Do I expect too much?

[lonelysurrounded]

I’m having some Sunday contemplation and wondering if I expect too much for friends or if they are, in fact, just not that great.

DH and I are opening a new business. We currently run a successful business, it turns over six figures (just) and is 2 years old. I work a full time “high powered” job and DH just quit to work full time on our business. Many view it as a “side hustle” or whichever icky word you want to call it. No one sees it as, say, an entrepreneurial success. Maybe we don’t talk about it enough, it just isn’t that relevant. A few close friends take it very seriously and are interested, most aren’t. They never interact with spreading the word or liking socials. However, it’s been successful on its own and so that’s that. The dialect seems to be more around DH doing little amounts of work and me now being the breadwinner (not true obviously).

The new business is a massive financial investment. It has the potential to be a seven/eight figure business and is in the tech space - we have developed an app (pre-revenue) We’ve spent tens of thousands on it. We’ve begun trying to build our social media presence. No friends have liked or supported. I have many friends in the tech space, not even a “like” on a photo. No engagement or questions. Whereas my friends have started to set up little businesses, like reselling types. I’ve liked, followed and even bought their products to support, without being asked.

Its so odd that the people who have liked things are random people I engaged with for 5 minutes at university - people who just seem decent and realise it costs them nothing.

And before anyone suggests it’s one of those annoying situations where it’s constant posts, it isn’t. I am not “inviting to like” the page on Facebook, I just made one status/post, friends watched on insta, ignored… I just feel that for my closest friends it’s the minimum they could do.

I have felt very unsupported in this and almost like I’m a bit of a joke with my little business or something - it’s very disheartening.

I’d like to understand others perspectives.

thanks.

I don't share or follow anything related to my work or anyone else's.

So pleased for your success!! I’m glad you have such wonderful friends.

I think there are some home truths in your post

Honestly, it’s not the people you know who
will support you always, even though it seems normal to assume they would. It is strangers or those who like your work, or those who understand and appreciate what you’ve achieved.

I’m sure I will get my arse handed to me on a plate for saying this, but…. Those closest to you are the ones who will be more jealous of success, than those who don’t know you. If they don’t understand it, or don’t appreciate the work put into something, more often cause they choose not to, they won’t support.

I have been here. Even my own “D”M couldn’t even talk to me about my work or success.

The green eyed monster is the worst! I took time to “find my tribe”, to surround myself with people who do support and appreciate, which is a 2 way support network. I don’t give the time of day to those who never support me anymore. It hurt, it took me a long time to see why they were so elusive. But the problem wasn’t me, it was them.

Find your tribe and remember, it’s not you it’s them!

Sorry, should have explain that I did ask them to look at it/like. But I take on board.

It seems to me that you should look into the experience of originals bands on the pub circuit - what you're experiencing is standard operating procedure.

Everybody will say all the right things when you're face-to-face and they can't escape, and they'll promise to come to your gigs, and they'll swear they'll share your posts...and then it comes to gig day, with no engagement from any of them, and you have to ring round to beg and cajole them to show up. Even if, by some miracle, they've paid for advance tickets...you'll often need to actually show up at their house to give them a lift, just so you have some company while you're playing to the bar staff.

And...that's something that they profess to actually enjoy.

The harsh truth is that nobody cares what you're doing. You could be saving the world, and not one of your friends and family will willingly abandon their evening plans in front of the TV to come and show support.

People you've never met will always, always be a better bet. Work on your advertising and promotion, because at least you know that they'll be there because they actively want to hear what you have to say.

I don’t sound nice, you’re right. I was very upset when writing this and frustrated.

FWIW, these friends are in the same industry, all earn six figures, come from better backgrounds than me. My best friend is CTO of a start up.

I wouldn’t know their Vinted businesses existed as I don’t normally use it (but downloaded it for the purpose of supporting) and they are doing it as a fun side hustle.

Maybe they're actually not interested? If it was somebody I knew and liked I might think 'well done them' if I happened to see something, but I doubting I would like or comment on it, especially if it's not something I am involved in/know anything about/am interested in.

This is interesting, thank you.

A good point.

I think I’m so bamboozled by the people who I barely know being so enthusiastic and helpful, but people I know well not even learning the concept of the app.

My best friend told her partner the equivalent of “they sell some clothes on eBay” when actually we design, manufacture and market a clothing brand. Thats just an example of the equivalent; we don’t actually do anything with clothes because we have no skills there 😂

It’s your business op, your work, your money. Why on earth should your friends care that much to actively seek out and like it?

Because it's social media, and an engagement or new baby is something that's happening in someone's social/personal life. A professional achievement doesn't really belong there, it's not LinkedIn! In fact, now I think about it, I can't remember the last time I saw someone post about a new job or a promotion. Maybe a couple of stories, but no grid posts since about 2017. It seems icky now.

Is it Instagram? Hide likes from showing and you’ll be miles happier.

Just wanted to say in case you are finding some of these responses disheartening - I totally get this. I work in tech too. In your position I'd expect. close friends (who I knew had seen a post) to like it. It sounds like you're upset because they don't understand how you feel, rather than you genuinely need their engagement. If it is the latter though, just tell them. I run a creative side project (non-income generating) and I have to tell friends to like stuff.

