how to mend awful social fuckups

Here's something: you've been very kind to people on this forum.

 

uh, thanks! idk who you're talking about exactly, but I suppose it gives me a little perspective to know that what I consider baseline courtesy and helpfulness is seen as unusual kindness by you.

 

You've tried to help gills, for example. You didn't have to, you could have ignored the thread and gone about your day, but you specifically stopped to try to help them. It may seem baseline to you, but it's still a compassionate and kind thing, and it's definitely a good thing about you.

 

thank you. it's nice to have that in writing. it hurts me to see other people hurting, and honestly that's what motivates a lot of my attempts to help, but I guess that being hurt by other people's pain in and of itself is indicative of compassion.

 

You don't have to be exceptional at something to compliment yourself on it. Like @Ruevian said above, being a kind person is a good trait you can like in yourself. Besides, if you have the capacity to be compassionate towards others, turn that on yourself once in awhile.

 

can confirm, you were very helpful and kind and patient to me and it helped a lot :>

 

thank you, I'm really glad I could help.

 

(shakes fist at shitty boarding school counsellors) YOU ARE PRESIDING OVER A STRESSFUL ENVIRONMENT WHY DONT YOU HAVE BETTER MENTAL HEALTH CARE

edit: sorry, have Feelings about this, but don't know if yelling about it is helpful. :P good luck, and try not to beat yourself up too much, ok?

 

@blue man, don't sweat it, I have Feelings about it too. yell all you want and I will perhaps join in. and thanks, and I'll try.

 

okay, bringing this dinosaur back for an update! a couple of people have been very helpful in this thread, and I figured they'd like to be kept abreast of the situation. I'm not specifically looking for any advice here, I don't think, but if you have some (or some comments or whatever) feel free to chime in.

my friend and I still haven't really talked about the second period of time when they weren't talking to me. between my last post and now I have had... let's say less than ten and probably more than five crying fits about my relationship with them, so needless to say I'm still hella insecure about it. one of these crying fits resulted in me telling part of the situation (though not the precipitating factors for their distancing of me, so as not to out them) to both my mom and another friend, both of whom were very sympathetic and comforting but really didn't have any substantial advice. my mom also asked me if my friend was trans, to which I replied that it was not my place to say, and I have made a point since then of talking about their more feminine-presenting moments, since my mom has a relatively simplistic view of gender and I figured that'd throw her off the case. she has at any rate not brought it up again. my friend and I have been in contact every couple of days or so, usually for a relatively long textual conversation, most of which are about either their gender or their struggles with their family and some of which are about their life in general, which is about the balance of topics before our conflict. I have been sticking to a policy of more or less never texting them first, which seems to have been working out fine. I feel like they're less interested in me and my life than they used to be, and I think that they ask few questions of me than I do of them, but this could definitely be a pessimistic or inaccurate reading of events. I also feel a little manipulative because I've been constructing responses which invite a question, most of which they ignore. but they're really busy even though school's over and struggling with executive dysfunction. they missed my birthday dinner to do research for a paper and didn't give me a birthday present. I hadn't seen them in several days when I left school, and in all likelihood I won't see them this summer. I'm lonely. I'd like to hug them.

in recent events, I fucked up pretty badly a couple of days ago. they texted me really angrily about the Pulse shooting, saying that they were angry and that they'd like to punch some sense into the politicians responsible for our current gun control laws. I tried to engage neutrally and maybe help them calm down a little, because they seemed very upset, and in the process tried to lay out my reasoning for why I thought punching people would probably not be helpful. after doing so I realized that I probably sounded like I was brushing off their concerns and realized I really had no right to be asking them to regulate their emotions, so I apologized for doing so, saying in the process that I don't deal well with anger. which is true, I really don't, although I don't know why, because I've never been abused. upon hearing this they immediately said, "alright, I'll stop talking about it then," which made me really upset because I felt like I was being a bad friend for being unavailable to them. as far as I know they don't have any other people whom they could talk to about that kind of thing, and regardless I would so much rather hear about their emotions than know they're concealing them from me. I tried to tell them that it really didn't matter and they should continue talking if they wanted to, but they said they had to go anyway and stopped texting me. later I learned that they "had" to go for a walk at that point, and I felt pretty bad that a) they'd concealed the truth from me and b) that I'd been inadequate enough that they had to work out their anger in another way. so I sat there and cried for a while. I don't think I'm any less attached to them than I used to be. yesterday I apologized for freaking out on them and they told me not to worry about it, but I am worrying about it, because I think they might lie about how upset they were to make me feel better. I don't think they'd be receptive to further discussion of that conversation.

in good news, they are making definite progress with their home situation! they've really been wanting to come out to their parents but were afraid that their mom would not be supportive (and thus that she would make their dad also not be supportive); they were also really afraid of what would happen if their mom found out they were binding sometimes, which I pointed out to them was probably a sign that they should not try to come out. but yesterday their mom was looking for something they'd requested that she bring them and found a note they'd written talking about their uncertainty about their gender. she then proceeded to bring it up, really frightening my friend, but then said that my friend should be independent at this point and that she (and by extension my friend's dad) would be supportive of any independent decision they happened to make. my friend said, however, that their mom did not seem to be mirroring them emotionally—they were very emotional during this conversation, and their mom seemed disinterested and apathetic. for instance, they said that when they asked their mom if she loved them, she said, "of course I do! I feed and clothe you, don't I?" I very carefully pointed out that the lack of emotional mirroring was indicative of low empathy on their mom's part; they agreed, so I went on to tentatively state my theory that their mom had "narcissistic tendencies." they also agreed with that, which was surprising in light of their previous vehement defense of their mother but decidedly not so in light of their mother's actions, which are very clearly self-centered. so I was really glad that they were acknowledging what was factually accurate. I do still think their mom cares about them less than they think—I think they might have illusions that their mother cares about them as a person, whereas I think she merely cares about having the Platonic ideal of a child—but I didn't push that point, and they did admit that they didn't think they could have a good emotional relationship with their mother. furthermore, they said, they weren't sure if they wanted one. so that's definitely progress, and they're happy, and I'm happy for them.

so I don't know where to go from here. I still want more than I have and I'm still incredibly anxious about this relationship, and I'm probably going to see less of them next year than I did this year, since they're in a different dorm now. and they're graduating next year, which I am really not looking forward to. so yeah. I don't know.