Fickle friends
Question
I'm sick of being shoved around by my friends. Whenever we have plans to do something, like when a few of us were going to the pub last week, suddenly someone else will arrive and suggest going to the cinema. Even though I had arranged everything they just ignore what I wanted and we end up watching some boring movie. Why is it that my friends don't seem to listen to what I want to do? It makes me really angry.
Answer
It sounds as if you're really fed up because this sort of thing keeps happening to you. So, how can you stop it?
Well, you probably need to learn to be a bit more assertive. This will mean calmly standing up for yourself. It seems at the moment that you let people change arrangements and that you feel powerless to stop this, but then feel hugely angry afterwards. The trick is to put your case firmly long before it gets to this stage.
In this situation, I think you might have more success if, when a friend muscles in, you said something along the lines of 'this has already been arranged and it's what we planned to do. If you don't want to come to the pub, we'll do something with you another day.' In other words, you need to be calm and clear about what you want. It's not easy, but once you learn how to do this, it will help you not only with friends, but in jobs and relationships too.
There are many courses and books available on assertiveness, it might be worth having a search on the web or ringing a local community college to see what they can offer. To get you going though, here are two hints to start you off on that assertive road:
- Speak up for yourself sooner rather than later
- Express yourself by using the word 'I' not 'You'
We tend to use 'you' when we're getting angry. This does not sound calm and assertive. We say: 'you always get your way.' or 'you are always changing our arrangements'. What you need to say is: 'I have made my arrangements with x.' or: 'I would be happy for you to join us but I am not changing what we are planning to do.'
It takes practice to stand up for yourself calmly and firmly in this way. But it's well worth the effort to learn how to do it.
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Question answered by Our Relationship Advisors
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