Managing Expectations

Over the past few days since i posted the entry 'Bloody Year End', I've been doing some soul searching. That entry, which i have deleted, was filled with anger and frustrations on the relationships between people, between friends.

All of us make friends along the way. Some of this relationship lasted just for 1 day. Some that are truly fortunate may last for decades. And sometimes, we take these relationships for granted. For me, I usually tried my best to join as many gatherings as possible with my various groups of friends: The Yuppies (my sec frens), my uni frens, my CKS frens, my army frens, my present colleagues etc. The groupie which i've devoted most of my time to is The Yuppies. Afterall, 17 years of friendship is hard to come by. But with so many groups of friends, it is understandable that the amount of time i can devote to each group will reduce, especially for The Yuppies. As my social circle expands, so will my time with them dilute. I feel that this is alright. I have attended all the birthdays, x'mas and CNY celebrations, not because i felt responsible to, but because I want to. But of cos, i cannot join all the other gatherings.

I have been asked, sometimes jokingly, why i have not been meeting up with some groups of friends. It's tough to stay in contact sometimes. Work load is increasing by the month. I did receive complimentary words at work from my bosses for my hard work and initiatives. Such gestures helped lift me up a lot, especially when impounded by work due to 3rd parties issues. But just when i'm slightly feeling relieved, I do not know why, friends will usually give me craps during this fragile moment of my time where i was surrounded by my stresses and need to concentrate. Comments like, 'You no heart, so long also no contact' or 'I'm tired to call you out again' keeps banging me throughout this year from various parties. But when i do make an effort to arrange and meet up, these frens sometimes do not attend either! Or it could be they do not like my plans to meet up etc. But I do not recall me having to say similar things to them... only recently when my pressure point is beginning to tip the scales.

I've been talking about managing expectations at work, but I feel like I've failed to manage the expectations of my frens. Some frens feel that meeting up is the only way to keep a close relationship. Some will always be there even if we dont meet up so often. Frenship is a tricky issue to manage. How do I manage their expectations of me? It's seems to me that when i've tried my best, there are always some who feels I'm short of trying.

I foresee some frens must be thinking: I have no more expectations of you. This, will be very sad. But, taking a leaf of yet another fren, maybe I should not be too bothered. It could be a case of people changing perspective of things while others have not. A clash of ideology usually will create eruptions. So in the end, no one person can really be blamed for any distancing of relationships.