recitals, she's probably not worth the effort--at least for the duration.

[bae]

http://jasongood.net/365/2011/06/day-166-to-all-my-friends-without-children/




Day 166: To all my friends without children.

by Jason Good


I know our friendship has changed since I had a family. I never answer the phone; I don’t return texts as quickly; I almost never “hang out” anymore. That’s because my priorities have changed. I would have warned you, but I didn’t know it was going to be so severe. I still love you as much as I always have, but I’m really tired at night. I really want to see you, but can you please come to my place? I know it’s far, but I needed a house and yard or I was going to lose my mind. It might be hard to have a conversation because my kids will be angry that I’m not giving then all my attention. I wish I could just tell them to be quiet and go play, but that’s not really how it works.

I hang out more now with families who have kids the same age as mine. That’s because when they’re playing, the adults have a little time to talk. If there are no other kids around, I’m responsible for all the entertainment and it’s exhausting. People with kids understand that I might have to leave in the middle of their sentence to get a juice box. They understand because they did the same thing to me five minutes ago. It’s not that I like them more than you, it’s because they understand the situation and that makes everything easy. I need things to be easy a lot these days, especially when it comes to “entertaining.”

I know you want us to just get a babysitter and drive out to your place and drink wine until 1am. I want to do that too, but I can’t. Not for a few more years. My kids are too young and they still wake up at night for various reasons. I want to be there when that happens as much as possible. So for now, you kind of have to come to my house. Understand that when you do, most of the afternoon will be about the kids and not about us. I’ll have to put the hotdogs on the grill before the steaks because if I don’t, someone will freak out and throw themselves on the ground. You’ll also probably have to spend some time by yourself while I take one of my sons inside to talk to them, read them a book, or put on a TV show. To me, it’s all worth it for that 15 to 20 minutes I get to spend with you totally uninterrupted.

I remember when we used to spend hours talking, drinking and playing pool. We’ll do that again, just hang in there with me during these few years when I need to focus on raising my kids to be interesting and happy. I’m terrified I’m gonna screw it up. My life is like finals week in college, and I spent all semester smoking weed and listening to the ZZ Top. I used to be a child-free person who had friends with kids. It’s weird, I get it. It’s also really fun to play with someone else’s kids, and almost all of you do that really well. I encourage you to do it more, even if it feels awkward sometimes. They might diss you, but don’t take it personally; humans aren’t born with manners. Have them run little errands for you. It’s great that they can go in the fridge and get you a beer. They like doing it, and it will make them think you’re cool. Trust me, there’s no better feeling.

I miss you all and want to see you just as much as I ever did. I also understand that I’m a bit of a pain in the ass to hang out with. I take full responsibility for that. I yawn a lot and don’t remember stuff. Let’s just acknowledge that I am a distracted Alzheimer’s patient and try to see each other more anyway.

[Gregg]

Distracted Alzheimer's patient. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Pretty much sums up my parental life. Fortunately most of my drinking buddies from 1979 fell into the same trap so I am not always the biggest ass in the room.

[lhamo]

That is an awesome letter, bae.

The challenges of maintaining a social life/social circle as a parent with young children are HUGE, and HUGER if both parents happen to work. We are just getting to the point where we can leave our kids alone in the apartment for a few hours (though since we live on the 30th floor it still makes me nervous - our kids have good common sense but what if there was a fire, earthquake or other disaster). Our kids are 12 and 8. When they were younger we could have gotten sitters, yes, but as a working parent you are generally so frazzled and exhausted by the end of the week that all you want to do when you are not catching up on chores and spending time with your kids is sleep. Our social life basically went more or less into hibernation for a decade. We would have people over from time to time, and we enjoyed it, but even when you have a great time it still can be draining, especially for introverts. And this is coming from a mother who very deliberately did not let her kids get into the hyped up world of all kinds of activities and classes. Our kids do a couple of afterschool activities a week, and the school provides bus service, but we don't do extra tutoring, sports, classes, etc. on weekends.

That being said, I don't generally invite friends to our kids school events. That does seem a bit odd to me. But maybe it is your friend's way of reaching out and trying to maintain the relationship in her own way.

[Spartana]

What Bae's letter said! What I do in these situations is to politely e-mail the person back and let them know I'm unavailable to come to their kids performance but I thank them for including me and thinking of me. I also let them know that when they are free to please give me a shout and lets try to get together. No harm, no foul. If the relationship is dead or dying and that's the way I want it to go, then I still respond with a hearty "Thanks, but can't make it" kind of response but usually just leave it at that. I just went to lunch with a person who was my best friend since we were 14 (eons and eons ago when dinosaur walked the earth :-)!) and who I was maid of honor for her wedding. It was the first time we had seen each other in a couple of years or longer (due to both our lifestyles but mostly childless me) and it was exactly like old times. We bonded and renewed our friendship instantly even though we may not see each other again for a long time. So even though your friendships may fade over the years, it doesn't mean that they are dead or that the person isn't genuinely interested in you. It's just that time has a way of getting away from us all - even childless people like me.

[frugalone]

I probably should have explained in my original post that my friend's children have been in the picture as long as I have known her (10-15 years). She's been doing this as long as I've known her.

I guess my gripe is that there were 7 or 8 of us in a book group, and it's pretty much fallen apart. I kept trying to get everyone to get together (you'd think it would be easier now that the children are, like, in college, and some of us don't have any kids at all). But no one seems interested. I guess it hurts because it feels like "I'm not interested in your life, but maybe you're interested in my KIDS' lives."

