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From: pooh@unirot.UUCP (Pooh)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: What is a friend?
Message-ID: <226@unirot.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Dec-85 19:32:09 EST
Article-I.D.: unirot.226
Posted: Mon Dec  2 19:32:09 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Dec-85 05:02:17 EST
References: <2359@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: The Soup Kitchen, Piscataway NJ
Lines: 69
Summary: jewish mothering

In article <2359@umcp-cs.UUCP>, israel@umcp-cs.UUCP (Bruce Israel) writes:
> This assumes that the person a) realizes that he's in bad shape, b)
> realizes that something can be done about it, and c) is willing to ask
> for help.  Many times people want help but can't or won't ask for it
> for a number of different reasons.  How often do you hear about
> suicides and attempted suicides where the attempt itself was the first
> time the person "asked" for help!  Personally, I'd rather not let it
> get that far.  I realize that this is an exaggeration, but sometimes
> it gets that far, and even if it doesn't, the same things are
> applicable. 

Funny you should mention suicides, Bruce.  I spent some time helping suicidal 
people.  The thing is, they came and they asked for help.

I learned early on that people who really wanted to kill themselves didn't 
let anyone know what they were doing, so that they could die quickly
and quietly.  The people who didn't cried out for help:  they attempted
suicide in a public place, they told a friend about it first, they called
a hotline (me).

After talking with them and trying to talk them out of killing themselves,
I ended up telling them the same thing:  "Look, I don't know who you are,
and I don't know where you are.  If you really want to kill yourself,
I can't stop you.  I CAN'T STOP YOU.  I can only hope that you won't,
and give you as many reasons as I can why you shouldn't.  You don't have
to take my reasons, and you don't have to believe that I care.  But I do."

(Note:  no one I talked to ever killed himself later on.)

My point is that you CANNOT force help on someone who doesn't want it.
No matter how nicely you phrase it, going to someone and saying, "Look,
you're making a mess of your life" is not going to do anything unless
that person a) wants help, or b) is open-minded enough to look at it
and say, "Gosh, you're right--thanks for telling me."

> Also, as an aside, I'm curious about one thing.  What's the difference
> in waiting for me to ask you for advice, but yet going up to these
> other people at the party and giving them unasked advice on their
> behaviour? 

Because I'm not going to them with the premise that they have a Problem
and I know how to solve it.  I am asking them to quit some behaviour that
is damaging to a friend of mine.  The first is presumptuous in the
extreme; the second is acting to protect a friend.

> 
> OK, I ask the rest of you out there, what are your definitions and
> expectations of friendship?

My definition of a friend is NOT someone who is trying to fix up
my life for me.

Bruce, your concern for a friend is all good and well, but I find that
people who have gone through a life-fixing seminar tread a very thin
line between caring and proselytizing.  Suddenly you realize that your
life is working better than you ever thought it could, and everywhere
you see signs of people whose lives aren't working. You care about them,
so you try very hard to do what YOU think is best for them:  you tell
them that there's a better way of living, and you fret when they
don't take your advice.

This reminds me, chillingly, of my "best friend" in junior high
who sat me down and told me about Jesus, because she was terrified
that I was going to go to hell because I was Jewish.

Pooh               topaz!unipress!pooh
                   topaz!unirot!pooh

They don't write 'em like that any more. . .