Why do I feel detached from friend after small argument?

[OrangeLizzard]

Over a week ago I got into a petty argument you can say with a friend. We haven’t spoken in a week but not in a bad way really cause we just both mutually ended the discussion and gave each other some space.

Small fights are nothing and it’s nothing to end a friendship about. But it makes me uncomfortable that nothing happened. We just argued and they believe that I was in the wrong meanwhile I believe they overreacted and should just acknowledge that to move on so it doesn’t happen in the future. There wasn’t any of that and as a result I just feel detached from them? Similar to the feeling when we do door slams. I just don’t really feel anything about them. I didn’t feel the need to reach out.

Now they’ve messaged me saying it’s something to agree to disagree on and they still believe I’m in the wrong. It didn’t feel like a situation where that could be concluded as a agree to disagree but more so lack of self awareness and emotional control that could lead to future problems. So now I feel like I would only be cautious and resentful in the friendship. Has anyone felt this way before?

For context and opinions on the argument, this friend of mine who I’ll call Amy broke up with her boyfriend a few months ago and is still healing from it. One thing that has helped her is being in a group chat with me and another close friend of ours. In this chat, we send each other random funny stuff and once in awhile I send them funny comments on YouTube.

I had sent a screenshot of an argument under the comment section of a video regarding some viral topic that’s irrelevant to mention (but we’ve talked about it in the chat which is why I sent it+fight with internet stranger). The important part to mention is that the comment took place under a YouTube channel that reminded my friend of her ex bf. So I send the screenshots and our other friend in the chat asks where that comment is from and I respond saying the youtube channel. Amy ignores the screenshot and says that I’m being unsympathetic of her situation by sending the screenshot. I asked her how I was being inconsiderate as the screenshot had nothing to do with her ex bf and didn’t reveal the youtube channel either. It was only a screenshot of a stranger arguing about the viral topic.

I told her I thought she was overreacting to say I’m being unsympathetic as the screenshot of the YouTube comments have nothing to do with her ex bf and that I understand she’s in a sensitive state but that it was unfair for her to point the finger my way just because she’s sensitive. She said I should just apologize and move on and this is where the fight erupted because I told her she shouldn’t expect me to apologize over something so absurd that had no connection to her ex bf whatsoever.

We were arguing back and forth until she changed her reasoning for being upset mid argument by saying that I was dismissive of her feelings by responding to our friends question and mentioning the YouTube channel which she is sensitive about. Meanwhile I think she needs to take responsibility and deal with her own sensitivity rather than pointing the finger at others over her own feelings.

It bothers me that she overreacted that way and her sensitivity is gonna be too much to handle in the future if she doesn’t have any self awareness. She can’t help feel that way because that’s her emotional state but I think it’s good to know when we overreact to something. I just find it weird she would try to pin it on me? She thinks that I was “dead wrong” and I don’t even think it was something that significant to be described that way. Her behaviour really just rubbed me the wrong way where it makes me not want to deal with her even though it’s a stupid reason to not talk to someone anymore. I just can’t get over feeling nothing about it anymore

 

[slant]

It sounds like for whatever reason you have decided you don't want to be friends with this person anymore and you don't want to work it out.

Are you looking for validation of that here, somebody to give you permission to do what you already decided to?

There seems to be no doubt in your post. You believe what you believe, your friend believes what they believe, your friend wants to work it out and you don't.

You are very focused on somebody being "right" or "wrong". But what if your friend has a perfectly valid point and her demands are reasonable, but they just don't mesh with your own preferences? What if what you think is also perfectly reasonable but it doesn't mesh with your friend's preferences?

You are both at an impasse, both of you think each other should change your preferences. This conflict will not be resolved unless you both try to compromise or admit that you cannot and that for you this disagreement is so big that you don't want to be friends at all.

I'm just confused as to what you want advice on. You seem confident that your friend is wrong and you don't want to deal with it. So then don't.

 

[OrangeLizzard]

It sounds like for whatever reason you have decided you don't want to be friends with this person anymore and you don't want to work it out.

Are you looking for validation of that here, somebody to give you permission to do what you already decided to?

There seems to be no doubt in your post. You believe what you believe, your friend believes what they believe, your friend wants to work it out and you don't.

You are very focused on somebody being "right" or "wrong". But what if your friend has a perfectly valid point and her demands are reasonable, but they just don't mesh with your own preferences? What if what you think is also perfectly reasonable but it doesn't mesh with your friend's preferences?

