When Harry Apologized to Sally.

Dear Philip:

I recently had a falling out with a close friend of almost a decade. While our relationship has been amazing in many ways, like other men I have been friends with he is challenged when it comes to talking out problems. Whenever he has let me down or hurt my feelings, I have found it easier to just suck it up and move on rather than confront. However, this last incident was so egregious and our fight was so public that I can’t do that, and now we’re not speaking.

I know that if I just pretend nothing happened, our relationship will go back to the way it was in a few weeks. This time, though, I feel like I need him to make a gesture to work things out, or I can’t respect myself. Am I being a bad friend here? Have I set the dynamic of the relationship so that in order to make things work I have to do what I've always done? Or was this ever a friendship at all?

Feeling Let Down

Dear Feeling,

It’s amazing that When Harry Met Sally just celebrated it’s 25^th anniversary, and we’re still misunderstanding the movie’s real lesson: the reason men and women can’t be friends isn’t sex, it’s unrealistic expectation. You women unrealistically expect us fellas to a.) admit when we’re wrong, and b.) apologize.

I’m kidding. Sort of.

Though gender equality is a wonderful goal, it’s still something we’re working on. When it comes to emotional intelligence, my askpvm.com email inbox would suggest men in 21^st century America still have some catching up to do. I base that on two general strains in the relationship questions I receive: from women, I hear, “How do I get him to talk about it?” and from the (admittedly few) men I hear from, I get, “Why can’t she just let it go?”

Sorry, Feeling, for hijacking your question to make a mildly sexist point. (See? Men can apologize!) Now allow me to make another: You know what else I’ve noticed women tend to do more than men? Ask questions they already know the answers to. You pose three queries at the end of your letter, and I’d wager you already have a pretty good handle on two of them.

The first is whether you’re being a bad friend, and the answer is clearly no. Friendship allows moments where one person lets his or her silence say to another, “You know what? You crossed the line. I don’t deserve this, and when you figure that out, you can come make it right.” The way you cross the line into ‘bad friend’ is when you refuse to let the other person own up to a mistake. Friendship demands respect, but it also requires allowances. (If the allowances have to come too often, of course, you might think about redefining the relationship as ‘former friend.’)

Your second question is also a bit of a no-brainer: of course it’s possible to train a dynamic into a relationship. We do it every day with romantic partners, friends, family members and co-workers. Mostly, those dynamics are harmless and are based on the personality traits we bring to our relationships. I’d argue that many of our ‘expected behaviors’ with others serve to make us feel worthwhile and connected: my bride and I have based the parenting of our daughters on knowing when the other is more equipped to deal with a certain situation, and knowing when to step up and take charge. Are we equal? Not in all situations…but we’re complimentary, and closer for it.

Unfortunately, the dynamic you’ve set forces you to do all the heavy lifting in your relationship. Which suggests the answer to your third question, about whether or not what you have with this man is a friendship at all.

That answer is…maybe. Though you don’t want to make the first move, do it one last time. Explain that you expect to talk through arguments, not sweep them under the rug. His response will let you know whether or not he’s Billy Crystal.

Platonically yours,

Philip

Queen Bees and Wannabes: the Post-Grad Years.

Dear Philip,

I had a falling out with a woman I’ve known socially for years, and now she’s getting our mutual friends to put pressure on me to apologize and make up with her.  The problem is I don’t want to.  I’m relieved to have her out of my life.  She’s a bully and has always been one, and our fight arose when I finally had the nerve to disagree with her on something, and then didn’t back down when she told me she felt “attacked.”  In the past, I’ve always gone along with whatever she wanted, because it was easier than listening to her complain when she didn’t get her way.

It’s very upsetting that women I call friends, who I know think she’s a bully, are taking her side and treating me like I’ve done something wrong.  It’s like high school.  How can I make them either see my side or stay out of it?

Frozen Out

Dear Frozen,

It’s easy to feel like high school never ends.  Even as an adult, you find yourself sitting in the cafeteria, watching with dread as the mean girl rallies her troops.  Any minute now, you can expect nasty, anonymous notes to be pushed through the vent in your locker.  (Note to my younger readers: pre-internet, that’s how we rolled.  Nasty, anonymous locker notes are ‘old school’…literally.)   

I would humbly suggest, though, that this kind of situation predates even high school.

Quick story: when my daughter Anna was five, she used to play with two little girls, one of whom had a favorite game she called “The Princess and her Handmaidens.”  That girl, of course, was always the Princess…or else.  The other little girl, like Anna, went along to get along, at first.  When they finally got tired of their supporting roles as Handmaiden One and Handmaiden Two, they rebelled as five-year-olds will, with tears and calls for the moms to come intervene.  When the princess’s mom sussed out the source of the unhappiness, she explained a basic truth to her daughter: friends share, take turns and respect each other.  Then she added a rule: you’ll share, take turns and respect your friends, or you won’t be allowed to have any come over. 

Your bully could’ve used that mom, Frozen, and while I totally agree that you should continue to cut her out of your life as much as possible, make sure that among your feelings for her you find some sympathy.  As we all figure out in high school, bullies are bullies because they’re desperately insecure.  For someone like the woman you’ve been dealing with, even being disagreed with must be wounding: she isn’t kidding when she says she feels “attacked” by your unwillingness to let her have her way on everything.  It’s not your job to provide the lessons she clearly never learned on how friendship works, but having a little empathy for her obvious internal misery might make any incidental contact you have with her a little easier.

Don’t let your mutual friends off the hook, though.  What they’re doing is cowardly and selfish: they’re letting on that she’s bullying them even more than usual, now that you’ve abdicated your duties as a suck-up, and they’re looking to you for relief when they should be growing spines. 

You asked how you can make them see your side.  You don’t need to, because they already do.  Your side doesn’t matter to them in the least.  What matters is that the Queen Bee is abuzz, she’s making them miserable and – directly or indirectly – letting them know that they have to get you back in line, pronto. 

Friendship allows lapses: calmly tell any of the mutual friends who pressure you on behalf of the bully that it isn’t their business.  If they accept that, forgive them their momentary cowardice.  If they don’t, ask yourself if your friendship with them meet’s Anna’s playmate’s mom’s threshold…especially the ‘respect each other’ part.  If friendships remind you of the worst parts of high school, then maybe it’s time to graduate.

Yours in playing nice,

Philip