Something I'm working on

I've never been one of those people who had lots of friends. By that I don't mean that I don't have lots of acquaintances with whom I'm friendly; it's just that, historically, I don't have a whole lot of people that I'm really close to and that I care about a lot. However, when I do find someone that falls into this category, I tend to have a rather intense attachment to them.

Sometimes, however, that intense attachment manifests itself in beint WAY to overprotective. I've been known to hover over friends who were having problems and meddle if I thought a friend was making a mistake. Granted, sometimes a friend must do these things. I tend to go overboard and meddle in even relatively insignificant things though.

I'm not sure why that is, although I can think of two events that might have moved me in this direction.

1. My senior year of college was also my sister's junior year. I could tell that she was having a lot of problems that year and on several occasions I tried to talk to her about it. She would brush me off and I finally decided that she was a big girl and could take care of herself so I'd stay out of it. I did, but she couldn't. A few weeks later she went to a post-football party (She was a cheerleader.) and literally drank herself to death.

2. A few years ago a friend of mine left his wife. He didn't really have a good reason, although there was a girl at his work mightily encouraging him in that direction. I've seen other people in this position. They usually stand back and figure it's none of their business. That's not what I did. I went in to full meddle mode. He obviously knew what was coming because he spent weeks avoiding me. Finally one of our ministers and I caught up with him and had a couple of LONG talks. And it worked. He'd convinced himself that he was doomed to fail at marriage because his dad and aunt had both been married and divorced several times. He had apparently decided that it was just better to get it over with. We were able to turn that thinking around. A few months later he and his wife told me they were happier than they'd ever been.

So I've had both positive and negative reinforcement that has pushed me in this direction. However, there are negative drawbacks to this as well, even in instances where, as a friend, it's my responsibility to meddle. For instance, in the same time I was trying to track down this friend, I was also trying to make sure his wife was OK. Hovering doesn't even begin to describe my behavior. I called or went by almost every day to make sure she was OK. I called other people and sent them to check on her. Basically, I was a royal pain. To the point that she finally told me that I was driving her nuts. And this was a time that my meddling actually had positive results.

For some reason, I just don't seem to be able butt out of other people's business. I suppose it could be worse; it is, after all, a flaw of caring too much. That is, I think, better than not caring enough. Still, I'd like to be able to better delineate between those times when I ought to meddle and those when I shouldn't.

Hmm. I don't think I really had a point here. I guess I just needed to get that off my chest.

Comments

[LT]

I'm glad you get involved, too many times I've seen people get into trouble, have problems, and make bad decisions while us fellow mid-westerners sat back and prayed, thought there was nothing we could do, it's not our business, that person won't change his/her mind. It's good to try to get involved when you see trouble a-brewin', although I do understand that you go way overboard.

So, good job being willing to try to change someone's wayward ways. Nobody tried to stop me from moving to another state to shack up with my abusive boyfriend. Not even my parents. They thought I had things under control. Good thing God interfered and got me born again.