The Silent Treatment™ is classic manipulation, designed to make you upset and go crawling back and prostrate yourself and possibly even throw yourself on your sword in order to repent for the heinous crime you’ve committed against your passive-aggressive friend.
The only way to fight The Silent Treatment™ is to pretend you haven’t noticed that you’re getting no response. The only way The Silent Treatment™ hurts you is if you let it. “Why won’t you answer? What’s wrrooooonnnnng?” is exactly what the perpetrator of The Silent Treatment wants.
I would invoke my Three Strikes rule: If I reach out/contact you/invite you or whatever three times in a row and get no response, a firm no, and no reciprocation, I take the hint that you really aren’t all that interested in feeding and watering a friendship with me, and I back off. I will not be that clingy, needy friend who can’t take a hint. So I’d give this friend three chances to respond to me in some way and if he doesn’t, buh-bye, he will be missed. And then just move on.
Yeah I’ve been using the three strikes rule for friendships in the past year, and found it very helpful. It also alleviates some social anxiety because I know I don’t come off as desperate anymore. The ball is firmly in the other person’s court at that point.
Wow, that Silent Treatment post was very insightful!
Why Child, you’re right, doing the conversation, he never once did address my points, only continuing his barrage of drama. A case of only hearing what he wanted to hear vs. what I had to say methinks.
Actually, the reason why we’re tumultuous is because he often broke up with me. He would often over-react to things that would be quite a small deal to other people (I think) and consider it a deal-breaker. That’s why when he cooled down (after a day or two), he would always want to get back together.
Our personalities are rather opposite, he’s super kind, sensitive, a little shy. I can be rather blunt and outgoing. I rage but forgive and forget easily. He ingrains every bad moment into his soul. Like this one. We’re friends because we have the same wide-ranging hobbies and interests in life which we’ve never found in anyone else.
I’m completely with Dogzilla on this. Sulking and the silent treatment are mind games. I don’t play mind games, because I’m not fifteen.
If someone gives me the silent treatment with no explanation, I try three times and then ignore them. They can either tell me what the problem is so we can sort it out like grownups, or decide to forget about it and just be friends as normal, or take their drama elsewhere. I don’t play ‘Oh pleeeease tell me what I did wrong so I can beg for forgiveness!!!’
If someone throws a hissy fit like this one and then starts with the silent treatment, I send one e-mail/voice message/whatever laying out my side. (‘Hi, I’m really sorry I hurt you by untagging that photo. I didn’t mean to be hurtful - you’re absolutely not embarrassing to me in any way - I was just aiming for clarity. I value our friendship a huge amount, and I’d love to hear from you if/when you’re ready.’) Then I leave the other person to it. He’ll either go away for good, or else get over himself and get in touch.
That’s what I’d do here. Make sure you say what you want to say, calmly and directly and with love or affection or whatever you have for this guy. Then leave him to deal with it as he chooses. Don’t get sucked into his drama.
At this point I have very few friends who play mind games. Partly this is because none of us are fifteen, but partly it’s because the drama brigade have either taken their drama elsewhere or decided it’s not worth trying it on me any more.
It doesn’t sound like you’re very good together or very compatible; on-and-off and tumultuous isn’t a solid relationship for most people. I think given your compatible interests that you could be friends some day, but that day is not for a while, and probably not until you’re both in healthy relationships so you don’t backslide into something that doesn’t work (dating, friends with benefits, friends that snuggle in pictures and look like a couple, etc.). Maybe not even then, if the past keeps getting in the way.
To be fair, it seems the OP has been manipulative of the guy, as well. To carry out an on-and-off relationship for two years with a guy who is more into her than she is into him, and then expects an instant change into from FWB to best friends, is an equally valid definition of “mind games.” It’s not the worst thing you can do to another person, but it is very inconsiderate of the other person’s feelings, and would seem to speak of poor boundaries.
I think the answer here is that the OP needs to establish some boundaries, have some mercy on this guy who is clearly on a different emotional page than the OP, and just let the relationship (friendship or otherwise) end. No more reaching out, no trying to mend things, just let it end.
And bonus advice: the OP should look into the rage issue, too. Just because she can fly off the handle and forget about it quickly doesn’t mean that’s an ok thing to subject other people to.
