Interpersonal Relationships

Dear Tom,

I’m 23 and hope to graduate with a good degree this summer. I’m told I’m attractive, and I have lots of friends. The problem is, I hate my sister. Everything I do, she seems to do much better: she has s successful career, a loving husband, a wonderful house and a beautiful child. Every time I go to see my parents, my sister’s name comes into the conversation, and I feel depressed that I can never do anything right or, at least, never do anything as well as my sister. I really hate her. I have always hated her. But can I ever change my feelings towards her? I don’t like myself for feeling like this. Please help. L

It’s tough when a sister (or brother) is better looking, more intelligent, even better loved than you. But do we have to compare? Shouldn’t everybody be special? We all have our own gifts. Do we have to hate? It solves nothing for you to hate your sister. You buzz around in a cloud of hate; she sits there, tranquil, a smile on her face, the winner.

To get rid of hate you must ask, ‘Why am I doing this? Who am I doing it for? Who am I trying to beat?’ then say, ‘Because I want to. I’m doing this for me. I’m trying to beat my previous best.’ Life is about listening to the whisper of your own soul, setting your own targets. Please stop denying your own uniqueness.

To clear all this hatred out of your mind you must accept the reality. Your sister is more loved, more highly rated by your parents. That’s painful but, out there in the world, among the rest of us, we might like you just as you are. Give us that chance. Relate to your parents as an adult. They have their little scenario of where you feature in the play of life. Now, write your own scenario. It’s time to stop collaborating with their fantasies, stop playing winners and losers – with you always getting the sticky end of the lollipop.

When you are ready, talk to your sister. Not to tell her that you hate her; rather to tell her some of the things you feel. When you begin to see your sister as a real person, whom you either like or dislike – but not hate – then you’re free to live your own life how you want.

Stop making comparisons. Try to succeed against yourself. March to the beat of your own heart, along the road you choose. Your sister must make her journey through life; yours is a different road, a different journey. And life can be hard on family favourites, too.

Text 4.6.

Friendship

It’s good to know that you’ve got a friend when people can be so cold…

They’ll hurt you and they’ll desert you and take your soul if you let them…

Carole King

Songs, poems and proverbs about friendship are common and can be found in all languages. It is so because friendship has great value in our life. Everyone would like to have a bosom friend; someone trusted, loyal, sincere and faithful. Friends do not have to be the same age. It sometimes happens that mothers are the greatest friends of their daughters and grandparents are the best friends of their grandchildren. It is good to have a friend in the family.

Some people consider animals as their friends. Everyone knows, for example, that dogs make goods pets. They have been our faithful companions for centuries. It has been scientifically proved that animals have a great therapeutic effect on people who are ill; if they have an animal to care for, they will get better more quickly.

“A friend in need is a friend indeed” – according to this old saying a good friend should always help us in difficulties, cheer us up and raise our spirits when we are down, troubled or when it is going right. That is what friends are for…

However, friendship must be cherished to become stronger and stronger, it must be “planted like a seed”. We should never let our friends down when they count on us or otherwise we may destroy our close relationship with them.

It is more and more difficult to make a friendship nowadays, especially in big cities where people are anonymous and where we sometimes don’t know who lives next door. However, if we feel lonely, we can always look around and try to strike up a friendship with someone who also longs for it…

Text 4.7.

The older I get, the more I learn to appreciate the value of friendship. These days it seems everyone is so busy, we practically have to schedule time on our calendars just to keep in touch. But even though we can’t spend as much time together as we’d like, we know we can always count on each other to be there when needed.

The more we share, the closer I feel to you. Because of your caring, I’ve felt comfortable to tell you things I wouldn’t share with many other people, and it makes me feel special to know you confide in me, too.

The longer we’re friends, the more grateful I am for all the special feelings our closeness brings. And the closer we grow, the more I appreciate a friend as wonderful as you.

Renee Duvall

Text 4.8.

Male and Female Friendship

Nigel was one of my best friends. In the seventeen years we have known each other, we’ve done the sort of things that mates do. We’ve gone out for drinks together, played in a number of sad rock bands together. We’ve got a history, as they say.

When a personal disaster of catastrophic proportions left me out on the streets with a couple of cardboard boxes and a rucksack, it was Nigel who supplied a sofa and well-stocked fridge. And when I got married, it was Nigel’s plum-coloured Rover P5 Coupe that was waiting, engine purring, outside the registry office.

However, it came as something of a shock when I realized that I hadn’t actually seen Nigel for nearly six months. What had gone wrong? It’s not as if we’d fallen out. We still worked and lived in the same town. We had simply fallen victim to something that afflicts millions of men in their late twenties and thirties. They start misplacing their friends.

Once you and your mates were inseparable. Now there never seems to be enough time to cram everything in. There is work, a home, kids even. In reality, it’s getting to the point where it is not so much a question of meeting up, more a question of having a reunion. It’s being so long since you got together it’s actually becoming embarrassing.

The irony is that you’ll continue to insist that these men, whom you hardly ever see, are your closest friends in the world, even though in every meaningful sense they now barely qualify as acquaintances. You probably have a closer relationship with the man who collects your ticket at the railway station.

Men seem to need a practical reason to spend time together. Psychologist Dr Malcolme George says, “As men, we very much form our friendship around doing something mutually. But the problem is that the maintenance is dependent on doing the thing. When the demands of career and family kick in, those relationships get squeezed out”.

Dr George believes that there is an essential difference in the nature of male and female friendship. Men have a more limited expectation of their friendships partly because the man-woman relationship is still looked upon as the vehicle for emotional fulfilment. Men’s relationships with other men are regarded as having no real emotional content. They serve a function – playing in the football team or whatever. Women actually expect to share their emotional life with their friends – that’s the difference.

It’s seems as though your partner may determine the friends you keep. This may be because people tend to make new acquaintances at work and it’s very hard to convert those work friends into family friends. When men launch into a relationship and loose contact with their friends they make bigger demands on their partner to supply all the friendship that’s missing.

Most women want men to keep their friends – as long as they can express themselves within these friendships and talk problems over. After all, men’s inability to express their feelings is one of the things that makes relationships flounder.

Text 4.9.

Love

We often ask ourselves what love is and although sometimes we cannot give a satisfactory answer, we all agree that life without love would be impossible. Love gives us almost everything we need: the feeling of safety, joy, happiness and the sense of belonging. It is not only our best friend but also our greatest teacher. It teaches us devotion, fondness, responsibility, tolerance, loyalty and flexibility.

“Would you believe in love at first sight? I’m certain that it happens all the time” – sang the Beatles. However, some experienced people say that they do not believe in love at first sight. They claim that it is not possible to fall in love with someone you do not know. They are very often right. As the old saying goes, beauty is only skin-deep and other qualities, not outward appearance, show the true nature of a person. A pleasing appearance is sometimes misleading and deceitful and it makes people feel disappointed and disillusioned. Hence, love should be not based on mutual attraction only, but first of all on close acquaintanceship.

Although falling in love is not a privilege of youth, it is young people who go though it most frequently. First love is a mixture of folly and curiosity, tears and laughter. It usually does not last long and is nothing but a sort of disease – you cannot eat, you cannot sleep and cannot think sensibly. The first stage of love, claims an American psychologist, lasts about three months. During this time people in love do only two things: either they are inseparable or they endlessly think of each other. They swear eternal love and are convinced that their feeling will last forever. When it vanishes, however, they are ready to fall in love again.

Text 4.10.