I live with one of my best guy friends. He is an awesome, supportive, special person and I love him to death. Typically we get along like family: Cleaning together, cooking together, eating together, joking around/arguing and going out with friends together, etc. Other people are envious of our friendship and I don’t blame them. I feel fortunate to have such a great person in my life and I’m not sure what I would do without him.
Here comes the problem:
When I am upset, I need to take a break, relax at home, and talk it/cry it/hug it out with someone I am close with. Since I’m a fairly private person and my other close friends live time zones away, my roommate is typically the person I turn to when I’m having a rough time. Usually, he is extremely helpful and can calm me down and make me feel better (even if just a little bit) in no time.
I guess you’re still waiting to hear the problem…. I’m getting there, I promise…
When my roommate is having a rough time, he copes in a completely opposite way from me. I want to stay home, talk things out, get hugs and be comforted. He wants to hole up in his room for hours on end to think about things and then go out with people he’s not close with and blow off steam playing pool, drinking, dancing, etc. When my roommate is upset, he needs his alone time. He doesn’t want to be around anyone who is going to hug him and tell him it’s going to be okay, notice something is wrong, or make him feel like he should talk it out. He wants to work it out on his own and when he’s sick of that, find some sort of activity to keep his mind off of the problem for a few hours. I am usually very good at respecting this by staying out of his way, going out with different groups and quietly doing little things (making a nice dinner, baking something, buying groceries I know he likes, renting a movie I know he wants to see, sending a card letting him know how much I value his friendship, etc.) to let him know I care and I’m here if he needs me. Right now; however, we are stuck in an interesting and very difficult situation:
We are both going through a very difficult time and need completely opposite things from one another. He needs me to back off, let him sulk and think in his room, not communicate anything, go out until all hours with casual buddies and generally just leave him alone and I need him to talk to me, about his issues and mine, relax at home in front of a movie for a couple of nights, give me a hug and let me know it’s going to be okay. We’re both trying right now to be what the other person needs, but how can that work when their needs are exactly what the other one is trying to avoid? Despite several attempts, we are at each other’s throats right now; a situation that is just adding additional stress to what we are each already dealing with. Things have gotten so uncomfortable, that I have debated staying with my parents for a few days (I know, now we sound like an old married couple) just so that he has his space and I’m not sitting in the house, needing a friend who’s only a few yards away, but knowing that they aren’t accessible.
What do you do when you need your best friend and they just need to be left alone?