See, I don’t think that’s manipulative, assuming that she’s been upfront about her feelings all the way. Inconsiderate, yes, but mind games, no.
I agree that it’s still unfair. And I focused on the mind-games element because mind games bug me, personally, more than inconsiderateness. (Inconsiderateness is much simpler and cleaner to deal with upfront: ‘Hey, what you did really hurt me’ and a ten-minute discussion to clear the air and set out future boundaries, versus weeks of trying to work out WTF is going on, never mind how to fix it, never mind when or why it’s all going to start up again, and just GAH.)
But I’m not convinced that the only solution is to end the friendship. Even looking at the situation the other way round, with the focus on the OP not having been considerate of this guy’s stronger feelings, I still think that the best thing is for her to lay out her side, tell him how much she does value his friendship, and let him respond when/if he’s ready. That may be never, or he may be on the same page as her sooner or later, and that should be up to him to determine on his own. If she gets sucked into the drama, then he doesn’t get the space to do that, because he’s busy with the drama.
You overreacted to him posting the picture. He overreacted to your overreaction. Based on your descriptions, neither of you is coming across as particularly mature here.
I won’t tell you what I think you should do, because you’re going to do what you want anyway. But my observation is that the two of you don’t seem to bring out the best in one another, so you may want to keep that in mind when assessing the future of this friendship/relationship/whatever it is.
There’s something that I can’t quite define in your sending him the pic and then saying “I don’t want people to get the wrong idea.” Something wrong with that. WTF did you even send it to him, if you were worried about people (including him) getting the wrong idea?
Or, why not just send it to him, keep a sock in it, and assume that he wasn’t an idiot? If, from past experience, you knew he was an idiot, well…
As I said, there’s something here not right with you. I’ve heard the 'don’t want people to get the wrong idea…" thing before, and, there is something in it…manipulation? cruelty? toying? Can’t quite define it…
I think that you are being too full of yourself when you act as if you were done dirt in his not addressing your needs in your conversation. Of course, he may be a nut case, and all, but, you called up to give him crap. And, you’re constantly sending him mixed signals…and now *he’s *the insensitive one for not validating you?
Next time you get the hots, find another ex to do it with, not this one. You can’t handle him.
He wants something different than you want. You aren’t even letting him indulge in the fantasy (which is good, you shouldn’t). But that means that he’ll find it really hard to be around you. The terms you need for this friendship right now are incompatible with the terms he needs. This may change given time, it may not change. Move this particular friend from “best” category into “acquaintance” category and move on.
I think you are both setting good boundaries, the problem is that those boundaries aren’t compatible.
Okay, fair play on the comments. I admit I would hardly win any Girlfriend of the Year awards. It might come across like we don’t have fun at all, when we do sometimes. I think it’s rather sad that no matter how hard we want to be in each other’s lives (as evinced by the number of times we get back together), however, one small simple thing can just shatter the relationship/friendship.
Just to lay it all out there: We were together for 2 years (1 year normal, 1 year LDR), then we both dated other people for several months, then FWB for a few months. However, we don’t see each other all that much because we’re not in the same city, although I do make trips to that city as much as I can because it’s where lots of my friends are. So when I say FWB, it’s not like we just call each other up for a booty call all the time.
Ravenman: Rage hasn’t come up so much any more, but it has been a year since we were together anyway.
It was a nice picture, and he knew about it when I took the photo and he wanted it. He seems to think there was nothing couply about the photo whilst the evidence seems to state otherwise.
I have very clearly stated my boundaries and intentions (whenever prompted) BUT when we see each other, he often presses for some ‘fun’ saying we’re both single, the sex is good, why not? Sometimes I give in, sometimes it feels off. <— There are probably lots of fallacies and contradictions in this section.
I’m reading into one small comment and of course, I know nothing about all the gritty details of your relationship. But it sounds to me like he’s a bit manipulative, wearing you down to bang him when you don’t necessarily want to.
I think you should check out Heartless Bitches International, read The Manipulator Files section and see if anything rings true to you. If I’m way far off base, then you’ll have spent some time on interesting reading. If I nailed it, you may find some of the articles there extremely helpful.
You forgot to add, “And after you start the FWB back up, don’t use contraception since contraception is a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be”, santorum
