Reconcile or Let it go?

arbeitsscheuer

Gonna try to keep this as brief as pos, I don't wanna keep too much of you lovely boardsies' valuable time...

Ok: Best mates with this geezer for bout 4 years. Tight as anythin, trust him wit my life etc. Then... Kinda went to sh*t. Not gonna go into what happened, as the events themselves were pretty nebulous and fiddly-fcuk-abouty (sorry, my vocabulary failed me there). Basically, on New yrs eve, insults, abuse, thinly-vailed physical violence (IMO, not gonna go into detail), etc happened, and we both (silently) blamed the other. Now, ordinarily nothin bad would happen, we're both adults, been mates for 4 years, you'd think this would be water under the bridge in a matter of days, if not hours, right?

Wrong.

Chattin to him on MSN new yrs day, all I wanted to hear, just for fcuking once in his goddammed life, was an apology. Then I'd be grand. Instead, he threatend me wit physical violence (again) so I told him to fcuk off, convinced that was the end of it. All of it - friendship, everythin.

So, didn't speak to him (purposely and deliberately avoiding eachother in College) for next 2 months. Til this friday just by fluke of circumstance we were amongst a mutual bunch of mates and it was all banter and the like. Just like the old days tbh. Twas great.

This has been to long a post, so I'll sum up:
In essence, this whole thing brewed out of nothing. Both of us, it would appear anyway, wanted an apology from the other. Both of us, being stubborn b*stards, refused to do so first. And then it snowballed, into a sort of silent feud, (altho his gf had a go at me recently, but that's neither here nor there).

So.

Is this friendship as damaged-beyond-repair as I initially thought (and I should point out that I wasn't that bothered by this - it's just the avoiding eye contact in College that I can't stand)?

Or should I just bite the bullet and "be the bigger man", as he used to say, regardless of his response i.e. even if that is to laugh in my face, call me a wuss and throw me into a wall.

Sorry for takin up valuable PI space Victor + Thaed!
Keep up the good work!

Cheers

Crucifix

It's hard to judge without much info, but if you want his friendship back it might be worth trying to reconcile, without actually doing any apologising.

arbeitsscheuer

Crucifix wrote:

It's hard to judge without much info, but if you want his friendship back it might be worth trying to reconcile, without actually doing any apologising.

Yeah... Maybe let it get to the stage where we (hopefully) won't remember what we fell out over. Kinda "time heals all wounds" approach, yeah?

I really don't know what to do, or even whether to do anythin at all. I was, before, I've been absolutely certain for the last 2 months that I was in the right, that he was being a stubborn pr*ck, that I deserved an apology more, etc...

Now I'm wonderin if my pride is really worth this sh*t.
Or even if pride in general is worth sh*t.

Cheers anyway Crucifix

Eminem

SebtheBum wrote:

Gonna try to keep this as brief as pos, I don't wanna keep too much of you lovely boardsies' valuable time...

Ok: Best mates with this geezer for bout 4 years. Tight as anythin, trust him wit my life etc. Then... Kinda went to sh*t. Not gonna go into what happened, as the events themselves were pretty nebulous and fiddly-fcuk-abouty (sorry, my vocabulary failed me there). Basically, on New yrs eve, insults, abuse, thinly-vailed physical violence (IMO, not gonna go into detail), etc happened, and we both (silently) blamed the other. Now, ordinarily nothin bad would happen, we're both adults, been mates for 4 years, you'd think this would be water under the bridge in a matter of days, if not hours, right?

Wrong.

Chattin to him on MSN new yrs day, all I wanted to hear, just for fcuking once in his goddammed life, was an apology. Then I'd be grand. Instead, he threatend me wit physical violence (again) so I told him to fcuk off, convinced that was the end of it. All of it - friendship, everythin.

So, didn't speak to him (purposely and deliberately avoiding eachother in College) for next 2 months. Til this friday just by fluke of circumstance we were amongst a mutual bunch of mates and it was all banter and the like. Just like the old days tbh. Twas great.

This has been to long a post, so I'll sum up:
In essence, this whole thing brewed out of nothing. Both of us, it would appear anyway, wanted an apology from the other. Both of us, being stubborn b*stards, refused to do so first. And then it snowballed, into a sort of silent feud, (altho his gf had a go at me recently, but that's neither here nor there).

So.

Is this friendship as damaged-beyond-repair as I initially thought (and I should point out that I wasn't that bothered by this - it's just the avoiding eye contact in College that I can't stand)?

Or should I just bite the bullet and "be the bigger man", as he used to say, regardless of his response i.e. even if that is to laugh in my face, call me a wuss and throw me into a wall.

Sorry for takin up valuable PI space Victor + Thaed!
Keep up the good work!

Cheers

Bight the bullet and be the bigger man , Yeah were friends for four years . You might not get a chance nextime . Best off doing it while you can . Best of luck .:)

Faith

Something similar happened to me about 7 years ago. My best friend turned on me for absolutely no reason. One day she decided not to be my friend anymore, turned half our class against me, yadda yadda yadda. This went on for a whole year before she stopped me one day and went "oh yeah, sorry about being mean to you this year". Turned out she'd gotten accepted to my seconday school and we were going to be seeing a lot of each other. I said fine, ignored her for the next 6 months, but then suddenly we were friends again. That was 6 years ago and we're still absolute best friends. We got over it.

