reciprocal relationships

So I thought I'd explore the idea of reciprocal relationships between friends/family/lovers or whatever.

I'm sure a lot of people have gone through the frustration of being in a one-sided relationship. Where they feel like they are making all the effort, and the other person is just coming along for the ride. I sometimes find it hard to describe exactly what this means. In my opinion, a reciprocal relationship takes time and effort from both people.

When you want to spend time with someone, whether its someone you like, a friend, or even a family member, you are going to make effort to think up things to do together, times and places you can join together in a common interest activity to talk and have fun. Small as that may seem (just thinking up ideas and proposing them to the other person), it's still a show of effort, among other things that occur in any kind of relationship. Even in a conversation, one-sidedness can manifest. Conversations come to lulls sometimes, and when that happens you have to think fast to come up with something else to talk about to keep it going, because you enjoy talking to that person and you don't want to get to an awkward silence. Coming up with stuff to talk about is also a show of effort, small as THAT may seem.

Usually the cause of this seemingly apathetic role of a relationship is because one person is not as interested in spending time doing things with the other person. This can become a frustrating thing to realize in any kind of relationship and even more frustrating trying to deal with before just throwing your hands up and saying 'screw it, it's not worth it'. I think this is typically associated with emotionally charged relationships between two people who like each other, but can also occur in friendships and even family relationships (though I have no experience in the family area of it).

I had what I would call a one-sided relationship with a girl when I was 17 and it lasted almost a year and a half, and man, it was one of the most frustrating relationships I ever had. The thing that sucks about it is that even after you realize it's one-sided, you can't let go because you're already emotionally involved, it's not easy to detatch yourself enough to throw your hands up and say 'screw it'. I was in another one-sided relationship with a different girl, also when I was 17, but luckily that one didn't hold me as long. It's definitely a frustrating thing to deal with, and most recently I've had this same problem in friendships as well.

When I was 19 I started hanging out with a girl a lot and we became what I considered to be good friends. We probably would've gotten romantically involved but we never got the timing right, but still we remained friends for a long time. I genuinely believe that, for awhile, this girl actually wanted to spend time with me because she enjoyed my company, but as time went on I suspect she began to only want to hang out with me as an escape from the rest of her life, and because I treated her so well and would do things for her as favors. I did this, of course, because I thought we were really good friends. However, in retrospect, I don't think she ever did anything for me in almost the year and a half we were friends, not one favor, not one nice gesture, nothin'. Eventually as I began to realize it was one-sided, she moved off to college only about 45 minutes away, but I stopped making effort to get together with her and of course she never made any effort to start with so I haven't seen her in about a year. Sad really because I really did enjoy her company, but what can I say, one-sided friendships are as frustrating and destructive for you to participate in as one-sided relationships.

Mostly recently, there was this girl at school that I started talking to a lot, and started to like. After a few frustrating weeks of trying to interpret on and off signs that she liked me, I decided to come out with it and tell her I liked her, to which she did not return the sentiment. I wasn't bitter about it, I wasn't emotionally involved enough at that point to really be distraught over it, and that was kind of the idea, getting it out of the way before I dug myself deeper into it without knowing whether it was ever going to go anywhere. Anyways, she said she wanted to be friends still, and at first I thought she was genuine, but more and more I'm beginning to realize she was just saying it to be nice and really doesn't care one way or the other if we're friends or not. I don't doubt she enjoys my company, but she just doesn't care to make any effort to hang out. After that whole ordeal and her saying she wanted to be friends, I've invited her to a few things that I would normally invite friends to, a movie, lunch in the cafeteria a few times, coffee sometime, but I get nothin'. I mean I realize if she's busy she's busy, but if she wanted to hang out, she would suggest another time when she was available, but like I said, I get nothin'. She's the type of girl who's really fun and pretty and consequently people are attracted to her in droves, she has lots of friends and I don't suspect she's ever had to make any effort to make friends before in her life, let alone have to make effort to get involved with someone. Hence why she doesn't bother to be friends with me, and having said that, I don't think she's amazing enough to pursue a one-sided friendship just to enjoy her company. It's just frustrating because I want to just completely forget about her, but I still find myself wondering what she's up to, making myself available at work in case she comes by to talk to me, wanting to talk to her in class, clearly I must still be emotionally involved to some extent, and it sucks. Hopefully I can drive that away though.

It just makes me appreciate the people who really appreciate me as a friend, people that aren't so busy with all their other friends that they don't remember to stop by once in awhile and say 'hey Derek, whats up? I haven't talked to you in awhile'. It's just nice to have friends who care about you and want to talk and spend time with you, and THAT'S whats hard to find in a person. It don't doubt it would be hard to pursue a one-sided friendship or relationship, but finding someone who likes you as much as you like them, whether as friends or more, THAT'S whats really special, and hard to come by.

And that's whats I find to be occasionally frustrating about the point I'm at in my life now. Being the type of person that I am, where I only need 2-3 really good friends to be happy, if I start losing those friends to other people that come into their lives, I'm left still needing them but they no longer need me, and it's that reciprocal need that satisfies the equation, whether just as friends like in my case, or in a relationship. For lack of a better way to say it, I think all people need to feel needed by others. It's when you feel like no one really needs you that you start feeling alone, even if you know there's lots of people who enjoy your company, it's that feeling of being 'needed' that really does it. I guess that's what I sometimes feel I'm missing in my life now, I had those friends in high school who I felt needed me as much as I needed them, but they've since moved away or gotten married and/or distracted with other things.

So I dunno really what this post was supposed accomplish, I think I just wanted to express my frustrations at people who feign wanting to be friends but really don't care, or people who use you in a friendship or relationship but aren't emotionally involved, and to express my appreciation to my friends and my family who make me feel needed, thanks.