My friendship with inhuman is one of my more challenging friendships, which doesn't mean at all that it's bad. Sometimes, effort is worth the outcome, when you know your time isn't spent habitually, but rather out of sincere care and interest in another person's life. Even if the moment's sentiment can't be anything more than, "Okay, well, at least we aren't physically strangling each other," that's still something. I think too many people go through their lives without allowing anyone to challenge how they see relationships and their own ability to relate to others effectively. With inhuman, I'm forced to look at my own ability to sympathize, because her experiences are vastly different from my own, and she deals with situations with completely different methods--some of which I might not agree with (and haven't, in the past).

Lately, that hasn't stopped me from weighing in. I might mention a situation in which I've had something similar happen, and how maybe using a certain method she's considering might not work as well as planned, but the focus is on her and what she wants to do.

The basic principle I had to learn is this: When you give advice, you give it for one of two reasons. The first reason is in order to make sure that your "correct" method is taken, and that the person ends up with zero regrets and an ideal outcome. The second reason is in order to make sure this person knows what might happen and can be prepared--to give them support for their wants and needs without ignoring the less fortunate possibilities.

And sometimes, taking the second road drives me nuts. When I see someone careening towards hurt, it frustrates me, because I get this notion that, if they just listened, they wouldn't have to deal with any pain from the situation. But when do you fully win, in a situation where you "can get hurt?" Is there a way to avoid all that pain without avoiding the experience?

I hope she doesn't mind me writing about this, but inhuman just went through a breakup. I'll be brief and vague, and assure everyone that no one cheated on anyone, because...well, vagueness tends to allow for some interpretation, and I don't want that to come out of it. Neither party did anything wrong--it was just the end of a relationship, you know? It hurts, but it's inevitable.

Much more to the point, I found myself--very briefly--getting very frustrated about a choice she was making with this particular romance. I even e-mailed her, later, telling her that I wanted nothing more than to take the reins and do something that would stop her from making a choice that, ultimately, made her hurt.

But, that wouldn't be fair to her. She was going to hurt either way, and it was unfair of me to want to take that experience away from her. After all--and I told her this, too--you don't learn anything if you have the manual. It's great for building furniture...not so much for living, breathing, sentient human beings. We need trial and error to figure out how to react, and we need to do things on our own volition.

When everything went down, she knew I was there to support her decisions, no matter what they were, and that's the most important thing own friendship has taught me to cultivate. Some people still come to me for tough love, because they know I'll tell them straight, no matter what, but I was missing this huge point behind giving advice--that you can say whatever you want, and it won't matter at all, if that isn't what the person truly and honestly wants to do. That advice isn't a gift, but rather that acceptance is the gift. Advice is disposable, and its usefulness is completely dependent on the ultimate free will of another.

What's important is being there to answer the phone, and backing up those decisions, knowing that every decision is a new path to follow.

for me... people usually come to me for advise because i'm a good listener and not judgmental but sadly my friends don't give me back the same treatment. in fact they don't have compassion and patience for me. most likely they do not know how to handle a person undergoing a tough environment. so because of this, i'm becoming a wallflower because i'm tired of helping people but no one help me back.

» renaye on 2013-12-01 08:20:43

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