Rhubarb Pie

More About Sad Pals

I have more to say about this, M.  Which is, there are things to be sad about that you can change, and things to be sad about that you can't.  There are things that we think will make us happy that really will, and things we think will make us happy that won't. So advice that doesn't address the specific things your stuck friends are griping about is pretty incomplete.    

1) It's sad when you are lonely, and you long for a romantic mate.  This is a good reason to be sad, and our world wants to brush it under the rug because this kind of sadness makes us uncomfortable.  Our world wants to puff you up and say you need to love yourself first, and if you do that it will make all the sadness go away, and that's not true.  There's no cure for feeling like you are unloveable that works nearly as well as being loved, and that cure helps with the sadness in a way that nothing else does.  If you are loved, and you are listening to a friend who is sad because they are not loved, do not make them feel worse by pretending they should take solace in having good friends or a fulfilling job, because those things, although important, have no impact on the special sadness that comes from being lonely, and doubting whether you will ever be loved.  I also have no concrete advice to offer those friends, because this is a mystery to me, how people find the people they are meant to love is as mysterious as lightning.  The only thing I know to do to these friends is to say, I was there once and I know what this feels like, but you are loveable, and you will know it someday with certainty and proof, and I hope that this temporary period of doubt and loneliness is as short as it can be.   

2) It's sad when you feel powerless.  People who have a sense of control are happier and live longer.  This is an area where most people, in most ways, can take action in order to restore a sense of control.  The tradeoff for having control is risk.  But people who take risks generally are happier than people who don't.  We are overcautious, and fighting that tendency seems to pay dividends in happiness.

3) It's sad when you covet something, when you need just a little more or you need to be just a little prettier or richer or have the attention of that person, and then you'll be happy.  This one never goes away.  You will never have more or be prettier, you will always want just a little more than you have, and you need to turn the volume down on this.  It's an illusion, and you need to tune it out, and if what your friend is sad about is that they don't yet have a different job title or not quite enough money or someone else is better or more listened to or something and it is unfair, it will never, ever end.  This is a friend to cut off, because by the time you're a grown up you should have started to recognize that these wants are never sated. 

4) It's sad when your life is full of irritation and conflict, many petty indignities that wear you down again and again.  This is one of the only areas where changing the circumstances of your life leads to big payoffs in happiness, at least according to the studies.  If you have a long and bad commute and you eliminate it, you will be happier in a way that you won't if you make more money, for instance.  If you live somewhere with constant and distracting background noise and you move to someplace quieter, you'll be happier in a more permanent way than if you lose 5 lbs or finally get that nose job.  If you fight all the time with your lover or your boss and you eliminate that constant conflict from your life, it will be an improvement that lasts in a way that winning the lottery doesn't (or, conversely, if you go from a life without fighting to a life with lots of fighting, it will be permanently worse in a way that even, say, becoming paralyzed will not be.)  We adjust to almost every change in circumstance, good or bad, and it doesn't have much impact on whether we're generally cheerful or blue.  But not conflict, not background noise, and not lousy commutes.  So those are really ripe areas to change. 

5) It is sad to feel like you do not have a purpose.  Luckily, you control this, and if you listen hard you'll find you already know your purpose.  And we already talked about how you have control, and all it requires is willingness to risk in order to live a life that comports with your sense of purpose. 

Simplistic, I know.  But you asked, so there you have it. 

Bummer friends

What to do with sad friends?  Oooh, that’s a good question.  In some ways, I can’t offer much.  I’ve got a pretty sunny personality and worse than that, I’m deep in the “you can change yourself with work and intentions” camp, so I tend to think of “up and at ‘em” recommendations.  I don’t think those are any help to people who are depressed.  Further, as fervently as I believe that I can modify myself, I also never think that I casually help someone.  Tragic as it is, my pearls of wisdom and incredibly insightful observations are not actually transformative.  I drop all kinds of wisdom and weeks later the recipient is still the same!!!  I know.  It astounds me too.

