Sam and Jake were colleagues. * They were also best friends. Jake knew that one of Sam’s career goals was to move into the position of director of their department when the current director retired. Jake’s interests were in another area of the company. So when the position opened up, Sam assumed he would have his friend’s support. Instead, a couple of days later Jake said, “Hey buddy. You’ve got competition for the director’s position – Me.”
Sam felt completely blindsided. “He’s my best friend. He knows I’ve been working toward that job for a long time. He never expressed any interest in it. What’s the story?”
Because they had been close for so long, Sam thought he could open the question up with Jake. His friend’s answer just added to the pain. “He said friends should be able to compete, and that if I was having troubles with it, that was my problem.”
On the surface, Jake’s comment makes sense. In fact, given wisdom is that competition is a part of men’s friendships, but far more difficult between women friends. Male athletes, for example, are often good buddies with their biggest competitors, while women athletes seem to have a harder time with this. Vogue author Rebecca Johnson puts it this way when she writes about tennis pros: “Roger Federer might have dinner with Stan Wawrinka after a match, but among the women, it’s mostly cold shoulders.”
But Sam didn’t feel that Jake’s behavior was so much about competing as it was about backstabbing. “If he was really a good friend, he would have talked to me before he went after the job. Or he just wouldn’t have gone after it at all.”
In the end, Sam got the position but lost his friend. “I just didn’t trust him anymore. He didn’t have my back. Actually, he tried to stab a knife into it.”
We all know about mean girls in middle school, who purposely seem to hurt their closest friends just for the fun of it. And we know about bullies. But what can you do when your adult friend turns on you?
1) Make sure you’re reading the situation correctly. Celes, who blogs on Personal Excellence, says,
Sometimes what we perceive may not be the truth. It may merely be our perception which would be based on a subjective belief system.
For example, a while back, a friend of mine thought that I betrayed him by backing out on something I had promised. However, in my mind, I never made the promise. It was a difference in perception that led to the misunderstanding. After several talks and effort to rebuild the friendship, we finally buried the hatchet and mended the rift between us.
2) Try talking it out with your friend. Obviously, this connects to the first step, since you can’t reality test your perceptions without his or her feedback. Many times, this kind of discussion leads to a resolution. But sometimes, as happened with Jake and Sam, the resolution isn’t what you expect or want.
3) Discuss it with someone else, who you trust. If you can’t get your friend to talk to you, talk it over with someone whose opinion you value, but don’t get caught in the gossip game. Gossiping about a friend puts you on the same level. It might feel good to turn a mutual friend against him or her, but in the end it will just make the situation worse. Getting advice from someone who is completely disengaged and neutral is, however, not the same thing as talking about a friend behind their back.
4) Look for ways to resolve the conflict. Sometimes this means simply waiting till you both cool down. Daniel Goleman, author of many books about Emotional Intelligence, says that we all need cooling-off time to manage conflict. There is a scientific reason for this. Our neurons have been firing off at a rapid pace in one direction to convince the other person – and maybe us as well – that we are right. The chemicals that drive these neurons need time to settle down before we can come to any kind of compromise or mutual understanding. Time out, physical exercise, or even a good night’s sleep can give your body and your brain a chance to reset, so that you don’t just repeat the same arguments and end up with the same stalemate.
5) Know when not to talk. This may sound weird, coming from a psychotherapist, but sometimes not talking about a problem is the best thing you can do for your friendship. As you may know from other posts on my blog, I think a lot of popular mystery stories offer good psychological insights. Case in point is Sue Grafton’s detective Kinsey Milhone. After an argument with a close friend she says:
The practice of baring all, analyzing every nuance embedded in a quarrel, is a surefire way to keep an argument alive. Better to establish a temporary peace and revisit the conflict later. Often, by then, both parties have decided the issue isn’t worth the relationship.
6) Know when to cut your losses. As Kenny Rogers says in “The Gambler,” you have to “know when to fold.” Sometimes that means giving up a specific battle, and other times it means giving up the entire friendship. This is not always an easy decision, and it definitely needs to be made when your neurons and chemistry are calm. Don’t do end a friendship in the heat of a battle. But once you have both cooled off, if there is clearly no chance of resolving things, and you cannot simply ignore what has happened, then
7) Let it go. Whether you win or lose the fight, whether you decide to stay friends or not, find some way to let go of the hurt, resentment and sadness. Sometimes this just takes time, but sometimes we have to actively decide to let go and move on. Holding onto hurt and pain doesn’t do you or your friendships any good. The best thing you can do when an argument is over is to figure out what you have learned from it, so that you can apply it the next time. Because there will definitely be a next time.
8) Don’t paint all of your friends with the same brush. Sometimes, people who we thought were on our side do turn out not to be there for us, for some reason or another, which we may or may not ever find out about. The real work once this happens is not to get revenge, but to move on and away from the hurt. Other friends can help with this.
But most friends don’t set out to hurt us. When it does happen, the pain caused is usually accidental and the perpetrator is sorry – even if they cannot bring themselves to apologize.
Some time later, Sam met Jake at a mutual friend’s birthday celebration. “At first he wouldn’t look at me,” Sam said. “But about half way through the party, he came up to me and said, ‘You know, I’m sorry about what happened between us. I wish I could have had a do-ov
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er. I would take back everything if I could. When I realized that you were really hurt by my competing for the job, I didn’t know what to do. I was just being a smart ass because I didn’t know how to tell you I hadn’t thought it out.”
Sam’s first thought was about how long it had taken for Jake to acknowledge that he had made a mistake. “I wanted to just walk away and never talk to him again.” Instead, Sam said, “Thanks Jake. I know that took a lot of effort for you to tell me. I just wish you had been able to do it before now.”
Jake nodded and apologized again, and then he walked away. Sam realized that he had actually stopped resenting what had happened. “I guess I really had gotten over it,” he said. But he felt much better about Jake as a person after this. He wasn’t sure if they could be friends again, but he thought it might be a possibility.
What has been your experience? And what have you done when a friend did something hurtful to you? How did it work out? What, if anything, would you do differently now?
*names and identifying info changed to protect privacy
References:
Daniel Goleman (2005) Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ . Bantam Publisher.
Sue Grafton (2015) X. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Publisher.
Kenny Rogers - The Gambler (1978) - YouTube
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