To reconsider this friendship

[RobinsNest87]

Before I start: Apologies for any mistakes, English is not my first language.
I have been close friends with one of my neighbours for around three years. We’ve known each other longer than this, but the friendship only really took off through a shared activity, and we started going for walks during lockdown. The friendship is really important to me, it’s one of the closest I have in the city I currently live in, and I know that it’s the same for her (she’s told me so). I really value my friend: she is always kind, always ready to help, likes everyone and very, very rarely says a bad word about anyone. Morally, she is everything I aspire to – but recently, I’ve been feeling alienated by precisely this quality. My friend likes people I definitely don’t like (this includes her husband, from whom she takes stuff I would never tolerate) and is – in my eyes – quite subservient and conflict-avoidant, especially towards authority figures like teachers. She does not like to discuss "difficult″ things (I recently dealt with major conflict at work that we hardly talked about) and seems put off when I say something critical or opinionated about anything. I don’t think I’m extreme, and I don’t badmouth others, but when I think that something is not as it should be, I say so.
I really appreciate my friend as a person, I value our relationship, but I’m also beginning to feel that in some respects we’re just not a very good fit. The whole thing is bothering me, and I don’t fully understand why. I should be able to take her the way she is, shouldn't I? Can anyone relate?

I can completely relate. I’m like you, I say it how it is, but I have some friends who point blank just won’t talk about the more bitchy/negative topics when I bring them up. Example I have a friend who was in an abusive relationship, he was awful and I mean truly awful to her. Despite this she has never said a bad word about him, never moaned, never bitched.

Complete guess here but maybe it bothers you because you don’t feel you have anyone else to talk to about everything? I don’t have many close friends since I moved away and it’s really tough and isolating. I end up calling my sister every few days just to chat. It can be so lonely when you feel like you can’t be truly yourself and talk about anything with someone.

My advice - keep her as a friend but continue looking for new friends too, hopefully one of them you’ll feel like you’re able to talk freely with.

P.s. No need to apologise for anything, your English is better than most of us who were born here! 😘

Thank you OutsideEveryday. You're spot on actually. I' ve been actively looking for friends the last couple of years and have a good circle of "middle distance" friends now. But there is noone I feel effortlessly close to. I'll have to keep looking I guess...

I understand where you are coming from. But perhaps consider not putting all your eggs in one basket.

It’s not something I’d loose a friendship over. It’s just a different personality trait - Vive la difference!

Life would be boring if we were all the same.

I’m in the exact same situation, although I don’t even have middle distance friends, just those I’m really close with but live miles away, and none near where I live. I’m trying to find friends too but it’s so tough!