Realistically then, I see two choices.

CUT ‘EM LOOSE!  Screw those boring losers and come out with me.  Weren’t we going to play catch?  Take your dogs and babies to the beach?  Why are you listening to sad people when fun people are mixing up a pitcher of something fruity?  If I’m realistic, I bet I do this a fair amount.  Not intentionally.  But on good weekends, I have choices of things to do with different sets of friends.   I’m just naturally gonna be with the ones who called me early and excitedly.  When I’m out with them, I’m not taking calls and talking to mopey people.  The sorting seems to happen by itself.

You don’t want to do this; you wrote that your friends are wonderful in other ways.  Well, that leaves you with boundaries.  Oh man, I love boundaries.  Not all boundaries.  I’m open and friendly with strangers on the street, for example.  I’m not particularly modest.  But boundaries about my time and attention?  Love ‘em.  I get off the phone as soon as I want to.  I notify friends that I won’t be available and when I expect that to end.  I smile and say no, thank you*.

The other option is to make your sad friend into a project, a project to which you will dedicate a lot of time.  This works if your friend isn’t ill, but has gotten herself into a rut.  If I thought it were something that could be changed by changing her circumstances and I had the ability, I might decide to do that.  Some unhappiness is habit, habits of withdrawal and addiction to a screen and of staying at a low energy state.  Some unhappiness is because people are rarely in close touch with their moods, and so they have no idea what causes what moods.  In this limited case, I think there is room for another person to help.

If I could, for example, move someone into my house, I could apply the usual remedies for humans.  People around, bright colors, the smell of soup, chores that matter to someone else, vigorous play, making something pretty, quiet reading, plans to anticipate.  Someone to ask about your day**.  If a person isn’t starting from there, I think those will get someone a good long way out of malaise.

But here’s the thing that messes up most people.  Having those things around takes effort and work.  Most people think they don’t want effort and work.  The preference for sloth and solitude and having things your own way is a trickster, seducing people into accepting initial barriers, tolerating loneliness, letting some bleak routine be the way things are.  If you aren’t closely in touch with your mood, you might believe your preference to sit and hit refresh instead of stand back up and go outside.  This isn’t accurate.  At the end of an evening in front of a screen, you will always feel worse than you would if you walked outdoors, drew a picture and mailed it to someone, baked cookies with a friend.  The slothful preference is a lie; the option with effort is the one that leads to a lifted mood.  Happiness and energy, to the extent that it can be created, is the accumulation of good moods.  Good moods come from effort, from putting something into your tribe, from the appreciation that comes from making things nice, from doing things in your body. So if I thought I could coax a friend into a state of doing, by example and company, I might try that. 

But sustaining that in someone else would require being there a whole lot of the time, as with a roommate.  If I couldn’t do that, I might go back to the boundaries option.  The option I have no patience for is unchanging whining on the phone.  Life’s too short.

Sherry's Advice about Sad / Stuck Friends

Hi M.,

I see two questions in your request for advice.  One is, how do you help people get unstuck when they are sad and in a rut.  Two is, how do you bear it when your friends are repetitive and tedious, and the stories they tell are always the same?  I'm going to sort of ignore question two, because I get impatient the same way you do.  Hopefully Megan has an answer.  I'll talk about question one.

I think it's possible to get unstuck when you're sad and in a rut.  I spent the last four years as a coach -- first in a physical, athletic, realm, and now in the realm of helping people choose and find work that suits them.  I believe in goals and accountability, and social support as ways of getting out of a rut.  I have some specific ideas that have worked for me and for people I know. 

