So, recently I got to travel with a friend of seven years, and I couldn't help but notice how judgemental and aggressive she becomes the longer we get to spend our time together. She's always BEEN kind of judgemental and snappy, but not to this extent? Everything she doesn't like is "pathetic", even if it's just a silly tv ad or a postcard or a honest misspelling, and she is quick to judge its contents with disgust and anger. Yet, when I expressed my specific dislike of a thing (hoarding weapons just because they're cool and they make you look badass, especially when you have no actual idea how to properly use them), she basically jumped on me for it and after a heated discussion she... advised me to work on my negative thinking because it will "leak" into my behavior towards these people (???? I have never had a desire to act on these thoughts, it's just a mild personal dislike, wth) and it takes way too much of my energy to hate (again, mild dislike, it's not like I spend my restless night thinking about weapon hoarders, jesus). But she claims SHE never hates anything/anyone, she just... has a neutral stance. Towards most of things. Most of the time. Or at least she works on it. I don't understand, it doesn't look like it? And... she was angry with me in the past like maybe two, three times tops, not including the times when it wasn't obvious if she's mad at me or not. And the thing is, she is a really good, close friend of mine most of the time, very enthusiastic about stuff she loves and always rambling and singing and supporting me in tough times, but then there are those outbursts I can't make sense of. Where are they coming from? Are they my fault? Like that one time she told me (in a tone I interpreted as aggressive) that my confused facial expression doesn't make sense to her and why am I making that face, is what she saying not clear enough or what, it's like I don't understand a thing what she says? I explained (again) that I have trouble with processing speech sometimes and well... I don't always manage to pick the right expression while trying to process information. I almost teared up then, she has never had any trouble with my weird facial expressions, and now she does? I don't understand. After that she got mad at me for various reasons multiple times. The trip itself was mostly fun, but her outbursts made me very stressed, since I couldn't predict what's going to piss her off next. So my question is, is something really wrong with me? Is it her or me who have changed? Could it be that my broken brain has become a source of frustration not only for me, but to people closest to me as well? Is it the change in my thinking? Is it because I suddenly have developed my own opinions, instead of mimicking everyone else's? How do I recognize the difference between "me doing something wrong that deserves rightful scorn" between "me being treated badly because I'm a suitable punching bag"?
it's also possible that the trip itself was a stressor and she handled that poorly, which resulted in worsened outbursts, and now that it's over she might calm down some, but it sounds like she's generally either bad at self reflexion or lying to herself or acting in bad faith, and was before that trip. when you make plans with her, do you feel anxious or apprehensive? if you didn't make plans with her for a little while, would you feel better? if you ask her why she's having/she had an outbursts, what kind of explanation does she give? have you told her how it makes you feel? you could express that if you're doing something that bothers her, being told calmly would be much more productive, but i don't know how well she would take it considering her behavior doesn't seem very reasonable from this. :/ at any rate if you guys can't sit down and have a talk about your interaction without another explosion, there's a problem and i don't think it's on your side. even if you unknowingly do things that bother her, she should tell you so, not fling insults about it at your face or find stuff to have tantrums about, and then aggressively pretend she didn't. it's possible that she's a guesser and you're an asker, or maybe you're autistic and she's allistic, and she thinks you should read her subtle signals and magically guess whatever it is she's cheesed off about and she thinks you're in bad faith when you keep going as you were, but even so reacting to feeling slighted with aggression is not what i'd call cool. :/
Sounds like the case, yes. She had the first outburst shortly after we learned our flight was delayed for two hours and we were sitting and talking about nothing in particular. The topic drifted to airport security procedures and I wondered what happens to the passengers who for whatever reason don't have their tickets/documents for the second check out in the country of their destination, so I asked her what she thinks, are they get send back or what? I guess my tone was too light-hearted because she gave me a long hard stare and said this is not funny at all, this is a very serious matter, so stop laughing (which, of course, made me smile more - nervously, which in turn pissed her off even more). But alas, we were running on few hours of sleep and a lot of stress at the time, so I brushed it off evenually. Yeaaaah. Mind you, she's fun to be around and a good friend, but she's way too intense for me sometimes. I actually managed to get her to tone it down some time ago because her demand of constant 24/7 communication was unbearable. For now it's normal when I respond to her messages every few days. I call it "brain vacation". Another thing about her that makes me VERY anxious is the birthday thing. See, she doesn't celebrate her birthday. Why? Because she doesn't associate that day with joy. Why? Because no one ever remembers it. And I'm worried it's somehow my fault. Not only because my obvious memory problems make it hard to remember dates, but also because I took her "I don't celebrate birthdays anymore" at face value. We hardly celebrate birthdays at this age - I don't celebrate it either, birthday wishes are just enough, but only if you feel like it, nbd - so I thought it was pretty normal, yup. But then she rambles about how sad her birthdays make her, and how she hates the date, and I can just think, but you said you don't celebrate them? I treat it like every other day because I trusted your decision, I'm so confused? And she surprises me with a big cake she made on her own just for my birthday, with candles and everything, and obviously it's very nice of her and the cake is delicious, but I'm internally freaking out because surprises like that make me feel like I was just given something I'm not worth of, and whatever I do for a retribution is never going to be enough. She once told me she dreams that someday someone will make her a special kind of cake for her birthday. It might be my stupid doom-inflicting brain, but it made me feel like that person should be me, even though I have no energy and no skills to make such cake, especially on time, served just how she wants. Well. Not so long ago she was all "me? mad at you???? you never make me mad ever :)", even though that appears to be not true, even for my hilariously-bad-at-reading-clues ass. I don't know yet if that has changed. I think the problem is, she has an idealized image of me in her head and expects me to follow it somehow? But yeah, I need to seriously kick my severe confrontation avoidance in the ass and actually talk it out. Probably tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. It feels like it :/ In the past she liked to play the "c'mon you know what I'm talking about ;))))" game, which was annoying, but she more or less dropped it after I explained that no, I do not know, I do not appreciate the ~subtle cues~ tango, and I'm probably the last person you could suspect of being a telepath. Gah, I rambled. But now I have some substance for our talk later x__x Thanks for hearing me out!
Fuck, so much time passed and I still can't bring myself to do that. I just can't. How do people talk about negative things without crippling fear that their friend will get mad at them? WHY IS IT SO HARD. JESUS. I just want to learn how to healthy relationships, but I'm already failing. I don't know what to do.
it's really awkward and potentially going to end in an explosion and maybe the loss of a friendship, of course it's hard. :( no blame here. it's a lot easier to write out rational plans, when you're in meatspace interacting with other meat creatures who don't know about those plans it's... yeeeah. :( is she still blowing up at you?
