Keeping a Distance

Just received a call from a good friend, someone whom I have known since primary school. He always seek my opinion when something went wrong and he needed a second opinion. As always, something went wrong for him. Apparently, his girlfriend and him has argued and the root of the argument is that my friend always make her girlfriend the butt of most of his jokes in front of other friends. So it has come to a point where the girlfriend is very upset with him.

Well, after listening to his problem, I ask him did he do it quite often. Sheepishly, he said:"Yes, but we have such a close relationship, I don't think she would mind." Listening to his excuse, it kind of struck me that I seem to have commit such mistakes as well. Looking back at how I treated my good friends, sometimes cracking jokes, reveal embarrassing moments or hurl 'insults' about them in front of other people just to create a fun atmosphere. I seem to have lack some sensitivity when I crack all these jokes about them. If you have notice, when we have a good bonding with friends, we tend to go the path that I mentioned above, using him as the butt of the jokes, we never realise that have we thought whether he/she mind us cracking such jokes or not.

If the jokes is said for the first time, maybe the person would not mind it since he/she share a strong bonding with the 'joker' but if such jokes are repeated, it can build up, as seen from my friend's example. We live in an Asian society where we do not voice out our displeasure for fear of 'sabotaging' relationship, so we tend to keep it to ourselves until we cannot stand it any longer and the next stage is to explode it. Living in an Asian society, we also have many things that we are sensitive to, for example, the Thais are sensitive to any comments about their king, the Japanese are sensitive to their honor and so on. After going through such thinking process, I think I need to build in a level of sensitivity when making someone the butt of any jokes.

For any good friends, we did not share the same experience as them or even if we do, we would still not know what would make him or her angry. So it might be good to know as much as possible about your good friends, so that when we make any jokes about them, it is wise do so at places where they do not have a raw nerve. A mild-mannered friend does not mean there is nothing that can set off his anger. (Hmmm..... this sounds like the police message I saw at the police station,"Low Crime does not mean NO crime" Haha!)

Being very good friends, we still need to keep a distance from them as well, although shorter compare to friends and acquaintances. We should not be intrusive and watch our words to a certain extent, not touching their raw nerves as much as possible. And we should not assume that good friends will ALWAYS forgive what we do (they are just more forgiving compare to other relationship) because nothing is certain except uncertainty. Only when we are able to make our surrounding friends comfortable when they are around us, then more friends will join us and the network will expand.

Anyway, I told my friend," If you value her, I think you need to apologise to her and make changes. Stop making her the butt of most of your jokes. Instead, treat her well in front of your other friends and that will still give you the attention you need." After putting down the phone, a thought struck me. How come, me, someone who does not have a girlfriend is giving advice on relationships. Haha!

Interesting day. Cheers!