When You Tell Someone “I’m Here for You…”

Recently, my husband and I have been teetering on bankruptcy.  He lost his job (mysteriously fired for undefined “incompetence” the day after he brought in a Doctor’s note that forbid him from heavy lifting) and, after three months of searching for a job, he finally found one that pays almost half of his last salary.  During all this stress, my husband’s family has continued to only come around when they want something.  Oh, I need a babysitter, or, oh, I’m having a shower, here’s my registry information, or, oh, can you make a three hour trip to drop me at the airport so I don’t have to pay for parking?  And, it’s a one-way street, where no help, time, or services are offered back to us while we struggle.  Plus, all the while, relatives had job openings at their works that they kept quiet about, and two relatives refused to speak with an interviewer when my husband said that he was indeed related to employees at a company.

My husband eventually made a Facebook post about wishing his family would treat him like family, which resulted in a flood of whinny replies of relatives saying “I love you!  I miss you!  You should call me!  I’m not like the people you’re describing!”  Then, as soon as they validated their consciences, they dropped back off the face of the earth.

When someone is having a rough time, friends and relatives acting this way makes that someone feel more isolated, depressed, and hopeless.  It’s like trying to dig yourself out of a ditch.  You know it’s going to be hard, but then you see more people show up with shovels.  You think they’re there to help dig you out, but, instead, they just start shoveling dirt on your head.

Enter:  Today’s topic.  A person should never use phrases like “I’m here if you need me,” “let me know if you need anything,” “call me sometime,” etc.  Why?  Because, if you are telling someone to come to you like that, all you’re truly saying is that you are too lazy to put in the effort to actually be there, to actually help them, or to actually call them yourself.

You are saying frivolous words to get yourself off the hook to do anything, because, more often than not, a person who does need support doesn’t know how to ask for it, or they may just not want to ask.  It’s essentially like a lady asking “do I look good in this dress?”  If they have to come to you for the compliment, then it doesn’t mean very much.  If you truly thought she looked good, you would have volunteered that comment on you own.  The same goes with relationships and saying passive, non-committal statements.

In the mind of someone who feels neglected/left out/depressed/etc, they do not feel important to you.  They feel like contacting you would bother you – it would put you out – and if you liked them at all, you’d already have been there for them.  They think you’re just being polite, and if it were anything other than that, you’d be the one putting in the effort to establish a relationship right now.

So, even if you mean it when you say you’d like that person to call you sometime, all you’ve done is absolve yourself from acting.  You’ve made calling the other person’s issue.  Then, you can sit back and forget about that person, because you put the ball in their court, so if they don’t call, it’s on them.  Not your fault.  Not your problem.  You offered, right?

NO!  If that is your behavior, you don’t care and you’re not being helpful at all.  If you really want to be there for someone, be the one who does the calling.  Let people know that you’re serious about them as a friend/relative and that you are interested in putting in the time it takes to get to know them.

Then, if they only call you back to get a ride/money/babysitter/etc, that’s when you might step back and re-evaluate whether this person wants a friend or free labor.

The same idea is applied to anything else.  Don’t tell people “hey, you should call me sometime and we’ll go to lunch.”  You should say something more direct that makes a plan instead of knocking the ball back into their court.  “Hey, we should go to lunch next week.  When are you free?”  Semantically, that makes you sound actually interested in having lunch.  Even if the other person doesn’t know if they’re free next week, you’ve thrown out a time frame for going to lunch and are working towards making firm plans.

Likewise, don’t invite people that you have a weak relationship with to an event you’re having.  You may think that you’re being so nice to include them in your Mary Kay party or your baby shower, but, it makes the other person feel like you only see them as a dollar sign.  Even I’ve gotten to the point where I throw away invites from people who either a) I never hear from, or b) they never reciprocate when I’m the one having something.  If you act like I don’t exist otherwise, there’s no reason to come to me when you want something.

The bottom line is that actions and efforts are all that matter – not the nice words you say in the moment when you’re confronted by a person.  Call, visit, text, show up at their door, send them random Facebook messages, and keep checking in on people if you want them in your life.  Caring should be an action word, and, as long as the other person is responding to you in a respectful and positive manner, you should keep putting in the effort – and that goes double if you know they’re going through something difficult.

Making Friends as a Mom – Is It Possible?

Most people face an interesting experience during their first pregnancy – all of their friends disappear by the time the baby is born!  This is especially true if you are the first among your buddies to reproduce, and it makes being a new mother even more isolating and stressful than it already is.  I’ve been there and done that, and as soon as my son was born, I went from seeing my best friend almost daily to maybe once every few months.  All other “friends” fell off the face of the earth and found that my life wasn’t cute and fun any more.

