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Originally Posted by trthskr  Jim, I can understand where you are coming from. It make sense. But, what does one do when you have been retunring their texts/phone calls for a while but whenever you call/text it's hit and miss if they return the call/text. I percieve that as the other party not valuing my relationship to them and so they feel it's not a big deal if they don't return the call/text. I mean there's gotta be a point where you just have to fight fire with fire and play their own game with them. Thoughts? |
First of all, understand that a perfectly balanced friendship is very rare. So maybe it is a bigger deal for you than it is for them, but please don't equate that with "they don't care". The hard thing here is that you have to understand their actions, their style of communications - which you really can't. Best you can do, is imagine how you would feel and react if you were in their shoes. No, correction, that is the WORST you can do. Why? Because they don't think and feel like you!
Would it still bother you if, say, they treated all their friends this way? Or maybe it is okay to give the friendship some slack and be less in touch for a while, at least until the friendship has matured some what. Note that that is not the same as not responding to their texts/calls - it just means that you also send them messages less frequently. Maybe they are more comfortable that way. Maybe they'll even feel more connected, more in sync with you and that's a great basis for friendships to grow.
And if you really think that something is a miss, you can also call them out on it. Not my favorite strategy, but I have used it once or twice.
For example, with one of my best friends from primary school. As we went into high school and college, both our lives changed dramatically. He grew into a very social, networked person, but he also became very unreliable in our friendship because he was so caught up on making new friends and contacts. So, after he stood me up one time too many, I called him up and said: "I know we've been friends for quite a long time already, but if you do this to me once more, the friendship is over." He readily admitted to his mistake and it never happened again. The risk, of course, is that you might loose your friendship if you call someone on it like this...
Jim.