Do you have charitable friendships?

[washingmachines4]

Do you have charitable friendships? – ie friendships you get nothing from other than feeling like you have done a good deed making someone feel better/keeping them company from time to time.

If you do, do you think they would do the same?

If people like us didn't the reality is those people would suffer even more loneliness and isolation. Its not about being smug and superior its called being a good citizen of the community.

One kind action can save a life

@KimDeals that's what I do!!!
OP I have only literally just realised at age 40 plus that friendships that start with me feeling 'sorry' for them doesn't ever pan out well and we get left in the dust and hurting. I'm still hurting over something like this recently and I see her every day and get angry while she awkwardly always avoids me now.

Used to. Never again.
Mainly because I was happy to spend a ‘bit of time’. But they became more and more demanding. Texting lots, expecting me to reply immediately and ‘support’ them through a crisis every 5 minutes. I’m really good at attracting troubled/friendless people as I’m empathetic and can talk to anybody so I used to have lots of these.

I have got some friends who take some extra understanding (they have ASD) but they don’t drain me.

I have to say, I did bristle when you said the only thing you get out of the friendship is 'feeling like you've done a good deed' and when you described it as 'charitable'. I think 'smug and superior' in someone's previous comment was really harsh, as I'm sure you don't mean it like that at all and are wanting to be kind. Your update makes it a lot clearer!

I think when people talk about a friendship in terms of charity and getting satisfaction out of a good deed, it can come across as being much more about them and their desire to feel like the good person than actually caring about the friend - and a bit martyrish, perhaps, or as if they're fishing for people to tell them how kind and under-appreciated they are. So from your first post alone, I think I'd have got that impression.

But your second post totally clarifies the situation, and I can totally imagine what kind of person your friend is. It sounds exhausting, and it some ways it's actually worse when they are basically a well-meaning person because it makes it harder to cut them off! Could you ease off contact gradually, do you think? Or even have a really honest chat with them about why it can be quite hard to always be the supportive one?

[quote User1234567891011121314]@KimDeals that's what I do!!!
OP I have only literally just realised at age 40 plus that friendships that start with me feeling 'sorry' for them doesn't ever pan out well and we get left in the dust and hurting. I'm still hurting over something like this recently and I see her every day and get angry while she awkwardly always avoids me now.[/quote]
The worst part is YOU yourself are a person.
Whose going to help you when you need it if you spend all your time running around after everyone else?

A couple, mostly that their lives don't set them up for making new friends and they have limitations on their freedoms / resources, so our friendship which might otherwise have drifted has taken on a greater sense of importance for them than it has for me.

I find the comments that this is self important rather unfair. It's not that I think I'm some gift to other people, it's that I make all the running and get very little out of these friendships, because the people in question aren't able to be flexible and are very overwhelmed by their circumstances so rarely interested in talking to me about my life. Not that I want to feel good about myself by bathing in their drama (though I do recognise that can happen and is best avoided).

Not currently. Have had in the past.

Thank you @sanbeiji you have made me think!

I have experienced this a couple of times. In one case it was an acquaintance, we became friendly. Then she fell on hard times in her life and I went out of my way to provide support financially, practically and emotionally. At first we also had times where she helped me out or she listened to me but eventually it just became one sided and it soured things. I think I helped too much, out of at first, being appreciated and then out of a sense of duty, but once I started to pull back on the above and beyond help they moved on.

My mum has a couple of these! She has aways hated people feeling left out and can’t stand it when people are unkind so she does tend to shoot herself in the foot a bit. She befriended a 70 yo divorcee with some disabilities a few years back and had to pull back in the end because she started calling every day. When my mum didn’t answer she would leave bitchy voicemails. She has now largely dropped that one and someone else is taking a turn.

There is a lady with some learning needs that my mum has been a “charitable friend” with for years though. Her son (also with send) was in my class at primary school. She just takes her out for coffee or lunch a few times a year as the lady doesn’t drive and lives on disability benefit so not much money.

@juniper68 – I hadn’t thought of this really, thank you for your suggestion. I think they would benefit greatly emotionally for doing something for someone else. I haven’t brought them into my kids lives because their negativity is not something I want around my children. I’ll try and engineer another way they can help, if not me, someone else. Perhaps our next social I could encourage us to both go and volunteer somewhere – will make the social less painful for me and the volunteering would probably be gratifying for the both of us.
@User1234567891011121314 – sorry this has happened and you are left unhappy. Part of me wishes I never started it, but part of me feels that to have ignored it, kept my head down and not given them any time could have left them in an unbelievably dark place. It would haunt me a bit. The early part of our friendship I genuinely felt it was a real possibility that they might kill themselves and that I would be the only one who would notice the silence/lack of communication to find out. I think that drove the association deeper.