It happens, I get that not everyone will be friends from womb to tomb, but what has bothered me is that everyone told me that I would make new friends to fit my new life.  Yet, flash forward ten years later, I have still never really found anyone.  Here are the stereotypes of who I end up meeting, and why they don’t fit my lifestyle:

• The single lady who wants you to drop everything to go to clubs, parties, or to hang out at hours awkward for you (either just before school lets out, or way late at night).  She doesn’t get that you are not able to be available with zero notice, and that childcare isn’t free or easy to come by – not to mention the fact that clubbing is WAY behind you in life and going to a party full of strangers does not peak your interest.  In fact, saying you just want to be at home with your husband on his day off is offensive to them, claiming that you never make any time for your friendship.  Well, I could much easier if you would make plans with me instead of throwing last second offers my way.  But, I ask you to schedule lunch a week or two in advance and you can’t because you don’t know what you’re doing then.
• The pushy person that you just met, but who has no other friends and wants to treat you like you’ve been BFF’s for 20 years.  They sit you down and tell you every problem they have in life, their entire life history, including how they are currently living with a married man while his wife is deployed (NOT a good thing to tell a married woman right off the bat!), and then want you to be there for them while they cry it all out – and you just met them 15 minutes ago for lunch!  For me, that becomes too much too fast, and it kills my ability to form an opinion about this person before getting all of their negative issues dumped in my lap.
• The woman who is great, but she lives way too far away.  She lives two or three counties away, if not more, and it’s a huge ordeal just to drive to their house.  Their shops and hot spots are the compete opposite of yours, and even though you’d like to make it work, there is not enough time or gas money in the day for that to happen.  Sure, you can still talk on the phone, but you soon realize that you don’t have a lot of interests in common, so, after a while of not being in the same area, you run out of things to talk about.
• The too busy lady that has a full calendar from 7am to 9pm everyday.  She works rotating shifts and has a huge social life, or is always going on vacation, so no amount of advanced planning gets your two in the same room together.
• The brand new mom or pregnant lady that doesn’t seem to have a clue that her life is not about what SHE wants any more, and it’s about what she has to do to be the best mom.  Sometimes they still want to go party like nothing is different, or they want you to constantly babysit for them so that they can have a date night, or go club hopping, with other people.
• The band new mom or pregnant lady who has it all figured out, including a full list of everything that you are doing wrong as a parent.  The simple truth is that EVERYONE has perfect parenting ideas before they actually have children that they’re trying to apply those rules to.  All I can think is:  when their kids get here and aren’t asleep at 8pm, aren’t eating an organic diet 100% of the time, and aren’t sweet little darlings, I hope their pretentiousness stops and they start making phone calls to apologize for their judgmental behavior.
• The no-shows who make plans with you, confirm the plans time and time again, then do not bother to show up or even call to cancel.  Then, when you ask them what happened, they are offended that you questioned them, or had some kind of drama (that the created and is constantly an excuse to be a flake).  One time another mom begged me to reserve us a spot in an event, and I did it, but then she bailed, with no warning.  I asked her to at least pay me back, like she was supposed to at the event anyways, and she yelled at me that she didn’t have to answer to me, but she didn’t have the money and that’s why she didn’t attend, and since she didn’t go, she owes me nothing!  I was unfriended and blocked seconds later!
• The not-so-new mom who has way too many kids to handle, or who just never makes their one kid behave.  Hey, I get it, kids are never perfect all the time, and when you are out in the world they figure out quickly that you won’t punish them to an audience, but, there’s a limit.  For me, when a kid is being a continuous brat, and you, as the parent, aren’t even trying to intervene or put a stop to it, that tells me all that I need to know about you.  Likewise, saying “use your words” like a gentle little lamb is not solving the problem, and you know it, that’s why your 8 year old is still hitting other kids in the face.
• The I’m-Better-Than-You lady.  This is such a broad stereotype, but these women come to meet you for lunch or a shopping trip, then spend the entire time acting like they’re doing you a favor.  They like to talk down to you (“don’t you know…,” “well, I would never put up with…,” “I can’t believe that you…”), as if they are so far above your level, and, in reality, you don’t even like this woman, she just keeps following you around to make herself feel superior.

I actually moved out of a rental house to get away from a woman at my son’s school who followed me around town just to play holier-than-thou.  She was so ridiculously in my business that she would ask me such invasive things, like why did I need to take my dog to the vet (she watched threw her windows as I loaded a dog crate into my car), or what was in the big box that the mailman left at my door.  One day she even approached me to say “I saw your son had pizza in his lunchbox today.  That’s left over from his birthday right?  Don’t you know that *nag nag nag*.”  I hated her, and I tried many times to politely tell her to back the flip off, even to the point of ignoring her or walking away when I found her offensive.  But, for whatever reason, she decided that I was her best buddy and that she needed to verbalize every thought in her head.