You are both at an impasse, both of you think each other should change your preferences. This conflict will not be resolved unless you both try to compromise or admit that you cannot and that for you this disagreement is so big that you don't want to be friends at all.

I'm just confused as to what you want advice on. You seem confident that your friend is wrong and you don't want to deal with it. So then don't.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I’m confused myself.

The thing is I’ve never been in a situation like this. What would compromise look like in this situation? What would you do? I want to know how someone else would handle this because I don’t know how to work something out when both people are firm on their stances.

Would it be just calling it an “agree to disagree” situation and moving on? It’s weird to continue the friendship if she thinks I did her dirty and was in the wrong when I don’t think that at all. The argument isn’t going anywhere really and as a result I feel detached. What a stupid reason to end a friendship but I don’t know how to go on from it when it effects it

 

[aeon]

@OrangeLizzard

You and your friend Amy engaged in a nonproductive, aggressive exchange filled with hurtful and abusive elements, such as invalidation, personal judgment, ought-tos, efforts to win/lose, condescension, and slurs, but neither of you expressed your experience directly, or your needs, and neither owned that which was theirs.

No surprise the relationship is bruised—neither of you respected the other, nor did either of you ask for what you needed, or put the other person first, in an effort to hear, try to understand, and confirm understanding.

From the initial triggering stimulus, here’s a rough summary:

1. Amy invalidates after OLizz posts image
2. OLizz asks for proof, not addressing initial emotion
3. OLizz personal judgment with triple-shot
4. Amy drops should/supposed-to bomb
5. OLizz returns should/supposed-to bomb
6. Amy and OLizz argue seeking to win, but not to hear or understand
7. OLizz thinks her feelings can be explained by reasoning, implying varying validity
8. Amy restates grievance and demands but does not own, express, or ask
9. OLizz drops should/supposed-to bomb, then belittles/diagnoses
10. OLizz bothered by own judgment, then projects it onto Amy, again belittles/diagnoses
11. OLizz offers condescension-based forgiveness, a kind of shaming
12. OLizz says what he thinks and owns it (healthy!)
13. OLizz attempts to make sense of emotional expression and not surprisingly, cannot do so
14. OLizz indirectly offers experience of feeling with reminder of trigger, so ambiguous ownership

I’m betting that the most likely (and most charitable) explanation is that neither of you have endeavored to expand and develop your communication skills, after not being taught productive and kind ones as children. That last part is not your responsibility, and my sense is very few people are taught those skills when they are a child. I was not.

That said, you can learn to communicate in a way that is productive, meaning each will be heard and understood, and problems are resolved—and in a way that is kind, meaning each will acknowledge and respect boundaries, accept the other as they are, where they are, and that the focus is equity and needs-based, not determining a winner and loser, so as to preserve inequity.

Those kinds of skills work in almost every human exchange—familial, vocational, relational, and so on. In a romantisexual relationship, those skills make everything possible—connection, intimacy, nourishment, fulfillment, growth, other-focus with reciprocity...

My recommendation is the book that made the seemingly impossible, possible:

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD

Cheers,
Ian

 

[slant]

I think you hit the nail on the head. I’m confused myself.

The thing is I’ve never been in a situation like this. What would compromise look like in this situation? What would you do? I want to know how someone else would handle this because I don’t know how to work something out when both people are firm on their stances.

Would it be just calling it an “agree to disagree” situation and moving on? It’s weird to continue the friendship if she thinks I did her dirty and was in the wrong when I don’t think that at all. The argument isn’t going anywhere really and as a result I feel detached. What a stupid reason to end a friendship but I don’t know how to go on from it when it effects it

It really depends on how much you value the relationship how you proceed. You've expressed concern not necessarily only based on what happened in this specific situation but that potentially it could happen again and it seems like your trust has been shaken by this incident.

So that's really what I would address: your underlying fears that this behavior will continue. I don't know what that looks like for you. Just thinking about maybe what your fears are in this situation might help.

From my own experiences, I've had conflict with people where we did not agree on each other's thoughts or emotions, I've had situations with people where I felt that they had hurt me and sometimes the other person did eventually apologize and that solved it, other times I decided it wasn't as important to me as I thought it was and I "let it go", sometimes I realized the other person had a good point and apologized to them, and sometimes me and the other person could not get on the same page and that ended the relationship.

