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restwood jul 20 2026 it sounds like to have a nice balance there like you eilene i never want to be any kind of a burden and tend more to introversion i would rather run away and become a sad recluse than burden someone with my problems probably not the healthiest way to deal with issues but talking through things doesn t always work in my family i do feel emotions are something with which we have to take responsibility having a multitude of friends requires a level of commitment and time and i find i also need time alone writing it s extremely restorative of my energy it is a rare but enjoyable day when i have the house to myself and can potter about at leisure that may change as i age though and i am aware of that my children have many less friends than i do that is a bit concerning like liked by 1 person reply eilene lyon jul 20 2026 looking at trends can be worrisome for us about younger generations but there seems to be a growing back to analog movement among the young too philosophy is not dead and they are looking for meaningful relationships too like like forestwood jul 21 2026 i love that there is a going back to analogue movement amongst younger people and that they are looking for meaningful relationships i know my daughter is often dissatisfied with anyone interested in recreational drug use and my children are against plastics changing cooking and storage containers seeking more natural solutions to physical health issues in what ways is the back to analogue movement manifesting eilene like liked by 1 person eilene lyon jul 22 2026 reading books some are eschewing smart phones for flip ones not analog but a step back rejecting ai some are getting involved in birding groups and other outdoor group activities where i live kids are very into outdoor pursuits with friends like like forestwood jul 22 2026 that is so good to hear eilene encouraging and no doubt those folk engaging in such pursuits will derive immense benefit and tell their friends about it like liked by 1 person marie a bailey jul 20 2026 such great questions let me take them one at a time do you avoid crowds yes my tolerance for crowds has diminished as i ve gotten older and it might depend on the type of crowd as well when we attended rallies at our state capitol i was thrilled to see crowds of people and it might be all right if i can find a spot and be still but something happens to my brain when i m trying to navigate through a crowd it s like being in a traffic jam if i can t see ahead at least to the next intersection i start to feel panicky is a larger community or friendship group preferable to fewer reliable perhaps staunch advocates all my life i ve preferred to have a few close friends or advocates as you say here i grew up in a large extended family so being part of a larger community is something i have taken for granted but i wouldn t want to rely on any of my extended family can friends become exhausted if they are leant on to support the emotions of others of course none of us have bottomless pools of energy well i don t while i ve tried to be a good friend i ve learned that i have my limits especially when nothing i say or do or don t say or don t do alleviates my friends distress i mean something all i have to give is my time and listening but with some friends that wouldn t be enough they d want me to have answers to their problems as well i do have a tendency to try and fix problems but i get exhausted in situations where the only person who can really fix anything is the friend yet i m encouraged to feel responsible is ongoing friendship a question of reciprosity and good management reciprocity is a good word too often people think of relationships as transactional and perhaps many of them are like business relationships a good stable friendship has reciprocity not one to one transactions but mutual desires to give and take with respect i don t know what to say about good management i have friends who live thousands of miles from me and i think about them often sometimes daily but i m awful about keeping in touch yet i think we keep in touch enough to never completely lose touch how do we find that balance or is it constantly changing renewing like much of life i m still looking for balance but suspect i will never find it like like reply forestwood jul 20 2026 marie navigating a busy throng can be tricky and i think physically more fraught as we age do you think that it is also worse since covid re friends some do tax our energy a work colleague once called them energy vampires i have to mitigate that in the course of friendship or else they can exhaust me for example i could not take a weekend break with an energy vampire friend no matter how long i have known them at the end of the weekend i might become monosyllabic and yes when it comes to certain friend s problems they don t want advice they just want to vent we on the other hand will sometimes see their problem more objectively and find it hard to understand why they cannot these are their mistakes their challenges and their individual journeys you do not need to feel responsible unless you choose to do so fro a particular reason and why is that i wonder because of the expectations of friendship it seems that this is a universal phenomenon irrespective of culture recently and this is one of the positives of social media i reconnected with a friend i had not seen for 32 years we organized to have lunch when she was in my area and it was like the years melted away it was fabulous but if she lived close by would we wear that old friendship out i m not sure 5 it is a juggling and balancing act this reciprocal nature of friendship it can be immensely satisfying and you can step back when you need solitude if your friends can accept that you have a solid and unconditional friendship i recently lost a friend of 20 years because she had unrealistic expectations of me that i could not meet i was sad about it as we had enjoyed lots of fun chats and time together but i had to let it go it s time had come and she was by then a different person who could not accept the changes in me i hope you do find that balance or at least you are in a place with friends that feels right for you comng from an extended family and community means you are comfortable around groups so do you think there is a big difference between family and groups of acquaintences we are always gauging how much we belong or don t belong to a group but in a family we intrinsically feel that belonging and don t analyse it like liked by 1 person reply marie a bailey jul 22 2026 interesting question about family vs acquaintances friends family fascinates me because the one thing everyone has in common is a blood connection but maybe nothing else i left home when i was 21 in part because i didn t feel i really belonged it was existential suffice to say i wasn t close enough to any of my cousins to feel i had a community to turn to some of it was geography growing up in rural farmland made getting around difficult and i was very introverted very shy i remember once when i was 15 and there was a family reunion and for some odd reason i was feeling happy jubilant even maybe it was hormones maybe it was the short legged navy jumpsuit that fit me perfectly i was sitting with a couple of my cousins they were a couple of years younger than me having a good time when they both said how they had always thought i was stuck up they were surprised