The book of questions, Volume 102
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Friday is The Book of Questions Day around these parts. Today’s query comes from the aptly titled book “The Book of Questions” by Gregory Stock, Ph.D.
And here it is, Question 151.
While arguing with a close friend on the telephone, he or she gets angry and hangs up. Assuming the other person is at fault and makes no attempt to contact you, how long would you wait to get in touch with him or her?
Forever and ever, amen. However, it really does depend upon the circumstances.
I’m not into confrontation — I am into champagne — so I don’t argue very much. I just don’t. There’s not a lot in this world that’s worth arguing about to me. If we don’t agree, groovy. I don’t feel the need to force someone else to agree with me and at times will say, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” And then I silently add, “Kick rocks, mofo.”
However.
I’ve had some bad juju hangin’ ’round this house for roughly the last four years. Deal breaker stuff with my extended family.
The short story is: We. Don’t. Get. A. Long.
Basically none of us agree and neither side is willing to compromise. Groovy tunes. That’s exactly why I’ve changed all of my contact information and made it unavailable; forever and ever, amen.
And because of that I’ve had to tell the police three times now that we don’t get along and three times the officer(s) replied, “It sounds like they’re harassing you. I’ll note that in the police report.”
Why thank you very much, kind sir.
Tags: Things that are definitely not cool, Things that are jacked up, Things that get on my very last nerve
I’d wait until they make contact. If they don’t, then it’s no big loss. I don’t need drama in my life from other people, whether they are friend, family or complete strangers. If someone can’t be civil, then that’s line crossing behaviour. And if they hang up on me, I take that as a sign that they don’t wish to communicate with me any longer. So, “goodbye”.
Would you do that ( I mean not call or keep in touch ) even with a close friend? Wouldn’t that be losing a friendship which means something? Momentary loss of reasoning and good sense need not be a reason enough to break something which takes so much time to build.
It begs the question, does that friendship mean something? The other person clearly showed that they no longer wished to speak to me at that point in time. The ball is in their court as far as making contact again is concerned.
If someone felt that behaving in that manner was appropriate, then id have to question whether or not that person was worth keeping as a friend anyway.
I think it would kinda depend on what we were arguing about – I try and be chilled as life is too short to hold grudges and be grumpy with people.
What Solomon said. I don’t need drama. It’s a “getting older” thing. I’m too tired to try so hard for people who are difficult. I’m ruthless.
Hola CG,
First I appreciate the advance notice that you will be missing in action until Tuesday and the keg is a nice touch, ha ha!
Second, I am not good at forgiveness. I’m not. It’s one of my true weaknesses. Lucky for me I don’t have to go there often. In general I don’t argue. In particular I don’t argue with friends. We squabble. We have tiny little disagreements and might not call each other for a couple of day but then someone will need help with an outfit or just wanna discuss the douche of the moment and all is forgotten or forgiven without the words. Isn’t that true friendship? We should be able to have a disagreement without losing the relationship.
On a side but related note. My best friend and I go through this thing where she’ll get angry about a tone I use when talking to her and then she won’t call me for a week. I end up calling her first most of the time because she has a vivid imagination and conjures up imaginary tones. She’s one of those people when we’re discussing something and we don’t agree she’ll say something like don’t yell at me. To which I usually respond, here you go again imagining tones. No one is yelling at you. She’s an oddball but I loves her.
I’ll be in charge of pumping the keg and serving!!
Oh. Thank. GOD. So, I’m not alone in saying “Yeah, moving on…..”?? I love this lounge!
I am going through this right now with some folks. See–I don’t really care if you are here or not. If things are groovy tunes–hey, great! If there is conflict or you think you are my BFF, and I don’t do BFF’s, but that makes you mad/hurt/whatever, then move aside, I don’t have time for this crap. I would so not call because I can’t be bothered. I don’t do drama and I’m not making time for yours, plain and simple. Now quit calling me, emailing me, and reading my blog for “secret” messages from me. I’m not playing. Sheesh, people get weird.
Now, if you have been a friend for a long time (10 plus years) and we have been through a lot together and I really like our friendship, then I will wait a few months and call you up one day and act like nothing happened and we will move on. I’ve got a friend like that and it works, strangely enough. No conflict, just “let’s be friends”. Love that.
Thank God someone is pumping the keg, because I’m a little too short to do it effectively.
Never. A similar situation happened in my life. My best friend and I weren’t even arguing. He just always said, “Yeah, let’s do this-or-that on Saturday. I’ll call you”. He never would. One day, I figured frack it, I won’t call him. That was it :)
You know, in retrospect, maybe I should have taken the hint.
listen, i consider myself very forgiving, we can go through hell, have disagreements, scream if you wanna, but don’t ever hang up on me, period.
have a safe trip.
My friends and I (I mean the close ones from back home that I’ve known since grade school) never fight. It’s kinda weird, actually. We just don’t fight. Sure we rip on each other quite a bit, but I don’t think we ever fight. So, I guess I can’t really answer the question.