I also think that people choose their own coaches, so you can't choose to play that role for your friends if they haven't chosen to be accountable to you, to invite you into the process of helping them set their goals, etc.  If you take on that role without your friends' participation, you'll be frustrated and ineffective and they will probably resent you.  What people want from coaches is a kick in the butt and clear, measurable goals and motivation to get to it, and a little bit of a fear of losing the coach's respect if they do not perform -- accountability.  What people want from friends is unconditional acceptance, sympathy, understanding, humor, comfort, and a reminder of their best selves.  I do think as a friend you can reflect some of that back: you can remind them of what you love about them and who they seem to be to you, you can say, I hate seeing you blue like this, because I know a different you and I can't wait until those happier sides of you have full expression again, you can ask questions about why they're acting in a way that you don't fully understand, you can ask, "what do you think you should do?" and follow up with, "how did that thing work out for you?"

As far as sadness goes, I have great respect for depression: it's a disease, and it gets worse with time, and it can be treated and should be.  It's also a habit of thinking, so in addition to chemicals it can be tackled with a change in approach, through cognitive therapy.  You are right to be distrustful of the constant repetition of sad sack stories -- I'm not sure there's any value in catharsis or expression of sadness, and there's a pretty strong risk of reinforcing a mental pattern of helplessness, worthlessness, and unlovability.  That thought pattern goes away with treatment, but it gets more powerful with repetition and reinforcement, so there's not much value in indulging it.  I think your role as a friend is to redirect, to fight the bad habits of mind that are likely to strengthen depression's hold.  Even some other things: going for a walk with your friends, asking them for help with a project, will reframe the friendship, and will remind them of what they can and do contribute to your life.  Some activities absorb our attention and leave us feeling better than we did before we started them -- making things, doing absorbing and hard physical activities, learning a new skill.  As a friend, you can perhaps invite these friends to participate in concrete activities that remind them of what they can do rather than what they can't.

There's a longer conversation to be had about whether depressives see reality more clearly or have greater insight into depth and human pain; or conversely whether to be cheerful and content means you are necessarily more shallow or more deluded.  There's some evidence for each view, and I am not completely sure where I land on that conversation.  I'll admit to being uneasy and suspicious, at times, of my own cheerfulness and unearned high self-esteem.  (This issue is well-addressed in Kramer's Against Depression.) But when it comes to the people I love, I like to see movement and progress, a feeling of empowerment and growth, a sense of confidence.  And in the case of chronic depression, that's something that professional treatment can help with. 

It is rough. I understand.

Came out of Central library last night, walked over to my bike.  Just past my bike was a homeless lady, big, long blond hair, her stuff around her.  Clean but weathered.  She was in the same line of sight as my bike, so like I do with everyone I look at, I made eye contact and smiled.

"DON'T FUCKING SMILE AT ME!"

Whoa.  What?  "I'm sorry, what?"

"I'M NOT YOUR HOMOSEXUAL LOVER!!!"

Aahh yes!  I remember her!  We've met before!  Margie and I were walking back from lunch, walking behind a woman pulling her cart.  With no warning, she turned and shouted at us to stop following her, looking at her ass, being huge dykes and wanting to rape her.  She doesn't do that, no.

Margie was pissed; I suppose being a member of the class being vilified in the hate-speech makes you more sensitive to the crazy.  I wasn't pissed.  I was delighted.  This is prime-grade homeless-crazy and adds surreality to my day.  I'm nearly always in favor of that.  Now that I know where to find her, I kindof want to experiment.  Does she also shout at men?  What happens if Dave smiles at her?  What would she bring if I asked her sorrowfully why she doesn't remember our nights together? 

It isn't fair to tease the mentally ill, and I suppose her days are hard enough already, surrounded by ravening lesbians everywhere she goes.  If I recognize her before the eye contact, I'll try not to bother her next time.  But I still kinda want to.  I like having crazy characters in my city.  I should see if anyone knows her name.

Obligé and all.

Oooffff.  Just had a meeting with staff from a different agency, and one was so different from most in my field.  Usually people working in enviro and resources fields are entirely nice.  We were at the cafe, which is apparently the cafe where every last person who works on water stuff goes, because I've known half a dozen people who came through this morning.  (I am relieved that I have multiple connections to some of them, from the garden or Ultimate or friends.  Many are social acquaintances first.)  One of the women was a friend from my neighborhood, and we're all affectionate when we see each other.

