This stands out to me. How often do your friends share their accomplishments with the expectation that you will offer them congratulations and addaboys? If such sharing seems to be only coming from you, then is it really that surprising that they pull away? They may feel like you’re using them as a source of external validation rather than companionship. What you may see as an accomplishment (running a half marathon) they may see as more akin to a past time of no major consequence to anyone except yourself. And so they may not get the idea of celebrating that. This doesn’t mean they reject you for being successful, but it does suggest a difference in values and what you want out of your friendships.
I consider myself successful, but when I’m around friends, my preference is to discuss and laugh at the quiet little struggles that make life interesting and complicated, that we all have in common. Yesterday, for instance, my husband and I had dinner with another couple. We spent the whole time talking about the trials and tribulations of taking care of babies, juggling work with parenthood, and making time for ourselves. It would not occur to me to talk about my personal accomplishments, because me talking about my fantastic feat of the moment has less to offer in the way of mutual sharing than me talking about something we have in common: babies and demanding jobs.
It sounds like you lack that common ground with your friends, and that’s causing the divide. But it also sounds like your expectations for friends could also be getting in the way.
About the extent of sharing I do is a facebook post. I don’t ever bring it up in person. I do it for me not for them, but I’ll log it in the timeline of my life.
Lack of common ground makes sense somewhat, I have friends who care about my activities. But again our friendships only go so deep. Ah well. I feel the need to shake up my rhythm right now.
Well, I’m jealous of the OP, if it’s any consolation. The idea that success necessarily leads to happiness is largely to a myth, and the idea that happiness is earned is largely a myth, although there are certainly things we can to do help ourselves out. My brain has been trying to kill me since early adolescence, and nothing I accomplish really seems to change that fundamental fact. While I have had real moments of joy, in my marriage and with friends (I am lucky in friendships, for sure), depression is, and always will be, a constant companion. It’s like trying to swim with a heavy weight tied to your body, and you have to tread water forever. It’s like that King/Bachman horror novel The Long Walk, where you have to keep moving or someone snipes your ass with a high-powered rifle.
The OP has been there and never wants to go back, and I can’t blame him, but some of us don’t have a choice. Some of us never really escape, we just mark time between major depressive episodes, knowing it’s going to be that way forever and striving to make meaning out of life anyway. No amount of yoga or money or even wonderful, supportive friendships is ever going to change that.
I’m not suggesting the less fortunate among us wallow in hopeless despair, and I am not easily given to resentment, but when someone acts like happiness is a personal achievement, and if only I worked harder I, too, could know true contentment, I feel envious that someone could be that naive. It’s like saying ‘‘You too, could run a marathon!’’ to someone who is wheelchair bound.
Are super deep relationships the norm between friends who are older than, say, 30? This isn’t a rhetorical question. I’m honestly curious.
Older people have kids, spouses, and taxing jobs. Maybe your buds just don’t have a lot of extra energy to spare for “caring” beyond liking your Facebook page? I’m just curious whether your expectations are reasonable, given where most of your peers are in their lives.
You say you do have friends who care about your activities. So are you grieving over the few people you no longer vibe with? Or are you talking about a lot of people abandoning you? How many friends did you start off with? If you’ve got at least two friends that “get” you, who you can call up and do stuff with, then I have to wonder how many more friends you have to have before you feel like you’re okay. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to be lonely. But I’m wondering if maybe the loneliness isn’t due to lack of friendship, but something else.
From what I can tell, it seems like you’re experiencing something that affects a lot of people as they get older. Friendships become harder to maintain and harder to make with age. People get so busy that deep friendships become more shallow. This happens to almost everyone, regardless of how much success they’ve achieved.
That’s a great point. My best, closest friends were (and still are) the ones I had in high school, because we had so much energy and time to invest in those relationships. Now, even getting together with a person who has a career and children is like pulling teeth – much less establishing a close, intimate relationship. Most of my friends i see in group settings that are not given to intimate conversations, though it happens occasionally.
The OP’s best bet is to find someone else who is in the same boat: single, no kids, physically active, generally successful. Someone who has the time to invest in a friendship.
I think we’ve got a lot of people using “successful” as a synonym for “high earning” when that’s exactly what the OP does *not *mean.
Ref igor, high earners who succeeded by hard work can successfully hang out with other similar folks. As can high earners who’re psychopaths. But the two groups don’t mix very well.
IMO the OP’s meaning of success" is contented self-actualization through some measure of self-improvement. So those are the kinds of people he wants to find. By and large they won’t be high earners, though some might be.
I support this definition of success, but I don’t understand how being too “contented” and “self-actualized” could cause social problems unless the OP is surrounded by toxic codependent personalities. I don’t get the sense that’s actually the case from the OP.
This may sound harsh too, but I wouldn’t consider someone a success (per the definition above) if they judged friendships based on Facebook likes and comments. People who feel content, whole, and secure with themselves may be pleased at such indicators of praise, but I’m going to guess that their absence doesn’t merit much attention.