It is all very personal and dependent on the situation and what you want. I recently had a friendship of 8 years dissolve over what I felt was a political disagreement but to her it was much bigger and it was something that she felt she could no longer associate with me anymore. It was a horrible loss for me, but ultimately I respected her for that because she had to do what was right for her and I would never want her to be in a friendship that she no longer wanted to be in.

But it's hard to know: Is it best to part ways, or is it possible to get through the conflict? It will require that both of you decide your friendship is more important than your disagreement in order to work it out. So even if you want to work it out, that might not be possible if your friend can't see past it. Right now it sounds like your friend wants to find a way to work past it but you're having difficulty with it.

Who knows- you could part ways and later on reconnect. You could part ways and never resolve the conflict. I'm not encouraging you to part ways but if the internal struggle here is guilt for not wanting to work out an issue, then you really need to reflect on WHY you don't want to work out the conflict.

Really, the question is, why are you having an internal struggle? Usually when this happens it is because we know we should do XYZ but we want to do something that's opposite to know what we should do. And "should" is some sort of moral or value that we hold that is currently conflicting with what our desire is. Either we contradict our values by acting on our impulse, we resist our impulse and uphold our value, or we reconcile the conflict by changing our values so that we are in alignment again.

 

[Matty]

Weird. When someone close to me says that something I've inadvertently said or done has hurt their feelings, I just apologise for the hurt it caused, and don't keep doing/saying what hurt them.

It's not that complicated or difficult.

 

[Rit4lin]

Your friend is still in a grieving process (heartbreak), and you don't understand why explicitly mentioning a YouTube account, which you know reminds them of their ex, would cause them to be hurt? What did you think would happen, mentioning the channel when you knew she was still heartbroken?
Then tell her how she should feel or react but that this is her fault for being 'sensitive' and 'overreacting', even though you're - to paraphrase Matty - the inadvertent cause of this pain? It isn't your place to dictate how someone should react to such things. Sure, you can have the opinion that it's a minor thing to be hurt by, but you don't voice it and proceed to effectively shit on them after

What is this bullshit about how she lacks any self-awareness? What makes you so self-aware to even be the judge?

Lol, the fuck?

• Amy invalidates after OLizz posts image

• OLizz asks for proof, not addressing initial emotion

• OLizz personal judgment with triple-shot

• Amy drops should/supposed-to bomb

• OLizz returns should/supposed-to bomb

• Amy and OLizz argue seeking to win, but not to hear or understand

• OLizz thinks her feelings can be explained by reasoning, implying varying validity

• Amy restates grievance and demands but does not own, express, or ask

• OLizz drops should/supposed-to bomb, then belittles/diagnoses

• OLizz bothered by own judgment, then projects it onto Amy, again belittles/diagnoses

• OLizz offers condescension-based forgiveness, a kind of shaming

• OLizz says what he thinks and owns it (healthy!)

• OLizz attempts to make sense of emotional expression and not surprisingly, cannot do so

• OLizz indirectly offers experience of feeling with reminder of trigger, so ambiguous ownership

Heuheuh, I read this as a Pokemon battle

 

[OrangeLizzard]

It really depends on how much you value the relationship how you proceed. You've expressed concern not necessarily only based on what happened in this specific situation but that potentially it could happen again and it seems like your trust has been shaken by this incident.

So that's really what I would address: your underlying fears that this behavior will continue. I don't know what that looks like for you. Just thinking about maybe what your fears are in this situation might help.

From my own experiences, I've had conflict with people where we did not agree on each other's thoughts or emotions, I've had situations with people where I felt that they had hurt me and sometimes the other person did eventually apologize and that solved it, other times I decided it wasn't as important to me as I thought it was and I "let it go", sometimes I realized the other person had a good point and apologized to them, and sometimes me and the other person could not get on the same page and that ended the relationship.

It is all very personal and dependent on the situation and what you want. I recently had a friendship of 8 years dissolve over what I felt was a political disagreement but to her it was much bigger and it was something that she felt she could no longer associate with me anymore. It was a horrible loss for me, but ultimately I respected her for that because she had to do what was right for her and I would never want her to be in a friendship that she no longer wanted to be in.

But it's hard to know: Is it best to part ways, or is it possible to get through the conflict? It will require that both of you decide your friendship is more important than your disagreement in order to work it out. So even if you want to work it out, that might not be possible if your friend can't see past it. Right now it sounds like your friend wants to find a way to work past it but you're having difficulty with it.

