Do I have high expectations on pple whom i call "friends"?
An example of incidents happening recently in my life:
XXX and his overseas friend in town, were suppposed to have lunch with me and my overseas friend, he even sent me an email in the morning, with the header lunch?Nearing to the time i called him, emailed him, no response, so from 12.30-2pm have no idea where the hell he is. Assume he was busy with work and couldnt make it in the end, but shouldnt he have the decent courtesy to tell me, call, sms, email. I smsed, called him x times.....no answer. Not being able to get a hold of a person when you are supposed to meet him just gets on your nerves and even wondering what happened to him. Fine, just let it be.
The next day, when i finally decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, and initatied an email to him. Afterall probably SOMETHING REALLY TERRIBLE happened yday, thats why he didnt contact me, not even till late into the night. Have to say that I was disappointed with his answer of being really really really busy and he forgot in the end, and his friend who was supposed to meet us for lunch forgot about it too. And he didnt bother telling me until i sent him an email the next day. Wow, i mean what am i to say? That I should be totally understanding of how crazy working life is, and that I am just not prority at that time. Probably truth hurts.
Am I too sensitive? Do I take things too personally? Could be.
But let me ask you then:
What are friends?
What sets friends apart from acquaintances or pple who enjoy a certain hobby together?
What is important to You as a friend?
Respect, Loyalty and Reliability is for me.
And my friends could expect the same from me, anytime 24hrs, 365days.
XXX and his overseas friend in town, were suppposed to have lunch with me and my overseas friend, he even sent me an email in the morning, with the header lunch?Nearing to the time i called him, emailed him, no response, so from 12.30-2pm have no idea where the hell he is. Assume he was busy with work and couldnt make it in the end, but shouldnt he have the decent courtesy to tell me, call, sms, email. I smsed, called him x times.....no answer. Not being able to get a hold of a person when you are supposed to meet him just gets on your nerves and even wondering what happened to him. Fine, just let it be.
The next day, when i finally decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, and initatied an email to him. Afterall probably SOMETHING REALLY TERRIBLE happened yday, thats why he didnt contact me, not even till late into the night. Have to say that I was disappointed with his answer of being really really really busy and he forgot in the end, and his friend who was supposed to meet us for lunch forgot about it too. And he didnt bother telling me until i sent him an email the next day. Wow, i mean what am i to say? That I should be totally understanding of how crazy working life is, and that I am just not prority at that time. Probably truth hurts.
Am I too sensitive? Do I take things too personally? Could be.
But let me ask you then:
What are friends?
What sets friends apart from acquaintances or pple who enjoy a certain hobby together?
What is important to You as a friend?
Respect, Loyalty and Reliability is for me.
And my friends could expect the same from me, anytime 24hrs, 365days.
9 Comments:
Well, I guess you might expect my comments. So here I go (again)..
Let's call it "difference". I think it would be a bit unfair to use our standard of courtesy to measure others. Different people have different type of ways to live, to time management, to everything!
Is it fair if I use Taiwanese standard, or Vega Chang's standard to expect you?
When you get pissed off, be it! Make it clear to people, but it might harm things you don't want to if you remain your upset feelings for long.
How to define "HIGH" expectations? If mine is different from you, does that mean mine is higher or lower than yours?
It's just difference.
So let it go. Be happy. :)
By Vega, At 1:39 AM
Ha - same thing happened to me yesterday evening - imagine that i stayed in Thessaloniki at nite to meet this one person who actually knew this, and she didn't show up. But at least called to say she's not showing up. Anyway it doesn't make things much better, cos i could be resting at home some 300 km south right now.
Well, don't know if you can call it loyalty, i would call it a messy moment when you get pissed off. If you are close friends, you can always justify them, everyone has their good and bad moments. If not, agree with Vega, let it go.
Try not to judge other by what you would do, though it's the best standard that you have it doesn't allow you to accept difference...
By dimitris, At 2:55 PM
Honesty. Everything else is negotiable.
By Dody G., At 6:11 AM
Maybe he didn't get your email. It's also possible he deleted your number. :)
By Devrim, At 9:20 AM
I guess we understand, that what Ying actually meant was "does she have a WRONG expectation" of her friends, it has nothing to do with being higher/better etc expectation. Even the word expectation is a misnomer, but i cant find a better word, the closest i can think of is assumption.
Whatever it is, i think there are certain universal things that you can "expect" from someone, that you regard as your friend. To me, i assume my friends would not intentionally do anything that would hurt, harm, disappoint or sadden me.
I personally find it difficult to consistently live up to the expectation of friends that i care for. Good thing is i am very stringent and clear on who i define as friends. And on these few friends i have, i seek a point of understanding. Like Ying i tell her, if i tell her i would be there at 4pm, then please understand that i would actually be there around 4.15pm instead. So she understands and arrives at 4.15pm instead.
I think the bottomline is mutual understanding.
In the scenario given by Ying, i think the least the person could have done was to call or sms and apologise for forgetting the moment he/she has time to squeeze. Even if it was the next day. To keep quiet even till the next day, i think is universally unacceptable. Anyone disagree?
I think we are kidding ourselves if we say there are no universal values that one adheres to. If truly there are none, then concept of 'good', 'evil' would not exist.