One further thought is that the thing that would motivate me to like something a friend had posted about their new business would be if we'd talked about it a lot and I knew how hard she had worked on it and how much it meant to them. I get the impression you've not been talking about it much with friends (partly as they don't seem interested, which. may indeed be due to jealousy as PP mentioned) so maybe it seems a bit out of the blue to them and not something they feel "let in" to.

I think you fe superior to them with your ‘success’ and you want us to say that they’re jealous.

Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t.

But when it comes to social media, you need to be pushy, you can’t sit back and wait for it to happen to you.

I'm not a social media person. I'll share pics on private groups with family, an occasional one on my public profile. So I rarely get informed that friends have posted until a few days later (some algorithm thing I guess).

If it is a business thing, I'm not that interested - been caught out showing interest and then not left alone in the past, plus the fact it is a few days on, so nope, not sharing, might be out of date (online stuff moves quickly).

Private life and business don't really mix, so would not even cross my mind that someone would be upset that I didn't "like" a business post I only saw 3 days after they made it.

I find clarity in communication is key. “Could you please like/share/engage? It helps the algorithm.” Or, “It may seem silly, but it hurts my feelings that you don’t drop a like on posts about x. We’re working really hard on it, and it would mean a lot to have your support.”

I can really relate to this post, especially:

FWIW I did have a few jealous friends who went completely silent at my good news, but I just phased them out. They always had lots to say when I was down in the dumps or struggling with what I see now as rather smug self-serving advice. And when things were changing for the better suddenly they went silent and sour which was very unsettling .

Shockingly, for me, this came from my family. I was flooded with ‘advice’ and ‘sympathy’ when I had a breakdown in my late 20s and my self-esteem was in the gutter. I’ve since turned my life around and they could not be less interested in anything I have achieved and sometimes go as far as trying to put me down by putting a negative spin on something I am proud of (personal favourite was, when I bought a flat in London by myself without any financial help from anyone, I was warned ‘men don’t like women who are too independent’ 😂).

Needless to say, we’re pretty LC these days.

My friends, however, have always been fantastic: supportive, encouraging, positive. You just have to surround yourself with the right people.

It’s not popular thing to say but there’s a lot of envy tied up in the “lack of interest”.

I set up a company a decade ago - tech combined with my professional experience. Sold it for 8 figures. “Friends” were brutal and there was definitely a cycle. When I was slogging my guts out, working 18 hour days and wondering if I’d lose the house there was plenty of faux sympathy and self serving smugness.

When things were going well, radio silence or bitchy comments about how “not everyone could be so lucky” and how nice it must be to “stumble across” such a great idea/know the right people for funding etc.

When things were going really well and there were crazy launch parties, sales celebrations and just general good times some of those were crawling out of the woodwork again.

If they work in that space, then they'll be much more careful about likes on social media than they would be for a baby photo or vinted side hustle. If they like it, it will be seen as an endorsement from an expert, they probably don't feel they have enough knowledge of your product to endorse it in that way and probably don't have the interest to find out enough.

Also, frankly, they probably DON'T particularly care tbh. People are busy with their own work and families - my friends' jobs barely register.

I get it. If they are active on social media a quick like doesn’t seem too much to ask. Expecting them to engage more than that might be a reach though. For example, you mentioned downloading Vinted to support your friend’s side hustle despite having no interest - personally I wouldn’t do that unless I was genuinely interested and wanted to buy clothes, it wouldn’t cross my mind to do that to please someone else.

I wouldn't be doing that for anyone in any field remotely related to my own. I'm regulated and have to be careful about stuff like this. Even for those who aren't regulated it's wise to be cautious.

Do they tend to like and share for other things anyway? I'll like baby photos etc but I don't think I've ever liked a business to help them with promo.

I am on socials so infrequently my feed can't keep up so I would miss anything like this. Maybe they just aren't seeing your stuff?

You sound perfectly nice, ignore the mean girls.

"If it is a business thing, I'm not that interested - been caught out showing interest and then not left alone in the past, plus the fact it is a few days on, so nope, not sharing, might be out of date (online stuff moves quickly)."

This is actually also true. I made the mistake of engaging once with a friend who started a business online, of a product I don't use, and I ended up utterly fed up with getting updates, articles and pressure to buy the product. It almost cost us the friendship.

So I guess I am more guarded now. I like my friends for their personal qualities and the time we spend together. I don't really want to be engaged in their work, because that is not the part of them I find interesting, and I especially don't want to become a "supporter" because, to be honest, there are other projects in my life that have priority and I personally choose to support.

I have to be honest, I wouldn't follow it (a close friend of mine did something really similar recently!)
I have no interest in tech, or her business. When I see her in person of course I'll ask how it's going and try not to glaze over when she gets into the finer details, but it really is not my bag and I don't want posts from it clogging up my feed. I suspect she probably does the same when she asks after my job in healthcare! We have things in common whcih is obviously what makes us friends, but even then I rarely interact with peoples posts as I just don't see the point (I don't post much at all personally, so I also don't get my validation from likes and shares).
I'm really sorry that this has got to you, the above is just my perspective

If you put any mention of 'little business' any where no way would I like it, nor do I get the 'jealousy' thing, no offense to anyone who has a business but that does not make me jealous. I also only like businesses or put reviews for products or companies just because I know them that is fake and not appropriate