Who knows- you could part ways and later on reconnect. You could part ways and never resolve the conflict. I'm not encouraging you to part ways but if the internal struggle here is guilt for not wanting to work out an issue, then you really need to reflect on WHY you don't want to work out the conflict.

Really, the question is, why are you having an internal struggle? Usually when this happens it is because we know we should do XYZ but we want to do something that's opposite to know what we should do. And "should" is some sort of moral or value that we hold that is currently conflicting with what our desire is. Either we contradict our values by acting on our impulse, we resist our impulse and uphold our value, or we reconcile the conflict by changing our values so that we are in alignment again.

Thank you for this. And you read the situation very well when I didn’t know why I was feeling this way myself.

I wasn’t able to get any sleep last night because of it and woke up realizing I messed up immediately by not just letting it go and apologizing right away and just let my ego getting in the way by trying to make it a right or wrong situation. And then while we were arguing she was saying things that made me feel like I couldn’t go back. I missed my moment and argued over something so little.

I reached out to her today and we made up.

It scares me how long it takes me to understand my own emotions. All I knew is that I was detached and couldn’t figure out why. Situations aren’t always going to be black and white and I think that bothers me and I just avoid it rather than moving through it.

 

[slant]

Thank you for this. And you read the situation very well when I didn’t know why I was feeling this way myself.

I wasn’t able to get any sleep last night because of it and woke up realizing I messed up immediately by not just letting it go and apologizing right away and just let my ego getting in the way by trying to make it a right or wrong situation. And then while we were arguing she was saying things that made me feel like I couldn’t go back. I missed my moment and argued over something so little.

I reached out to her today and we made up.

It scares me how long it takes me to understand my own emotions. All I knew is that I was detached and couldn’t figure out why. Situations aren’t always going to be black and white and I think that bothers me and I just avoid it rather than moving through it.

This is something deeper going on that doesn't have much to do with your friend.

I relate to the way that you think, and the way you went about dealing with this conflict. Not being able to handle other people's emotions and feeling overwhelmed by them like what is happening you probably has to do with something in your past, either your childhood or a bad relationship. A situation where you were around somebody who either had an anger problem or had unpredictable emotions that didn't make sense. If we don't feel like emotions are "safe" we can shut them out and go to this really direct, logical place. We don't learn to identify our emotions or the emotions of other people.

Stuff like this would happen to me all the time and I knew something was wrong but like you I couldn't figure it out. What you are recognizing in this situation is that you have a gap in your emotional social skills- you responded to your friend with logic when she was looking for empathy. What will happen is that you'll notice this happening more and more often, and it's not because you're doing it more, it's because your becoming more self aware. This is all part of developing the emotional social skills.

You did pretty good. It's progress. I hope you get to the root of whatever created this issue so that you can address it and feel confident about yourself and the strength of relationship with the people in your life.

 

[aeon]

@slant

One can say emotions simply are, and all we are to do is recognize and accept them. Ideally, of course.

But yeah, there was a time for me when showing certain emotions, or not being aware of certain ones in others could mean the difference between being beaten or not. That replaced healthy wiring with what was required to operate my hypervigilance antenna.

Survival mods on bad firmware in a later, more safe environment are a special hell. It took me years to untangle that shit.

At an old job they would sneak up on me and make a sound, and laugh because my startle response could have made me a starter in the NBA.

As is my nature, I laughed along with them. Inside, I was rattled, but I had to get back to work and pretend. FML.

Ugh,
Ian

 

[slant]

@slant

One can say emotions simply are, and all we are to do is recognize and accept them. Ideally, of course.

But yeah, there was a time for me when showing certain emotions, or not being aware of certain ones in others could mean the difference between being beaten or not. That replaced healthy wiring with what was required to operate my hypervigilance antenna.

Survival mods on bad firmware in a later, more safe environment are a special hell. It took me years to untangle that shit.

At an old job they would sneak up on me and make a sound, and laugh because my startle response could have made me a starter in the NBA.

As is my nature, I laughed along with them. Inside, I was rattled, but I had to get back to work and pretend. FML.

Ugh,
Ian

This is exactly what I think people who haven't gone through similar life experiences don't understand when they see this behavior. On one end you can have traumatized people who act hysterically and are emotionally out of control, but you can also have people who don't even know what they feel because they are too busy trying to deal with extreme emotions of other people.