But the other, she was all angles and sharp glasses.  She clicked in on heels and told me about how it is for thirty minutes before listening to me.  She wasn't really interested in listening to me, truth told.  She did the acronyms and rattling off legislation, which turns out to be a game I can play.  She was a very little bit contemptuous for most of the time, which always makes me laugh.  Lady, I know I'm in jeans and you're all throwing that scarf around over your suit, but two years of blogging has left me pretty confident that my thought is rigorous.  I like being a sleeper, having people underrate me because I dress like a grad student and use small words.  But she never listened enough to find out that I have thought a lot about this stuff.  I wonder what she's thinking as she walks back to her office.  Does she think that she helped that girl, that dispensing her experience and straightening out the naive is part of her professional obligations?  Could be. 

Default Rule: Just Show Up.

We haven't written about default rules for a while.  I still read other peoples' with great interest.  I think there's a lot of wisdom and saved energy in default rules.  And yet I'm still sheepish, somehow, about this interest.  Why do I think self-improvement is shameful?  It's my strongest, clearest, most constant impulse.  I'm not sure it's responsible for my being my best self -- if I'm honest, my best self shows up when I'm not paying so much attention, it comes from authentic curiosity and a tendency to blurt.  But the quest to be better feels like growth, and it feels like clarity, and it feels like open-mindedness, and it feels like humility.  All these things are worthwhile.  So I should be unconflicted about my interest in default rules and studies on positive psychology and lists and self-help systems.  Why do I feel like I shouldn't speak of it? 

It's just so cheesy.  There's so much stupid fluff out there.  There's so much vagueness, and flowery powderpuff groovy lameness.  There's so much hyperjocked up biz-speak buzzword caffeinated go-out-and-conquer "coaching," by mediocre thinkers who believe they are visionaries.  There's so much BAD WRITING.  It makes me feel like the audience for self-improvement is a bunch of suckers, and I feel sheepish for being among them.  (Some exceptions: Gretchen is smart, if disarmingly earnest.  The positive psychology blog is at least heavily footnoted, even if sometimes a little bit chirpy and buzzword heavy.)

So that's why I haven't written about my default rules lately.  (And you're thinking, geez, Sherry, self-improvement is the incessant drumbeat with you.  You write about it ALL THE TIME.) But today I was reminded of one of my biggest default rules: Just Show Up.

Wrong Person

Do you have a twin?  I have a couple of duplicates, it seems, or I once did.  (Under my old name, the one I was given at birth, I had twins.  My new, married name probably gives me a whole different set of people to be confused with.)  This morning my box had an email sent to me by a fellow with the same last name as my maiden name, telling me "I love you, be down soon...."  I wrote him back and said, "I would hate for the person you meant this for to not receive it."  Last year, a family whose son I coached wrote me a heartfelt letter after he died, and sent it to another woman with my name who lives in another town nearby.  She tracked them down and called them, and said she sent the letter back, but it never came back to the family, or on to me.  They connected with me after hearing from her, but sometimes I wonder about that letter, about what it must have been like to open something with your name on it meant for some other version of you.  Occasionally when I go to pick up a prescription I discover the pharmacist has prepared something for her, not for me, and I've had to start scrutinizing the labels.  Sometimes I think I'll go try to find her and meet her for a cup of coffee. 

Now that I've changed my last name it's really kind of strange to introduce myself.  My first name, Scheherazade, is different enough from my common nickname, Sherry, that it's not obvious to everyone that they refer to the same person.  I've mostly propagated my new married name through dentist offices and drivers' licenses and bank accounts and the college, but some of these people have told me that they need to hyphenate my name and just append the new name onto the end, or keep my old last name in the system in order to have continuity in their records.  I want people who email me or try to look me up in the college's phone directory to be able to find someone if they remember meeting me a year or two ago under my old name.  So this means that reasonably simple errands -- picking up a prescription, say, involve a long explanation.  What's your name, they ask?  And I tell them my first name and my last name, and then an alternate for each that they should look under.  It's silly.

