The Things People Say

Recently a friend decided to do me a favor and tell me that I have "issues".

First of all anyone who's known me for 10 minutes would agree with that statement, though I believe they are endearing issues, not the sort of issues that make you pray the person who has them would just fall into a manhole and die.

According to this so-called friend, my apparent low self-esteem has made me essentially misinterpret the way I believe my friends see me. Or to put it less delicately, because I think I'm crap, I believe so does everyone else and as such, I am not worthy of having friends.

Now this is an interesting situation to say the least. I am trying to believe that the friend who gave me these pearls of wisdom was doing so out of a desire to help with whatever they saw as a distinct flaw in me, rather than making these statements out of a desire to be a sonofabitch.

I'm trying - not there yet.

While for most of my life, it should come as no shocker, I have had staggeringly low esteem. At no point though, it has never lead me to believe that I am not worthy of having friends. Yes, I have the areas that I believe could use radical improvement and wouldn't do any boasting or bragging, on the whole I think I'm a pretty decent individual. Usually entertaining, occasionally intelligent, and under the right circumstances, I might even give a damn. All in all, not a terrible person to befriend.

A couple of pertinent questions have popped into my head since my friend thought it important to share this information:

1. Since neither I nor any of my other friends agree with this statement, I'm curious as to why exactly this specific friend chooses to believe this about me.
Personally, I think it's because this particular friend has a knack for bringing out whatever insecurities I might occasionally have and sees this as the whole of who I am. I have news for you bub, I got my problems, but I'm not that bad. I have my moments when I, like other people, question my relationships with my friends and sometime wonder about the nature and reasons for these connections. In the end, I try to accept these things at face value. I am pretty sure this doesn't qualify as an "issue". But I'm thinking that if you are someone who has done or said something to give me pause about our specific relationship, then yes, chances are you will probably think I'm like that struggling and insecure child overall.

2. And this is the more important question, does anyone, even a friend, have the right to make such random and harsh declarations about someone else?
And the answer...I don't know. This harkens back to my undecidedness about the true nature and intent of the statement. But then again, even if the friend meant it in the nicest, most helpful way possible, does that excuse it? What are the limits of our relationships? How truthful are we to be with the people in our lives? And how sure are we that the assumptions we make about them and sometimes even insist on, are true?

To all these questions, the answer is really that it depends.

Every relationship is case specific and probably has to be dealt with as such.

In this case, it's all still unclear. The "truth" is something this friend likes to keep veiled and that makes assessing the reality of any situation all the more difficult. Despite all intensions, we all make assumptions about the people we know. Sometimes we might ask for clarification, but in the end in order to interact on any level, we have to assume certain things. It's all a matter of the sort of assumptions that we make. As hard as it is to know ourselves, it's that much harder to know someone else and I think we'd all do better to keep that in mind.

Yeah, I'm still smarting a bit over the entire conversation (let's just say the matter was not dealt with in a sympathic fashion; the term "hit and run" kept popping up in my mind). But upon this person's insistence that they are "nice" and "mean well", along with their egotistical claims that their life's work is essentially to insult people till they think what is deemed correctly, I will say thank you for the consideration and while I respectfully disagree, I will reconsider the subject.

It's the least I can do.