Another Better-Than-You woman was one that I met for lunch.  We had been talking for a while, and seemed to be hitting it off fairly well.  Then, she looks at me and tells me that she usually doesn’t waste her time with “weird people who like sci-fi and tv and Disney stuff.”  If she had said it with a laugh or a smile, I wouldn’t have been bothered, but the faces she made when describing a few of my interests made her seem disgusted by it.  Personally, I follow the My Little Pony stance on life, where there’s more than one way to be a girl, and having friends that are very different from yourself is a positive thing.  Sure I get aggravated and hold high standards, but I judge people based on who they show me they are as a person over something as stupid as whether or not they watch the SyFy Channel.  That just seems like telling someone you can’t be their friend because they like birds and you like dogs – it is one small facet of someone’s life.  I tried to brush it off and move on, but it was such a condescending comment that it killed the entire lunch momentum for me.

Am I crazy, or are good people getting harder and harder to come by?  I’ve met so many people that have made me question if I live in a different universe from them, because common sense and basic politeness have vanished.  I’m certainly not perfect, and I am open to meeting any decent new gal pals, but I also don’t want to try to force a square to fit inside of a circle shaped hole.  I don’t mind single friends, but I need them to understand that I’m not single and free and available at all times to hang out.  The drinking and partying days are way behind me, and I’m not going backwards.  I’m also not just entertainment for when you’re bored, or free childcare.  I can’t have a mom with bratty kids beating up on my children, or it’s miserable to be around you.  And I don’t have to do and think exactly as you do to be worth knowing.  Do other moms have this problem or am I just way too picky in life?  I don’t really mind being friendless for the most part, but I keep trying to find someone to clique with, thinking that I can’t be the only person like me out there in the world.

I Hate My Kids’ Friends

I am not a sleepover kind of mom.  It’s too much trouble, and I always play worse-case-scenario in my head and get myself terrified over someone elses kid getting a dog bite, hurting themselves on the trampoline, or freaking out in the middle of the night.  I tried being a friends-can-come-visit kind of mom for a while, but I quickly learned how much I don’t like other people’s bratty children.  Let me roll up my story telling sleeves!

When my son was in kindergarten, he had a friend from class that lived two houses down.  At first I thought it was really cute to have this little girl come visit us and play with my son.  However, as she got more comfortable, the little girl got to be more rude. 

For starters, the little girl would get very hateful towards my daughter, who was two years younger than her.  She’d look at my daughter, who really wanted to play with the big kids, and say things like “eww, why’s that thing staring at me!” Or “I don’t want that baby touching me!”  Not cool…

Then she started to do other things that bothered me.  For instance, she would refuse to take off her dirt covered boots when she entered my house.  Then she’d run into my son’s room as soon as I opened the door (no “hello,” no “may I come in?”) and grind her nasty boots into his bedding.  I would chase her down and tell her to remove the shoes at the door, like everyone else had to do, and she would look me in the eye and tell me “I’m not doing that, these shoes are hard to get back on!”  I tried to counter that by telling my son not to bring his friend into his room any more, and that they had to sit in the living room and watch movies or play video games when she came over.  The girl would just roll around on the floor screaming that she was so bored.  I thought it would deter her from coming over so much, but it did not.

This other girl was also an only child, so her mom was constantly wiping her ass.  I don’t mean that metaphorically either!  At five years old, I would watch this mom follow her daughter into the school bathroom, watch her child create a bowl movement, and then I would hear her asking the girl to bend over so “mommy can wipe you.”  It was disgusting and embarrassing just for me to hear.  And guess what this little girl expected me to do when mommy wasn’t around?  NOPE!

My final straw was that the girl started coming over constantly.  She never wanted to play outside and she never invited my son to her house, and more than once I sent her home and no one was there!  I felt like the mother was using me as free and constant childcare without my permission, and since the girl came uninvited, I didn’t know how to combat the situation.

While many people would probably suggest that I speak with the mother directly, she was no better than the daughter.  I only saw the mother while standing in the pick-up line at school, but she was always very rude and nosy.  The mom was like having Gladys Gravitz from Bewitched as a neighbor, she knew every time I left the house, if I checked for the mail more than once in a day, if I took my dog somewhere in the car, went for a walk, or had an empty water bowl in my backyard, this woman would know about it and want to know all of the details while we waited at the school for our kids.  She’d also get nasty and try to tell me what I could and couldn’t do, or why her way was the best way, or how I was so stupid for not knowing Spanish, and I really could not stand this woman – but she would seek me out everyday at pick-up and run her mouth nonstop.

I finally got to the point where I had an epiphany:  why am I putting up with this?  I didn’t like the mother, she was no friend of mine, and the little girl gave me more grief than I wanted to tolerate – plus no one is taking my kid for hours, unannounced, each week!