Instead of my usual "bench bodyweight".

Aw man, I want more friends.  More specifically, I want a certain kind of friends.  It isn't that I don't have enough friends, because I have lots of friends that I love spending time with, or at least I'd love to spend time with them if they didn't live all over the place.  Friends, why did you scatter?  We were doing so great when we were in one place, but now you live in all these different cities and I CAN'T FEED YOU NACHOS OVER THERE.  Then when I visit, I want to spend all day with you and your beautiful kids, but if I do I am not spending all day with my other friend, so I split the day and feel bad leaving each of you and totally remember how amazing you are so I want to hang out more, but I can't.  This is because there is never enough time because you are not here.  So I don't want more of those far friends.  I want a crew.

I want a crew and I want it close.  I want a crew where doing things together is the default.  I want a crew that knows to stop by after work, for a drink or to return the drill or to get back that shirt that someone else left on the porch.  I want a crew that loosely knows the others' locations, as in, "Chris isn't coming; isn't this dance night for him?"  I want a crew that generates things to do, because someone walked by that flyer on the way to work.  I want a crew so that you don't need anything to do, because someone will show up with cheese and olives, and someone else will have a six-pack, and there're chairs on the porch and the night is warm, wasn't someone suppose to call Monica back?

I have the start of a crew in Oakland, because I have Anand and Chris, and we don't need to have anything to do to get together on any occasion and spend the next thirteen hours together.  But Anand is still an hour away and Chris is in grad school, so he only wants us to be near while he studies, which isn't as thrilling as Chris's full potential.  My sister has been hanging out with us some, which is great, because she has fantastic deck hanging-out skills.  But three people who are far or distracted are not a crew.  I have slight hopes for next year.  If Karen and Jeremy move to Sac (as we all hope) and Chris moves back (as he intends), I bet I could also get Monica.  That means we'd be up to five plus babies within three miles, which is a good core for a crew.    

In the last day, I heard all these.

My friends, you ask so damn much of yourself.  You do not have to be saints.  You just have to be civil and do no harm, that's all.

Darling L.:  If, despite yourself, you find yourself mildly jealous of your physically beautiful friend who married into great wealth and is vivacious and charming in addition, as well as good at whatever she tries, this is natural.  And if she sends word out through friends that she would like to start an agency just like yours, so could you give her a call with some advice, you do not have to do this.  I know it would be just a trifle galling, because her agency would be backed by her personal wealth and she is charming anyway so she'd do great without the fear nagging at her as it did for the first years when you were starting.  Just because she idly mentioned your help to your mutual friends, you do not have to do anything.  You can take refuge in the fact that she hasn't picked up the phone to call or invite you to anything in two years, including her baby showers.  She didn't even send announcements.  So, if she does call, which she will not, you can give her brief good advice.  But you owe her no affirmative duty to get over your mild jealousy, initiate contact and help her.

Sweet C.:  Dude, she isn't nice to you.  She didn't visit you in the hospital.  It hasn't been fun to hang out with her in a while and she repeatedly bails on your plans.  You know this, and you are wisely choosing the friends who love your awesome self.  But you do not owe her an explanation.  You do not have to call her attention to her ways so that she treats the next person better.  She hasn't called much recently, and now you shouldn't call her either.  Let it drop, because you do not owe it to her to fix her on your way out, so she doesn't continue in her ways of alienating people.  Be polite, respond to whatever (which she won't start anyway), don't badmouth her to your mutual friends and you are in the clear.

Kind S:  No.  You still have feelings for him.  You were together for a long time.  I know you are "being friends" but you do not have to invite him to stuff, especially if you think he might like that other girl you are inviting.  Yes, she is sweet and lonely and you have nothing against her.  But you would taste your bitter heart if you saw them hitting it off, and you don't have to do that just because you think you "shouldn't be selfish".  Yes you should.  You do not owe it to them to make their lives better just because you can think of a way.  Just don't harm them and stay clear and protect yourself.  His life isn't worsened because you didn't invite him to something.  His creating his own social life is the baseline.  You shouldn't damage it; you don't have to improve it.  I only care about you, so that's who I want you to take care of.