So if this friendship means a lot to you, you should try to salvage it. I'm not saying you should apologise as such and let him off, but maybe ring him up and go "Listen mate, I value you as a friend and I don't want to lose that friendship. We both know **** happened on New Years and you're blaming me, just as I'm blaming you. But let's put it behind us. I'm willing to apologise, as long as you are too. We were both at fault, obviously." If he won't do that, forget about him. He's not worth it.

Chinafoot

Faith wrote:

I'm not saying you should apologise as such and let him off, but maybe ring him up and go "Listen mate, I value you as a friend and I don't want to lose that friendship. We both know **** happened on New Years and you're blaming me, just as I'm blaming you. But let's put it behind us. I'm willing to apologise, as long as you are too. We were both at fault, obviously." If he won't do that, forget about him. He's not worth it.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Four years is a long time and I think in this instance you were most likely both at fault.

Have a chat with him......otherwise just let it go. You're in final year now so you won't have to see him all the time if you don't want to.

**shrug**

Boston

I was in a similiar situation, best friends for years, like brothers, I stoped being mates with him after i saw a side of his character I didn't like. It was a really bad time, and I really wanted was to be friends again, so a few months later i put aside my better judgement and made up with him, only for the same character traits to pot up again. This time around it took almost a year for me to be even in the same room as the guy.

Basically what im saying is, after you've had the type of falling out you've had, it will never go back to being the same, you'll always be thinking "If i say the wrong thing, is this guy going to try and smash my face in", in the same way i knew after the first time, that if i needed my friend, he wouldn't be there for me. You can't be friends with someone unless you're on equal terms with them, and you can't be on equal terms with them, if the threat of violence is hanging over you.

AngryBadger

I'd say it to him outright. That you feel there's some tension between the two of you and you'd like to bring it into the open and have it out.

You value the friendship, (presumably), so this can go one of two ways. Either you say it to him, and hopefully ye'll be able to sort out your differences, or you don't say anything, and it'll become even more compounded because all sorts of ancillary **** will become a part of the "feud", and eventually there'll be no chance of reconciliation, and you'll hace forgotten why.

Sometimes you have to draw the line with people, but unless there's some very particular reason for you to be fightint with him, then I'd let it go, and talk to him.

arbeitsscheuer

That sounds the most like what I've been talking about, LiouVille.

I spose I should've gone unregged so's I could go into more detail about everythin, but it's Seb Company Policy to never go unregged. Ah well.

Cheers for the input lads and lasses, it really is much appreciated.

BeardyGit

Hey Seb,

I've been there (several times) and have gone both ways - Dropped friends and reconciled. As the years are passing, more quickly than I thought they would, I've realised that sometimes friends are worth keeping and sometimes it makes little real difference whether they're still about or not.

In your case though, it sounds like it's just a stand-off between two blokes who would probably handle everything differently if it were all to happen again from the start. As you say, be the bigger man here. Give an apology and if your mate accepts, get on with things. More likely, if you apologise for the falling out - He'll apologise for the falling out too. Don't carry out a post-mortem and knock it on the head if he starts - If the two of you want to be best friends - You can. Just steer clear of over-analysing the reasons for the row in the first place. You've both likely learned something about each other and that should help avoid this happening again in the future.

Hope it helps,

Gil

Jonny Arson

From the me who's been in more squabbles than anyone on the face of the planet I urge you Seb to very careful about what you choose to do.

I can't obviously comment on the exact situation but from experience (oh Jesus Christ i've loads of them!) sometimes being ''the bigger man'' can backfire on you more than anything.

I'm a strong minded indiviual. If I believe I'm in the right I won't budge, if I'm wrong I'll reason. I wasn't always like this because I hated fighting/aggro so much I would reconcile over anything with friends. By being so ''ah forget it, lets make up'' about everything I became soft in the eyes of people. This lead me to being stamped all over by so many people because they believed they could do this and I would accept it and I did, my fault. I lost friendships, became lonely and lost confidence in myself.

Now I've become more strong minded and stick up up for myself more but I still get crap from friends for being opinionated and honest. However despite the lack of change in many people's attitudes towards me, I feel by having strong principles I'm better off as an individual and I'm stronger for that.

In your situation you know your friend (or ex-friend) better than anyone. The fact that you guys didn't speak for ages I find worrying. How was your friendship before that? Has this incident come out of the blue? Did you feel that there was tension between you guys leading up to this or did you feel uncomfortable in any way before this?

A couple of weeks ago me and a mate had a silly squabble over something said in a text message. It was stupid (really f**king silly!) but we were at each other throats over texts. I believed I was in the right, he believed he was in the right (for fact - I was in the right!! ) Neither of us admitted defeat but we mutually gave in without sorting the squabble out. I wouldn't usually do this since I don't give in but with this bloke I do trust him and I know deep dwon he's a decent bloke and friend. With some other of my friends I wouldn't have because I don't trust them as much and I am uncomfortable around them.

Like in my situation, you should go on your instincts here. If you are comfortable with being ''the bigger man'' by making up then do it. If there's any doubt you have towards your friend or if you feel there could be further serious squallbes then you may have to realistic and say ''do I want further crap like this?"

You know best at the end of the day dude so good luck and be strong!

Alan