MISS MANNERS Friendships ebb and flow
Dear Miss Manners: I have a friend I have known most of my life, but we seemed to get closer the past 15 years or so. Some bad things happened in my life, and she was there for me at the beginning. But now that life is better, she doesn’t have time for our friendship. She is always busy.
Do friendships ever last a lifetime? Or is it normal for them to end? I’m wondering if I put too much importance on my friendships.
Gentle Reader: Your friend was there when you needed her. And now she is busy – possibly even attending to another friend in need, or to factors in her own life.
Miss Manners does not see this as the end of a friendship, but it could become so if you are not as sensitive to your friend’s needs as she was to yours.
It is normal for friendships to become more or less intense depending on what else is going on in people’s lives. Considerate friends do not pout about being neglected, but adjust their expectations. So yes, you are attaching too much importance to the friendship as being the chief factor in your friend’s life.
Dear Miss Manners: Could you please tell me how to eat cooked peas?
Gentle Reader: Philosophically. That is, you must resign yourself to the fact that you will not be able to corner every last one of them, and that everyone else you ask will quote the jingle about using honey on a knife. Miss Manners will only offer you the comfort that the last pea is not worth chasing.
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews Mcmeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.