Sherry: No, it isn't unusual to keep score in your head and it doesn't mean anything about you, so long as you don't act on it.  (Actually, I wondered for a brief second if it meant that you were an only.  I wondered whether siblings do less of this, because they kept painfully accurate track of every slightest thing for fifteen or twenty years and maybe that is long enough to be tired of it the next time they are family with someone.)  You're aware you do this and because you are kind and you love him, you hold that awareness but don't act on it.  That is what grown-ups do.  It is fine and you are more than fine, so enough with the telling yourself that the flaws you work to counter are what you really are.

My girlfriends, you are so hard on yourselves, for thoughtcrimes and not living up to saintworthy self-expectations.  How do I get you to be gentle with my beloved friends?

The Dogs Meet Most of My Social Needs

I've been thinking about friendship lately.  I haven't made a new friend in a while.  I'm here on this island without my husband, and there are friends I could make, and people I like, but I haven't reached out.  Maybe part of it is that I'm doing a very public job, with an element of performance to it, and I'm happy to retreat to quiet time with the dogs in the evenings.  But part of it is that I've lost my drive to make new friends.  I think this is a good thing.

For the first ten years of my life I had a few good friends and thought popularity was forever out of my reach.  I was on the defensive against being the outcast -- I had a small taste of social rejection in second grade and the summer after fifth grade, enough that I spent the next ten years being very observant.  I learned how to read the social cues so I wouldn't misstep.  I learned how to figure out the invisible rules that made the dividing lines between groups.  I learned how to detect what people want, and what people are afraid of.  Learning how to read those invisible signs is like learning how to make the invisible wind and current propel your boat forward.  You learn the rules and you figure out how to make new friends.  The third ten years of my life were spent relaxing from this vigil.  I was no longer on the defensive and I'd gotten good at making friends.  I could study the natives and get myself invited in.  I liked that a whole lot.  And I was still operating on a model of scarcity -- there aren't so many people who really qualify as friends, so if you find someone promising, hurrah!  That's a keeper! 

But now I know that the world is abundant.  It is full of friends.  It is already full of more friends, more people I already love and admire and enjoy, than I can really hope to spend enough time with.  And then there are the people whose lovability I have only glimpsed, whose insightful depths I have not yet plumbed.  There are so many of those people.  There are all of your fabulous friends, for instance, who I have never even met.  I will not be friends with all of them.  I am learning that I do not need to be sad about this.   I am learning, in fact, that I want a smaller life, fewer big parties and more lingering dinners with just a few folks. 

This is why I do not understand Facebook.  It seems like a brilliant tool for the decade I used to be in, the one that was dedicated to evaluating possible other kindred spirits, and showing myself back to them, and then connecting and pursuing and laughing together at all the wonderful ways we could have fun.  But it makes explicit the fact that we are not, actually, friends, all these wonderful people I once knew and admire and enjoy but do not make time to play with in the current arrangement of our lives.  That makes me uncomfortable, all these rituals of inviting and writing on walls and peeking in on people I know from years ago or work with or otherwise am only loosely connected to.  I don't know what it really means.  I'm sure I'll get to a point where I think of it just as a more dynamic version of a phone book or an alumni directory, holding a repository of people I might someday reconnect with.  But my instinct is still to think of it as the beginning of an actual pursuit of friendship, a connection that both people expect to strengthen.  Which makes me feel worse, not better, about the people who are my "friends" on Facebook.  It feels like I am falling short of friendship with 90% of them.  So I feel both a flattered excitement and a guilty dread each time someone makes me their Facebook friend, before realizing it doesn't mean either of those things, that it really doesn't mean anything. This woman captured that discomfort pretty well, I thought.