This coping style of logic and detachment from emotions can come across as cold, calculating and cruel to other people. Naturally people might get angry or upset at being met with what feels like a complete lack of empathy toward them when really it is because the person feels so threatened and fearful about responding to the other persons emotions that they just try to shut down what feels out of control to them.

It is such a hard life to live with trauma that others don't understand, it creates extra difficulties in navigating the world and interacting with others. We all have trauma in life but the more extreme forms do tend to have a more isolating effect on people and take more work and energy to overcome. I'm very sorry that you understand these types of things because you've experienced them.

 

[aeon]

This is exactly what I think people who haven't gone through similar life experiences don't understand when they see this behavior. On one end you can have traumatized people who act hysterically and are emotionally out of control, but you can also have people who don't even know what they feel because they are too busy trying to deal with extreme emotions of other people.

This coping style of logic and detachment from emotions can come across as cold, calculating and cruel to other people. Naturally people might get angry or upset at being met with what feels like a complete lack of empathy toward them when really it is because the person feels so threatened and fearful about responding to the other persons emotions that they just try to shut down what feels out of control to them.

It is such a hard life to live with trauma that others don't understand, it creates extra difficulties in navigating the world and interacting with others. We all have trauma in life but the more extreme forms do tend to have a more isolating effect on people and take more work and energy to overcome. I'm very sorry that you understand these types of things because you've experienced them.

And then to deal with it in a culture which resists teaching emotional intelligence, forces narrow and rigid gender roles on children, emotionally neuters little boys, leverages women’s emotions for reasons of misogyny and labor theft, shames neurodivergent presentation, ignores all manner of abuses like invalidation...

The degree of suffering and unmet need, and the number who go unheard and misunderstood—it’s beyond my comprehension, really. Tragedy doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[OrangeLizzard]

we don't feel like emotions are "safe" we can shut them out and go to this really direct, logical place. We don't learn to identify our emotions or the emotions of other people.

Wow. This part exactly. I always do this and avoid people like this in general. I don’t feel safe with them if they’re unpredictable.

My friend also called me cold while we were arguing and I didn’t realize what she meant because I didn’t say anything that was brutal.

I could relate to everything you said. In general I can feel I’m easily ready to detach to anyone in my life if the time came to it. I always thought this state was better than hating them or suffering because of someone. It’s a state of indifference or “neutrality” I guess. I’m wondering if everyone operates like this or if it’s trauma related or maybe INFJ personality related.

 

[Wyote]

It’s a state of indifference or “neutrality” I guess. I’m wondering if everyone operates like this or if it’s trauma related or maybe INFJ personality related.

A lot of people vacillate between cold indifference and over-caring/oversharing.
Operating in a more detached way is safer in some ways but comes with its own set of detriments (fewer opportunities, narrower views etc.).
Being alive is about connection so if you aren't facilitating something in that realm then you aren't really alive.
That's sort of hyperbole but not really.
Safe is stillness and stagnation. Sometimes that mode serves good purpose though.
If it's only being used as a shield against fear/growth then it's probably best to break away from that mode.

 

[Asa]

Hi @OrangeLizzard,


@slant is offering some good introspective and multifaceted advice here.

Try distancing yourself from Amy for the time being. No need to end the friendship or door slam. It does sound like she overreacted, but she's in a vulnerable place. Break-ups leave people broken.

My take on this would have been to apologize for hurting the friend's feelings and explain that wasn't my intention. In your case, it sounds like you aren't interested in investing in this friendship, which is fair. You don't have to be friends with everybody, just try not to make enemies.

 

[just me]

Be happy it is something so small. It is small because of all the really nasties that present themselves in human nature. Yes, we have hurt feelings. Give it some time.

Tell me, how would you react if a so-called friend told you to be quiet, or don't talk anymore, or just plain shut up? I kept giving my opinion. How would you act if name-calling, anger, and a complete volcano erupted from them. Opinion continued. How would you act if you were then physically threatened while two to three feet away, by what then looked like the Hulk? There is so much more. Red eyes, blown up blood vessels, red face, fist clenching. How would you act? Man was twice or three times my size. Heart rate was much higher than normal.

When he said he was going to knock my lights out right now? I simply said, "Why don't you just do that?" and stood my ground: he hesitated. I told him we were through forever and to leave, after which he called me an ungrateful b&$%&%(.

Three days ago, and still carrying around a taste of anger, held back by my spiritual self. It will go away. I'm really happy I found out what kind of man he was.

People: we can only think we know them sometimes.