Or maybe I am just overly sensitive. It's probably true. And no, I'm not offended that someone suggested that I seem like a very bitter and angry person. I am.

[Lainey]

I think there are people who were only meant to be in our lives for certain periods of time, and then not. We can't control or predict, but only observe and go on. I agree with others that if it feels too one-sided, then it's time to move on.

[iris lilies]

It's funny that I actually love kid's dance concerts. I do not love their band concerts or their vocal concerts, and their plays are excruciating, but their dance concerts and art shows--I eat that up. I cop to actually paying for an episode or two of Dance Moms, and I could shoot myself for not paying attention to when Abbey' Lee's dance corp was in my town last fall.

But sure, I wouldn't want someone to be peppering me with email invitations for things for which I have no interest.

[Yarrow]

I probably should have explained in my original post that my friend's children have been in the picture as long as I have known her (10-15 years). She's been doing this as long as I've known her.

I guess my gripe is that there were 7 or 8 of us in a book group, and it's pretty much fallen apart. I kept trying to get everyone to get together (you'd think it would be easier now that the children are, like, in college, and some of us don't have any kids at all). But no one seems interested. I guess it hurts because it feels like "I'm not interested in your life, but maybe you're interested in my KIDS' lives."

Or maybe I am just overly sensitive. It's probably true. And no, I'm not offended that someone suggested that I seem like a very bitter and angry person. I am.

No offense, but if you are a very bitter and angry person, this would probably cause people not to want to be around you, thus the lack of interest in them wanting to get together with you.... No one wants to find time in their lives to share in someone else's negative energy. And maybe your friend does care about you and feels you might enjoy attending her kids' activities, thinking perhaps it might add something positive to your life.... It's a thought.

[Float On]

Personally, after having repeatedly attracted friends that don't seem to listen to me, or take an interest in me. I gave up and quit inviting or try to engage in any conversations. I can totally understand frugalone's initial post. I did have one person ask me what happened and I just replied that honestly it didn't feel like a balanced friendship and I felt unimportant so I simply moved on and I gave her an example of a time when I really needed a friend to listen and she had glazed over and told me something great her child had done. She apologized and recognized in herself that she did tend to be pretty selfish and had noticed she'd lost several friendships over it.

[JaneV2.0]

Watch out for friends who do appear to be listening intently to you--they're probably mentally recording the details to add to their gossip trove. :devil:

[frugalone]

No offense, but if you are a very bitter and angry person, this would probably cause people not to want to be around you, thus the lack of interest in them wanting to get together with you.... No one wants to find time in their lives to share in someone else's negative energy. And maybe your friend does care about you and feels you might enjoy attending her kids' activities, thinking perhaps it might add something positive to your life.... It's a thought.

I'm not really offended but I do wonder why you would assume that I would get together with my book group and spew anger all over them. I don't act like that with too many people. I manage to keep it under control most of the time.

I just meant, in response to whoever in this thread said I sounded angry, that yes, I am angry.

[Simplemind]

Harsh. First let me say that I have a kid, he performed, I invited, people came. Had they not I would not have felt upset that they did not respond. I have a delete button on my keyboard I'll bet everybody does. I am not a mind reader so I don't know what my friends are interested in doing unless I ask and they accept. If I don't hear anything I realize the phone works both ways and I call to check in.
I once went through a time when I was severely depressed (post partum/single mom). I got many invitations from my pre-mom friends and I turned them all down and pulled the covers over my head. Eventually they stopped. Once they stopped I realized I would rather have an invitation to turn down than no invitations at all. I brushed my teeth and hair, put on a shirt without baby barf and did started dialing. I guess what I am saying is that it would be more positive for you to reach out and invite her to something you would like to do than for you to stew in your juices that she didn't invite you to something better. Step up or step back, no need to take a tone that she owes you something better. She doesn't..... As for the book club, you don't need to spew a thing for negative energy to register. Sounds like a chemistry issue with more than one element involved.

[reader99]

Re book club, groups do run their course sometimes. The individuals' lives and preferences shift and people move on. It might be time for a new and different thing, a different book club or a different activity entirely.

[The Storyteller]

My children used to be The Center of the Universe but not any more.

My grandchildren are.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I guess what I am saying is that it would be more positive for you to reach out and invite her to something you would like to do than for you to stew in your juices that she didn't invite you to something better. Step up or step back, no need to take a tone that she owes you something better. She doesn't.....

I always imagined this was a situation where you ask someone to do something, they make excuses (or the cancel at the last minute thing). You ask them to do something awhile later, same thing. You ask them to do something again, same thing. Eventually you take a hint. You stop asking (I was not aware there was some unique exemption for this behavior for parents - that if your single friend with no kids does this - you take the hint, but if parents do this it means something entirely different than when your single friend does it. If so I'm not sure exactly how a parent is supposed to give a hint if they *are* just tired of the friendship). Years go by, you haven't asked them to do anything in a long while because you've taken the hint, you're still getting emails, like some old social media "friend" you barely even remember who they are, that keeps showing up on your timeline (only unlike social media harder to block) :~). One is owed very little from people, certainly not friendship! But I get the angry feelings (cause it's painful when a friendship for all intents and purposes is over), and what I do is just let the friendship fade into nothing, no fault, no blame, but a bit of anger I don't mention, move on with life. But then I've seldom known the "mass mailer" types.