Sorry for not to replying to everyone - I really appreciate all the responses though.

It really makes me think when you get a thread on here of how lonely someone is, how hard it is to make friends, I wonder just how many people there are out there feeling this way. Sometimes I feel harsher about it and think "well, you can do 'x, y and z' to make more friends." or "maybe if you reflected a bit you might see how you impact others and a change in behaviour is needed" - I would never say these things, it is just a judgemental feeling that comes to mind time to time. For the most part though, it makes me sad that people feel this way and there is a reason for every human behaviour - my friend clearly has abandonment issues and has been treated very badly from those who should have known better when they were a child. But those scars are deep, hard to heal and I don't think anything will ever change for them. I just hope others are kinder to them but more than that I want them to have a genuine connection to another human being who values and enjoys their interaction.

OP I don't think "charitable friendship" is a descriptor that does you any favours. You sound like a really nice caring person, but the "friend" sounds like an emotional vampire who's going to have to do her own social homework. You can't learn her lessons for her.

No, and I would hate it if someone did this to me. If i thought I was someone’s charitable friendship I’d be mortified.

Yes, but she was very blunt to the point of rudeness and had few other friends. I tolerated it and made excuses for her until it became too much. I know she is a kind person, but she believes that honesty means saying exactly what you think regardless of whether that hurts someone. Calling a spade a spade, if you will.

I remained friendly with her as I felt/feel very sorry for her as she has a hard life, she has never married and lives very interdependently with her narcissistic ageing mother. Her mother manipulates and isolates her, she taught her to say exactly what she thinks, rather than just to say nothing if you can't be kind. When her mother dies she will be completely alone. I felt sorry for her day to day existence, particularly during Covid when their precautions were, frankly, ridiculous.

She overstepped the mark with me one day about a family event I cared deeply about. I let her know in no uncertain terms that her words had been hurtful and that some things are much better left unsaid.

I have not contacted her since, and she will believe she has done nothing wrong (aided and abetted by her mother who won't care about the friendship ending) so she won't contact me.

I also don’t like seeing people being rejected or picked and befriend them. I don’t think I am doing them a favour though and I do get something from seeing them. So not charitable really. Based in kindness but reciprocal.

@NiceShrubbery -I did not select my words well. Sorry

@Changedmane

I also don’t like seeing people being rejected or picked and befriend them. I don’t think I am doing them a favour though and I do get something from seeing them. So not charitable really. Based in kindness but reciprocal.

I mean there are people you wouldn’t normally be friends with, you give them a chance, that’s OK. For example I do have some friends where the conversation is somewhat one sided but it doesn’t take loads of extra effort. I’m fine maintaining friendship.

However there are toxic/draining people. Or those where it’s like pulling teeth. Yes, they’re probably damaged and it’s sad they’ll be alone, but it’s not your problem to solve.

Incidentally @washingmachines4 everybody who exhibits bad behaviour has probably been traumatised. Including abusers.
Do we still go all ‘awww poor people’ and force others to associate with them? Of course not.

The only people who should be is professionals, and therapy groups.

However there’s little funding or support for any of that so there’s lots of propaganda for us, the ‘ordinary folk’ to #bekind and Wolfe problems too heavy for us.

*solve problems! Not Wolfe

I have done. I know it’s because I liked the feeling of smugness and superiority it gave me.

*also most people not everybody

I have a colleague that I have to work closely with who is extremely self centred (in an almost childlike way), needy and finds it hard to sustain friendships. I treat her like a friend because yes, I do feel sorry for her, but at the same time I’m very clear the relationship is nothing like those I have with my real friends. I don’t expect to get anything back as I just don’t think she’s capable, or very rarely. It makes work better to be in good terms.

@sanbeiji - 'it's not your problem to solve' is not thinking I can get on board with. Do I think I can swoop in and fix everyone? - no, I am not that egotistical. Do I think I can make someone's day better every now and then? - yes.
'It's not my problem' - I can think temporarily now and then when I am in a bad mood and feeling rather selfish. It doesn't last, as I have aged I have gained more compassion than to think that way.

I have had, but not currently. Previously it has been with a couple of people who were lonely and needed a friend, but for various reasons, largely behavioural, they found it very difficult to make friends with other people themselves. However, I did see them as real friends and I enjoyed the time we spent together, but they weren't balanced friendships. Often the friendship was based on their needs, wants and interests.

One of the reasons I don't have any such friendships now is covid. I have found that my emotional resources have been greatly depleted over the last few years and I don't have much to give people who drain me rather than give me energy.

I did this. Didn't end well and I was spending most of my day supporting this person. It's now been thrown in my face. Don't bother, extract yourself and run.