Help! I Ran a Two-Week Experiment on My Family and Friends. The Results Stung.

Dear Prudence I’m not sure they even care. Advice by Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Jenée Desmond-Harris? Oct 28, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Drazen/Adobe Stock. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. Dear Prudence, I recently went through a very busy period at work and had much less time and energy for socialization than I usually do. At the end of the two busy weeks of work, I realized that none of my family or friends I interact with regularly had reached out to me, except my sister, who reached out once to ask about watching her kids, to which I responded in a reasonable amount of time and said, unfortunately, I couldn’t because of a work event. Is there a way I can encourage my friends and family members to reach out to me on their own versus only ever answering me when I make contact? Realizing no one had attempted to contact me in that time stung a bit, and I got thinking about our relationships. I regularly have casual social contact with a variety of friends and family members via text, calls, and meet-ups, but I realized it’s almost always when I initiate the contact or plan/organize the event. I decided to specifically not reach out to anyone first in the next two weeks, unless of course it was necessary. In those two weeks, no one contacted me, not even when I expected they would/should. For example, one friend and I always go out to dinner the first weekend of the month, and it was her turn to pick the place. She never told me where, and the night (and the days after) passed with no contact from her. I realized even when it’s her pick, I’m the one who texts her the day before to ask where we should meet. I’m always the one who sends the funny video, checks in on how the work/personal thing went, or asks about the family. They do generally ask about me in return and seem to genuinely want to hear and care about my answers, but they never initiate. I don’t think I ever take the conversation over and make it all about me or just endlessly vent/complain. Am I just overestimating our relationships? Or am I reading too much into this and everyone’s just busy? —Do They Even Care? Dear Do They Even Care, The laziness and flakiness you’ve observed from family and friends are very likely not personal—I’m certain they don’t dislike you and didn’t consciously jump at the opportunity to drift away from you. As you know, people can be busy, overwhelmed, disorganized, discombobulated, and even with easy communication available at any moment, many of us fail to make daily choices that reflect our real priorities and our care for those around us. But that doesn’t matter. The important issue your letter surfaces isn’t about expectations for reciprocal correspondence. I think this experience has revealed that you don’t have the quality, close relationships you want and deserve. You say, “I regularly have casual social contact with a variety of friends and family,” but the phrase that’s jumping out at me is “casual social contact.” That doesn’t describe a deep or meaningful connection. You have acquaintances and community, and you’re in touch with relatives, which is great. But that doesn’t replace—I am searching here for a term that encompasses both friends and family and doesn’t sound like outdated slang and coming up short—your ride-or-dies. By that I mean people who are in your life beyond the memes, updates, and casual hang-outs. People who have intimate knowledge of your top priorities, struggles, concerns, and passions in life and share theirs in return. People you are one hundred percent sure care about you, who make you feel confident they care about you and will be there for you. People you expect to be there for the long term and whose texting habits exist separately from the bond you know you have. You really just need one person in this category. Two would be a bonus. Two friends and a family member would be amazing. I understand that a deep connection isn’t something you can get on demand. But your goal should be to try to find or create one, based on an assessment of who among your casual friends you feel closest to and who appears to have the space in their life for a more meaningful relationship. Maybe it’s someone you already know, or someone new. It sounds like you’re already demonstrating the kind of connection you’d like to have by asking about friends and family and organizing hang-outs. Keep doing that, maybe with a bigger focus on one-to-one connection and a level of conversation one level deeper than “How’s the family?” Be the ride-or-die you want in your life. But don’t spread yourself too thin. Take the energy you’re giving to keeping up casual contact with people who don’t have much to offer in return and redirect it to developing deeper intimacy with people who might have the capacity to be there for you in the way you deserve. I know those people exist, but you won’t find them texting memes to people who don’t want the same thing. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Prudence, I was friends with someone for over 12 years. We went to university together, and I considered them one of my best friends. We were super close, and I was one of the first people he told that he was going to propose to his girlfriend. About two years ago, I was going through some personal issues which manifested in some insecurities, and I ended up taking them out on people. On a weekend away with this friend and some other people, I admit I wasn’t fun to be around, and I was rude to my friend, his partner, and some other people. When I got back from the trip, I realized what an A-hole I had been, and I sent flowers to my friend’s fiancé to apologize and apologized to my friend as well. We didn’t really speak a lot then, but I did reach out again to try and catch up, but he didn’t really respond. Around a year ago, I saw on Instagram that my friend had gotten married, and I hadn’t been invited to the wedding or even known about it. Obviously, that was a huge blow to me, especially as we had been friends for so long. In my head, I assumed this meant the friendship was over, and I moved on. The other night I got a text message from this friend out of the blue, apologizing for what happened and wanting to catch up. I genuinely don’t feel any anger toward him, and I don’t resent him. I just don’t know if we can revive this friendship, especially with the wedding situation. I’m planning to meet up with him to talk, but I’m not sure if it would be wrong to meet up if I feel there’s a chance we can’t ever be proper friends again. —Former Best Friend Dear Former Best Friend, I wish I knew more about your friend’s apology for “what happened.” Was that about his role in the weekend getaway that went awry, or for excluding you from his wedding? Either way, I’m hopeful because it sounds like both of you are willing to take responsibility for your actions, and neither is pissed off at each other. I actually think it would be good for the two of you to address what’s happened between you and how and why feelings were hurt instead of sweeping it under the rug and moving on. You should re-apologize for the rude behavior and share any perspective you’ve gained over recent years as well as your theories about how you’ve changed. Tell him how much you regret your actions and how sad you were to miss his wedding as a result. I imagine you might hear a story about the guest list that is a little more complicated than “I didn’t invite you because our friendship was over.” You were rude to his fiancé, and the two of you had drifted apart—so even if he didn’t have a problem with you, you probably weren’t in a position to compete for a spot on the guest list, as the couple tried to make room for the people they were closest to at that particular time. Friends or relatives who simply hadn’t had conflicts with either of them were probably ahead of you in line. I can see how, at that point, the fact that you weren’t included made him feel strange about reaching out to you as his wedding date approached, so he simply skipped it to avoid an awkward conversation. Whatever the story is, if you two can have a meeting of the minds about what happened—and the fact that none of it means you didn’t care for each other—this can be repaired. But keep in mind that you might still have some work to do to get back in his wife’s good graces. Classic Prudie When I met my husband 10 years ago, he had been divorced for two years. “Lindy” turned into a party girl after their divorce. Never around for the kids and very flaky. We have custody of their two children. Lindy was out of the picture for years, but she reemerged and texted my husband. She says she’s changed her focus in life and is getting herself together. She told my husband that she’s moving to Australia to start a new job and new healthy life. A few weeks later, I come home from work and find Lindy in my house having a glass of wine. Advice Dear Prudence Family Friendship