at how nice and friendly i was being i kept smiling but their comments only served to make me feel more self conscious that never changed no matter how often i visited how hard i tried to fit in i always felt like an outsider i credit my sister shirley rip for keeping me tethered to the family she was 11 years older than me so it was a long time before we treated each other like peers but she was very family oriented and it shows in her sons and how strongly they embrace their families they don t analyze their sense of belonging my youngest nephew once said he couldn t imagine becoming estranged from either of his brothers and he was saying this because my own brother had recently cut ties with me anyway one of my cousins actually she is a favorite cousin loved to say you can pick your friends but you can t pick your family i don t know why families have a strong bond and others don t well one last thing some of it might be history so i have a lot of cousins and for some families that mean instant friendships these cousins would go camping and hiking together especially in the summer when school was out when i d visit my home they would reminisce about those times experiences that i didn t share with them so for them blood connection and history bound them together family is important to me but close friends are just as important to have a good friendship one has to work at it just as one has to work to have a good marriage not every one thinks that one has to work at having a good family relationship i think the best family relationships are the ones where there s effort involved where people don t make assumptions just because there s a blood connection like like forestwood jul 22 2026 awesome comment marie similarly i don t feel a strong connection with my immediate parent and brother and left home early at 17 due to disagreements there are some more distant cousins though that i did feel a connection with and others i do not i think you are right that there has tobe an effort on both sides to continue a close relationship and blood ties only guarantee an obligation not a choice to remain close i had only one sibling and married into a large and very large extended family who seemed to cherish everyone at first initially i felt like i belonged but expectations often lead to disappointment and as the years rolled by i became disenchanted realizing i would always be an in law not an enmeshed part of the family and opposing interests exacerbated that divide i can see that once my husband passes there won t be any connection with his family at all and that is okay i derive more emotional support from friends adn my children where there is effort expended to keep the connection going it is never totally equal with family those blood tie expectations often mean only one party makes all the effort and others just expect it i have reconciled to that parents often have the duty to extend olive branches during disputes with their adult kids but in some cases there needs to be enough respect to walk away if the relationship turns destructive some folks are shocked when i state this and think you should not do this to family but not all families are equal and sometimes it is necessary in certain instances it is easier to reacquaint with family later when things settle than with friends where there is disagreements have you found that that hurt and resentment has to be accepted and processed or else the estrangement continues and there are so many expectations within families like liked by 1 person marie a bailey jul 30 2026 i don t expect to ever be reconciled with my brother and i m fine with that he s a sociopath only has an interest in people he can use one of my cousins to whom i m close admitted that she s always been a little afraid of him he can go from nice to mean in a heartbeat funny you left home at 17 i left at 21 always been a bit of a late bloomer and for similar reasons i ve often thought of moving back home since that s where the majority of my family is but if i do i can t be too geographically close i gotta be far enough of a drive so no one would just drop in on me i guess my brother and i are one example of when family members don t resolve or don t plan to resolve disagreements and i have a friend that went nuclear on me many years ago long story but suffice to say she had good reason to be angry and fed up with me and yet after a couple of weeks she was eager to start over in the former case maybe one reason is we don t have a good history together in the latter my friend and i were very close and ultimately she didn t want to lose that she just needed to blow off steam maybe that s part of it too none of us are perfect all of us make mistakes and sometimes a family member or friend needs to express their disappointment with us or vice versa it s part of the work that goes into a good relationship well in my humble opinion like like forestwood aug 1 2026 hmm when you wrote about your friend going nuclear on you love the metaphor but being able to reconcile with that same friend weeks later as you recognized she didnt want to lose your friendship and she only needed to blow off steam it made me think about a friend i lost last year who got angry at me for not visiting her in her new apartment she spent months seething so i detected later while i was away here and there on holidays and busy with other things she then went nuclear on me when i told her it woudl be a few months before i could visit her i tried to de escalate but she repeated her abuse so i walked away when she hadn t contacted me for a week or so i blocked all communication with her i am wondering if i should try again your comment made me think more about whether it is worth it will she have calmed down enough to move on that is the sticking point i guess i think she holds on to anger for quite some time and the reason her apartment is in a dodgy area i do not want to visit this is probs too much information but i do want to thank you for making me consider another possibility i will ponder this some more like like forestwood jul 22 2026 p s i can relate to the comment about the family cousin s interpretation of you being stuck up as that has happened to me in a group situation yet i was horrified they thought that quietness is often mistaken for condescension by extroverts i don t know the reason why perhaps they cannot relate to how introverted folks think in the same way introverts find a high energy ultra social extroverted lifestyle impossible to bear like liked by 1 person marie a bailey jul 30 2026 yeah my experiences with some extroverts is they cannot understand anyone who is not like them like liked by 2 people forestwood aug 1 2026 sounds right like like moragnoffke jul 20 2026 i enjoyed reading your post and considering the questions although i don t have answers to all the questions i m by nature a quiet deep thinking person who once struggled with socializing because i felt i didn t fit in with my culture who applaud extrovert behaviour but over the years i have seen that people appreciate me for who i am and i value a caring community very much i live in a village so i think it is easier to find a meaningful place in the community i would not like to live in a city where everyone lives on their own i also need time for emotional replenishment on my own thank you for the thought provoking post like like reply forestwood jul 20 2026 everyone has a right to hold a place in their community b...