The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com.

Here's an email that I have from somebody who calls herself a "hurting friend." That’s how she signs it. This is from Marie. See what you think about this:

Hello, Dr. Kenner. I had a fallout with my close friend Sarah of two years, and she's disappeared from my life. I'm sad and hurt, and I want to mend our friendship. We met through business. She travels constantly for her job, so we used to communicate by emails. I recently insisted on emailing her less. She even had an attorney warn me not to contact her again. This is ridiculous, but I think it's because she had a traumatic past, and she exaggerates things in dealing with her pains or hurts. I don't know what to do.

Now, at this point in reading it, I've got some empathy for you, but let's look a little further into this because the email continues:

It was largely my fault for the breakup of the friendship because I constantly emailed her to apologize; it was more like nagging, but that pushed her away even more. She stopped emailing me, but I kept sending her emails. A couple of months ago, I called her. She got scared and sought legal counsel. I've hurt her very badly with the emails instead of coming out to see her in person. But because of her past, she didn't want any unexpected visits. We live in different states, East Coast and West Coast, so it's difficult for me to make a personal visit without scaring her.

Now, that puzzled me too. Why can't you just plan together to visit? You know, if you're friends and you want to go out and visit her, you don't have to just pop up on her doorstep and scare her. And why would it be scary? You know, that would be a wonderful surprise.

Continuing:

I don't want to give up on the friendship, but I'm not sure what to do because she brought in the legal person. Sarah would resort to legal action. Most of her friends are high-powered career women, so she's tapping into one of her legal buddies. That doesn't surprise me. We're both in our 40s. I'm married with kids, and she's single. I have a business, and so does she.

Now, talk about bombshells. That was a bombshell for me because I'm thinking, "Oh, you're either young, you're going out there, you have a really close friendship, or you're gay, and this is a woman that you're very attracted to. But you're married with kids, and you're focusing all this time and spending all this time emailing her."

So I will finish up the email and then give you my thoughts.

During the last year of our friendship, we had many fights and makeups. She told me she would disappear if the tensions persisted. We always ended up being upset with each other as our friendship grew closer, and the tensions escalated.

Now that's a red flag. It doesn't make sense. She had a lot of pressure from her job as well, so my mistake was that I didn’t give her the space she desperately needed. Any chance of fixing up this mess?

Hurting friend, Marie.

My first thought is: What is up with this? What qualities does Sarah have that make you pursue an obvious lost cause? Or what losses are you experiencing, maybe from your past, that make you pursue a rejecting friend rather than just letting go? Is there some guilt in this?

Some people feel the need to pursue the person intensely just so they can feel like the person will accept the apology and then they feel mended within themselves. What were you fighting about? I mean, when you have a good friendship, it doesn't consist of daily fighting. If so, you both have businesses; you’re both in your 40s. So the big question that just leaps out at me is, why is she so important to you?

You're not her only friend. You mentioned that she has many friends. It was obviously a rocky relationship, and I'm wondering why you kept pursuing her, because it does end up being stalking. If she says, "I want to end the friendship," and you won’t let her, you're not respecting her judgment, you're not treating her decently. And you’ve gotten into a pattern that I see, and many therapists see this, or almost all therapists see this. It's called a distancer-pursuer pattern, where you're becoming the pursuer, and the closer you get to her, the more she just boomerangs away. Not boomerangs, but she just lurches away from you. She doesn't want anything to do with you, which makes you want to pursue her more. So you come even closer to her, which makes her shove you away more, psychologically.

And when you get into that pattern, the best thing to do is back off. You need to back off. You need to recognize, take seriously what she says, respect her mind, identify your own issues, and go into therapy if you have to. I think all this time that you've spent emailing her and trying to pursue her maybe should be spent with your hubby, rebuilding the relationship with him. You're not even talking about him, or spending more time with your kids, assuming they're still younger, but it should be focused there, or developing new friendships.

