This topic only concerns platonic (non-romantic) friendships. (Romance goes elsewhere, please.) Genders of the friends don’t matter.
Think about some of the very best friendships you’ve ever been a part of. The longer lasting the better! And, then, something “dreadful” happened to cause the friendship to totally break up. What caused it?
Let’s try to keep the stories truthful but also share only your sort of ExTrEmE cases, rather than just any old boring story. Know what I mean
? If your most eXtReMe is not that exTRemE, well, we don’t want to leave you out. But let’s attempt to keep it interesting.
~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll start. I had had a platonic male friend for quite a few years. Our lives were both pretty busy, but when we got together we could talk and talk and talk. We had different religions; that didn’t matter. We had different job focuses; that didn’t matter. We each had our own love interests; that didn’t matter. We were just really really good friends that seemed like we could talk on almost anything. Even when I moved away, we’d talk on the phone fairly often.
And then one time on the phone, he mentioned something about the U.S. really needing to raise the tariffs on the foreign competition of some newly emerging industries. I had just read a book making a comprehensive case for free trade as opposed to protectionism. I was so happy to be able to share this, so I bought another copy and mailed it to my friend with a personal note saying I hope he enjoyed it. I was looking forward to more discussions.
Oh man! He took that extremely personally and sensitively! And I was shocked
! It’s not like I walked up to someone I hardly knew and said, “here, read this, and I’ll test you on it afterwards”. No! From my point of view, this fit well within the boundaries of our good friendship. And I hadn’t even said he had to read it; that’s why I got a separate copy, so I would never need it back. Well, that book sure came back to me. And the accompanying note was not nice.
He obviously took it very offensively that I was challenging his politics. That friendship came to a screeching halt. And I never found out what the whole truth was from his point of view. It just ended.
Of course, free trade is always better than protectionism for people and companies of integrity -- even the newly emerging industries. And I know about it more now than I did even then. But I was naïve to the fact, at that time, that people could be such strong protectionists that they would dump an otherwise good friendship. I’ve learned.
Break-up by book? Break-up by politics? Break-up by an out-of-tune Princess? Only Dog knows!?
~~~~~~~~~~
Maybe you have some even more EXtREme stories.
Think about some of the very best friendships you’ve ever been a part of. The longer lasting the better! And, then, something “dreadful” happened to cause the friendship to totally break up. What caused it?
Let’s try to keep the stories truthful but also share only your sort of ExTrEmE cases, rather than just any old boring story. Know what I mean
? If your most eXtReMe is not that exTRemE, well, we don’t want to leave you out. But let’s attempt to keep it interesting.
~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll start. I had had a platonic male friend for quite a few years. Our lives were both pretty busy, but when we got together we could talk and talk and talk. We had different religions; that didn’t matter. We had different job focuses; that didn’t matter. We each had our own love interests; that didn’t matter. We were just really really good friends that seemed like we could talk on almost anything. Even when I moved away, we’d talk on the phone fairly often.
And then one time on the phone, he mentioned something about the U.S. really needing to raise the tariffs on the foreign competition of some newly emerging industries. I had just read a book making a comprehensive case for free trade as opposed to protectionism. I was so happy to be able to share this, so I bought another copy and mailed it to my friend with a personal note saying I hope he enjoyed it. I was looking forward to more discussions.
Oh man! He took that extremely personally and sensitively! And I was shocked
! It’s not like I walked up to someone I hardly knew and said, “here, read this, and I’ll test you on it afterwards”. No! From my point of view, this fit well within the boundaries of our good friendship. And I hadn’t even said he had to read it; that’s why I got a separate copy, so I would never need it back. Well, that book sure came back to me. And the accompanying note was not nice.
He obviously took it very offensively that I was challenging his politics. That friendship came to a screeching halt. And I never found out what the whole truth was from his point of view. It just ended.
Of course, free trade is always better than protectionism for people and companies of integrity -- even the newly emerging industries. And I know about it more now than I did even then. But I was naïve to the fact, at that time, that people could be such strong protectionists that they would dump an otherwise good friendship. I’ve learned.
Break-up by book? Break-up by politics? Break-up by an out-of-tune Princess? Only Dog knows!?
~~~~~~~~~~
Maybe you have some even more EXtREme stories.
! (How's it make you feel to have someone 