In a passive aggressive declaration of freedom, I decided to stop answering the door for the girl and told my kids not to even acknowledge it if they hear a knock.  When the mother would get in my face about the subject at school, attempting to guilt me on the topic by saying how upset her daughter was that no one had been home lately, I would tell her that I was working on the computer in the back of the house, or I was in the shower, or I was cleaning, and I didn’t hear anyone knocking.  It may not have been the best way to handle the matter, but that route avoided an all-out explosion from the mother while giving her the hint all the same, and our military house had finally become ready, so we were moving to the other side of town in a few months anyways.

Now, when we moved into military housing, I did not realize how many military spouses refuse to watch their children.  Truly, if you’ve never been on post you won’t know this, but children under two years old are running around outside in nothing but diapers, and with no one watching them!  And our neighbors there had four children, and proclaimed to us our first day moving in that they would be sending their kids to our house all the time, and they would break stuff and be brats, but we would learn to love them.  I watched those kids ram their bikes into their moms car, break glasses, and throw toys at each other in this first encounter and told myself no way!  I always kept my door dead bolted and never opened it if I couldn’t see who was there through the peep hole. 

Now we are post-military life and live without neighbors, which is awesome!  Now, I know kids playing together is a good thing, but until I have older kids with older friends who are not destructive or rude little nightmares, there are no more friends coming to visit my house.  Period!  I have lived, I have learned, and I have decided that it’s alright to have standards and say no (even if you don’t say it out loud!).

Facebook – Destroying Friendships One Person at a Time

This is my new Facebook mantra. Thanks Dani Quinnzell for making this up for me!

Obviously, I’m having some online frustrations lately! While Facebook is a great tool for keeping in touch with people, it seems that many people don’t realize that it’s also a way to catch them in lies or to create hurt feelings. Case in point, I’d like to talk about Sally.

Now, Sally and I met because she reached out to me, saying she was new to the area and really wanted to put in the effort to make some friends here. We seemed to really hit it off, and she had kids that were around my kids ages, so it was a good fit.

However, what I’ve noticed is that Sally is never around. Every time she gets more than a few hours off from work, she leaves the state to visit friends and family. Alright, it’s her life, she can do as she pleases, but then I’m stuck scratching my head as to why she reached out to me in the first place, because now I’m continuously trying to put effort into a friendship that I’m not even sure exists.

I wouldn’t say I’m needy as a friend, but I do have certain expectations of people. For instance, if you say we’re going to meet up on Wednesday, or your coming to the movies with me on Friday, I expect you to either follow through, or cancel in a respectable way. What I don’t expect is to log onto Facebook and see that you’ve left town and are instead hanging out with other people during the time that we had plans set up. Or, I text you when you are supposed to be somewhere, and you have a really pathetic excuse for not coming, like “I’m too tired” or “I my kid has homework.” You could have cancelled LONG before I asked where you were at.

What makes me even angrier is that my kids love Sally’s kids, and I have made the mistake before of telling them we’ll be meeting up, then Sally doesn’t show up. Now my kids are upset and hurt because this person is breaking their plans with us. I don’t care for it.

But, I have still tolerated it, hoping the good person I originally met is just going through an awkward patch and we can still be good friends in the near future. However, I’m really at my breaking point now. I am always inviting Sally out or to join in activities with us, and she always says she’s so interested and to send her the information online. I do so, and Sally acts like she never sees the information. For example, I spent months inviting her to join our scouts, and she always said “yeah, yeah, I’m interested just send me the info!”

What happened? She never came, never acknowledged my information sent to her (at least 15 times), and then she comes up to me the last time we get together and says she’s joining another scout program that her friend recommends. Umm… okay, it’s your life and all, but you couldn’t have said this to me so I’m not wasting MY TIME sending you information over and over about our scouts? It felt like a slap in the face. And now to see her post about scouting online, it upsets me, because she really made me feel blown off in the matter, but now she’s so in love with scouting that it’s every post online.

So, after this, and a half dozen similar incidents like this, but involving other topics, I finally posted online that I’m wasting my time with certain friendships instead of putting my effort into better ones, so I’d be deleting people soon. Now, Sally had blown me off at least three times since we last met up a month ago, yet she was able to comment within minutes of me posting that saying she would care if I deleted her.

I’m kind of angry that she hasn’t had time in the last four weeks to follow through on what she says she is going to do with me, but she can jump right onto Facebook and act like it would be such a loss to not be my friend any longer. It’s perplexing, to say the least. But, considering I can’t look at her posts in my newsfeed without feeling upset, I think it’s time to let this friendship go and move on. I feel that she’s been a complete waste of my time, and that there’s no sincerity in our “friendship” because she can’t stand to stay in town to be anyone’s friend.