So you have no choice: let it go. Figure out what you say to yourself that makes you pursue her. Figure out what's going on in your marriage. Why do you need emotional intimacy from this friend rather than your hubby and a single friend? Instead of spending your days grieving your loss, you want to milk the values that are already in your life. And, of course, I've said that includes your husband and your kids.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner:

Here is an email from a guy who is laughing inappropriately. What would you do if you had this problem? "Dr. Kenner, how can I reduce my intense, inappropriate laughing and smiling when I'm embarrassed? My father had it also. I've had psych evals. I'm not psychotic, but I am neurotic." Now I, as Dr. Ellen Kenner, hate that word neurotic. I think it just traps people into thinking that there’s something really bad with them, and it makes it harder to change. But this guy thanks me—his name's Maury.

So let's take a situation, Maury: You're at work, and a woman that you're really attracted to asks you to help her understand something on the computer. "Maury, can you come over and help me with this?" Now you're really attracted to her, and you're walking over to her with a smile, but it's not an enticing smile. It's not just a warm, friendly smile; it's a frozen, phony smile, a nervous smile. And when you go to speak, you have this very nervous laugh. Now, what is she going to hear? You’re coming over to help her with her computer, and you reek not of BO but of insecurity. Your laughter sounds anxious.

So, the question is, where does anxious laughter come from? Well, it comes from your own subconscious detecting a contradiction, a conflict inside you. You may be telling yourself, "I’ve got to act confident. I can't have this nervous laugh." And then another part of you is saying, "But there’s no way I can be confident. That's just not me." And so you feel the sweat coming on. You feel anxious. You try to speak, and it comes out as a nervous laugh because you're trying to fake being happy and relaxed.

In private, I would recommend translating your smile or laughter into thoughts, and it's probably along the lines of, "What if she notices that I like her? What if she thinks I'm a jerk? What if I screw up something I say?" That's self-doubt. You want to build self-esteem. Can it be built? Of course, it can. Is this neurosis for life? It's not even a neurosis. You just need the skills to value yourself.

I've written a book with a co-author, Dr. Ed Locke. We have a whole chapter on how to make yourself lovable—translation: how to build your own self-esteem, to love your values, your hobbies, your friends, your interests. And so, what I would like you to do is give yourself a gift. Imagine yourself fully confident without the nervous laugh. Practice that. Picture yourself having that confidence. Build confidence by having a career that you love, being efficacious in it, being successful, having a hobby that you love. Build confidence over time. And then, when you meet a woman, in this state, you'll think, "Well, she's nice. I wonder what I'm attracted to in her. I wonder if she's dating anyone." It won't be judging yourself all the time. It will be looking out at her.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner:

Say, "What do you let those boys push you around like that for?" "Well, they're bigger than me." "Stand tall, boy. Have some respect for yourself. Don't you know, if you let people walk over you now, they'll be walking over you for the rest of your life?"

I love that—that's from Back to the Future. And of course, the wimp there was George McFly, and he ends up not being a wimp at the end. So you want to do that in your own life. Think of areas where you feel like a wimp internally. You feel like a coward, if it's with your in-laws, or your parents, or your kids, or with your partner or a coworker. Think of those situations where you feel like a wimp and try to figure out, "What could I say that would break through this cycle? How could I speak my own mind?" You can rehearse it. You can even practice it privately in the car, what you want to say to the person. But give yourself a voice, and you won't be self-betraying.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com.

And here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance: A Serious Romance Guidebook by Drs. Kenner and Locke:

A difficult problem for those who hold justified resentments is what and how to forgive. By forgive, we do not mean that you should forget the unjust act. You may never erase what happened from your memory, but you may be able to put the injustice into the fuller context of your total relationship history and what your partner did after hurting you. That is, how will your partner repair the damage? Forgiveness also means moving forward. Do not hold a past injustice against your partner as a chronic grating irritant, provided you've sufficiently resolved the problem. But be aware that many hurtful partners use this "moving on" argument to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. For example, "Can't you just put my affairs in the past and move on?"

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book on Amazon.