What about "Peace & Fulfilment of Humankind Potential"? If there are no universal values, then what have we been doing for the past fifty odd years.
My advice to Ying - those who dont deserve your utmost attention, strike them off your list. Thats what i do. I dont think its a bad thing. I do this regularly, to me if i dont think he/she and i have the same values in friendship or life, i will strike him/her off my list. Its not a bad thing, its about being realistic and it prevent us from mutually disappointing each other.
By Shahrin- Twisted Life, At 5:36 PM
Well, I can't help but to leave a comment.
I have to share with you on what Cecilia shared with us sometime ago which I do agree after having some explorations in my daily acquaintance.
"It is a Confucian teaching ‘not to treat others the way you don’t like to be treated; and treat others the way you would like to be treated’. This is so deeply rooted that we didn’t know that there is another perspective which helps us to place our ego aside and treat others uniquely and fairly.
It’s probably a good rule to use when dealing with people whom you don’t know very well, but if you want to deepen the relationship with someone, Dr Nate Booth advocates The Diamond Rule, which basically says
“Treat others in the unique way that they want to be treated”.
You have to first discover what people really want and then you have four choices:
You can give it to them in expected and unexpected ways.
You can educate them. Maybe there’s just no way you can do what they want and the way they want it.
You can negotiate.
Or you can change the relationship. If you can’t deliver what they want, you may need to make some changes, or maybe decide not to be in the relationship."
Bearing in mind that the way WE want to be treated as friends is not equal to the way THEY want us to treat them. You may be lucky to unintentionally treated the way THEY want you to treat them, this is not surprising because we all received similar education in different language, we shared some similar values that could be transformed in different situations in your life.
Recent event that you did struck me deeply in my heart.
Remember the AIESEC in Singapore international cooking night? We were supposed to meet at Boon Keng MRT station near Vega's place. I was late and smsed you and called you to keep you entertained while waiting for me. Remember that you mentioned to me that you are taking a cab and I asked why not you just go straight to Vega's place and I can go to her place myself? You were saying that it is alright for you to wait for me, while I was actually feeling that I have made it troublesome for you and I felt a little uneasy. However, I did respect your choice and action because this is the way you would want to treat your friend, and it is greatly appreciated, even though I felt rather uneasy.
My question to Ying is: at that time when you said you don't mind waiting for me to go together, is it coming from the ground that you wanted to be treated this way as well in accordance to confucius teaching or it is going in accordance to the way I want to be treated?
You know your answer best dear. No matter the answer, I have practised in accordance to the way YOU want to be treated as it has definitely deepen our friendship =)
So applying to the same situation to your friend who forgot about the lunch appointment. How do you think he would like to be treated? is it haunting him with you determination in finding out whether he did have a terrible day to show your care and concern, or would he be wanting you to just let him be? Either way, I do not find that it is of a HIGH expectation, just how you will approach it with your heart.
It seems that I am of different grounds from what Shahrin gave as advice, I would rather enjoy the luxury to have more friends than "enemy"
Lastly, I would like to invite all of you reading this to join in the fun exploration of how you have practised the 2 mentioned ie;
"It is a Confucian teaching ‘not to treat others the way you don’t like to be treated; and treat others the way you would like to be treated’. and “Treat others in the unique way that they want to be treated”.
I am not trying to say that the second one is definitely the right way, I am just an individual that is not perfect, trying to learn how to deal with different situations by applying the 2 methods proposed accordingly.
Okie friends, " Tomorrow will be a better day, embrace it!"
By Cheryl, At 7:30 PM
haha
contrary to common belief, i dont aim to have more 'enemies' than friends.
i just group people into two category. One are friends whom i give a damn about what they think, and whether i am treating them well cause i believe in reciprocity. and the other category are people, i dont give a toot about what they think about me. their opinions of me have no bearing in my life.
and does not mean, i am mean to the second group of ppl, i am equally civil to them. cos i think being civil to people is universal.
By Shahrin- Twisted Life, At 9:49 PM
Alo Alo,
Thanks for your 2 cents.
Agree that communication is important, and I think I have improved from deleting someone's number when I am pissed ( it actually happened to this one person only and I actually never ever delete any number from my mobile even if its my swedish contacts or pple who have left the country years ago ) to just keeping silent and then to telling the person I am pissed at you as a friend/ clarifying the incident in recent events.
However I maintain that there are some things that are important to me, like some others that are important to you maybe, that I think are necessary for me to enjoy or be happy in any relationship. Of course the other party has their own needs as well, and it has to be mutually satisfying experience for both. So ultimately it boils down to whether there can be enough good feelings generated from both to want to reach the "mutual understanding" or compromise stage that Shahrin says or the "Treat others in the unique way that they want to be treated" theory, which basically is the same I believe.
Cheryl Wong:I dont think I expect you to wait for me in return next time, and neither is it me applying that Diamond rule to you too(coz i dont know u dont like me to wait for you), its just my own UNIQUE way of treating my friends. PS: If you were uncomfortable about letting me wait for you, next time just tell me its easy haha, then that will be your Unique no. 1 characteristic. :P
By Ying, At 11:41 AM
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By Ying, At 2:29 PM
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