Well, if I have to answer the question I would say I’d give it some time and then call the friend. Unless it was something deal breaking (like they just killed a man), we aren’t here on this planet long enough to hold a grudge forever.
I don’t argue, period, so there’s a pretty good chance I would have hung up on the person already. Life’s too short for stuff like that–who wants to spend their precious time dealing with a drama queen? Hit the road, jack.
It would depend on several things: the person, the basis of the argument (I mean, was it about who remembered a character’s name correctly from a movie or was it about who sabatoged another person’s chances at a job), the relational investment and whether making peace would be possible.
Most of the time, though, I would probably make the move before the other person, though. Even though I hate confrontation every bit as much as you do, CG, I also hate loss of relationship (there must be something pathological there, b/c I will bend over backwards at times to save friendships that really aren’t that great to begin with).
Chances are good I would wait for them to contact me. However, it does depend on who it was and what we were fighting about. I tend to hold grudges hardcore, so chances are, I’d wait for them to contact me. Especially if he/she was legitimately the one at fault (as opposed to just being at fault in my head, because I can talk myself into blaming the other person for ANYTHING. It’s a gift.)
Depends.
My 8 month pregnant sister is driving me batty right now. So I just wait for her to call. Maybe she’ll be in a good mood. I know, I know, she’s pregnant. But I have a sneaking suspicion she’s using at as an excuse because she’s normally kind of bitchy anyway.
My mother, I tell her I’ll call when I’m ready because I have to be in the right mood to deal with her very off the wall reasoning.
But I don’t do arguments either. There was enough of that as a teenager. Wait it out. It’ll pass. And if it doesn’t, don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out.
Well, the thing with your FOO is that they are batshit crazy, and no one should be expected to deal with that level of toxicity. So for me, that’s a whole ‘nother issue, separate from the point of the post. That said, I guess I don’t get into arguments with friends. I did once, and told my friend she wasn’t very sympathetic when she tried to tell me that the people of New Orleans had it coming to them after Katrina if they didn’t have flood insurance, but fortunately she put it behind her and we’re still friends. We just basically agreed to disagree.
Me, I end up having friends who slowly drop off the face of the earth without any clear reason as to what happened. For me, that’s more hurtful than having an argument and losing a friend that way because I never know what I did wrong. And then I end up over-analyzing myself and blaming myself since it’s me who keeps having it happen to, and the brain goes round and round and round in terrible circles.
I’m getting better about shutting off the repetitive thoughts because most of the time I do think it’s about the other person and not about me. And if you (not YOU, CG, the general YOU) don’t want me in your life — your loss. I’m movin’ on.
It really depends. I’m not into the whole drama that a lot of my friends thrive on. I had a huge falling out with a good friend our last month of senior year of high school, and by winter break sophomore year we were good to go. It all depends if the relationship is worth it. My mom doesn’t speak to any of her family since my grandparents died and its definitely been for the best.
I think it depends on who said what to whom and the circumstances of the disagreement. I had a best friend in high school, and we got an apartment together a few years later. That lasted about 5 months. I moved home for 3 weeks until I could find a place I could afford on my own. We didn’t see each other for a while, and the last time I saw her was at her wedding. Things were strained, and that was it. Not seen or heard from her since. No real argument, but we didn’t agree on a lot of things anymore. Looking back there are many things, incidents and feelings that I can’t even put into words. It was best to let go. I hope I’m not too off topic here. Sorry, it’s been a depressing week.
I guess it depends on what’s going on with that friend.
Currently I have a “situation” with Anastasia. She owes me money for things I legitimately paid for her, for which she has to reimburse me. She never pays up her balance in full and is always just making a single payment a month that just puts a small dent in the balance. This month I have not gotten any money. It’s back to school time and I need every penny I can get. I’ve asked numerous times through texts (which she never even acknowledges) and yesterday via a voice mail message I left. After I left that message I got a nasty text saying that she would see if she could borrow money from her gf (like I really see that being successful) and would pay me just $85 and after that she didn’t want to talk to me or have anything to do with me. SERIOUSLY? She owes me 4x that! And I’m not going to stop hounding until her balance is zero. SERIOUSLY! She owes me for her car insurance and says she has no money because she paid her car payment. REALLY? She’s had 2 accidents in 2 weeks and if I hadn’t paid her car insurance she’s be up s**t creek. And she’s got attitude?
And yes, I’ve been in touch with my insurance agent. He’s on vacation and should be calling me today to make the changes necessary so we are not on each other’s car anymore and her bill goes directly to her.
And yes, after the money issue is resolved I probably will contact her. Why? Because of my kids. My kids still want to see her and do stuff. So I will suck it up for their sake.
I am pretty non confrontational. I would let it sit for a day or two and then probably call back, provided it was a good friend.
It’s so strange how age will mellow out most people but there are those few that just hold on tightly to the drama – picking fights and creating nonsense wherever they go. I have (and probably everyone else has) family like your extended family. It’s sad.
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