I was just listening to a stranger talking in a shop, and I was amazed she told me she had been in an abusive relationship.
This is a fairly typical thing for me to hear. I don’t know why but strangers often share personal things with me. I think it’s because when I listen they have a chance to express whatever is on their minds. I think it is because they sense that I don’t judge and that I seem like a warm and safe person.
Whatever the reason is, I often find myself listening to people telling me very personal things. I don’t mind that people share these things, but I also wonder where their friends or people can help them with these issues. Do they have anyone who can listen to them?
I shared an earlier study that said that people don’t have many friends. If you are smart, you have even fewer friends. I wonder why we choose this. With all the people who can and want to be our friends, why do we close ourselves off like this?
I have had people who were friends at one time but they ignored me for years or did some silly thing like that. To me, a friend is forever. Yes, they might go through hard times, but they still communicate with you. When someone doesn’t communicate with me for an extended period of time, they are no longer a friend. A friend is a verb, not a noun. It is someone who does something, not someone who you once did something with.
I have had many people pass through my life that I would consider friends. I was a great friend to them. Sadly, many people did not feel that same need to communicate and share their life I did. Yes, people move on different paths, and I wish I could have been friends with all of them still.
I think a friendship at first is respect. When that woman shared with me she had been abused, it saddens me to think that at times I have let myself be abused as well. I had a job once where I was yelled at, not because I did something wrong, but because the person was just a jerk and wanted a puppy to kick.
If you are being kicked and abused the person is sick and a jerk. Leave and don’t look back.