A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I'm the sort of person that when someone is my close friend I expect loyalty and consideration to be utmost. I'm very low maintenance otherwise but all my life I've been let down by this...sometimes marginally sometimes greatly. I understand this is natural and by human nature some people are going to let you down but I have a real problem being able to judge when to forgive and forget and knowing when I really need to walk away because people are treating me badly. I find myself getting very hurt over these incidents and my natural reaction is to distance myself from these people which ends up usually making the friendship come to an end anyway. Most of these incidents don't involve verbal or physical abuse so it's never anything very serious but usually a huge lack of respect for my feelings or situation which I find intolerable from those that are supposed to love you most. I don't have a set of close friends from childhood and I think when you make friends in later life that loyalty and commitment just isn't there from others to get you through those testing patches. I wish I could be laid back and let situations like this just wash over me - I'd probably have a lot more friends if I did but I get so hurt I can't see a way forward. If I try to talk it out I feel like I'm being too intense and they'll walk away anyway. How can I better judge if I'm overreacting or being walked all over? Part of me thinks I'm ruining some potentially lifelong friendships by having such high expectations and then part of me thinks I've been unfortunate enough to meet a lot of crap people. I realise the common element here is me and I can choose how to react to this but I do think people are consistently selfish and I'm utterly lost in knowing when to walk away from someone. Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, oldbag +, writes (22 May 2014):
 Its hard to answer when you don't give examples of what they do to upset you.
It depends where you meet or what you expect from friendships. I do expect loyalty and that somebody has my back, 'do as you would be done by' and all that.
People surprise me sometimes and an act of loyalty comes from an unexpected person. Or somebody will make me laugh out loud when they know I am having a bad day. Little things that make you smile with no drama.Thats a friend
I don't expect friends to drop everything for me, but one or two would. I would return the favour too.
We don't have gangs of friends as we get older, we have colleagues, acquaintances and neighbours too. I know who will go see a movie or go out riding with me and who will cook a good meal. I don't expect a lot and don't have time to dwell on stuff.
No is a good word to learn too.
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