It's so hard

I don't know why, but I seem to be finding myself in the middle a lot lately. It's a sucky place to be, in all honesty. You wind up getting hurt no matter who wins or loses. And it's always hard to see two people you care about having problems with each other. I guess I involve myself too much. I'm a good listener, I know that, but when you're a good listener, you always seem to end up hearing just enough to make you uncomfortable.

Sometimes it's great to be there for a friend and listen and give advice or whatever they need. I love being there for my friends. But being there for a friend when their problem is another friend? That's something I've never quite gotten the hang of. I always seem to end up upsetting the person who I'm supposed to be listening to by defending the person they are talking about. But at the same time, they just put me in an awkward position. Is it my fault for being there to listen and not telling them "look, this makes me uncomfortable" or is it their fault for not realizing that maybe I don't want to hear about how horrible another friend of mine is acting?

The blame game. Ugh, it's messy, it's hurtful, it's all-around awful. I hate playing it. And no matter what, the answer always seems to be both/all of you. I mean, everyone who is part of a conflict played their part, and therefore has their share of the blame.

Back to my original topic. I guess I just really hate it when people put you in the middle, or I put myself there, or whatever, because I always end up being the person holding all the blame. Suddenly it doesn't matter that Person A said this mean thing about Person C, it just matters that I am Person B and I won't pick a side. See, this is part of why I have such a strong feeling about maturity. I think it's bull. I think we learn to censure ourselves and we learn to be polite and respectful, but maturity the way most people define it is something that we say we have achieved, but actually haven't. Because here we are, still acting like five-year-olds. "Pick a side."

So I guess my message for the day is "no." Don't pick a side. Don't let them get mad at you for saying that something made you uncomfortable. You have the right to feel uncomfortable. You have the right to say, "no, I'm not going to be this middle person in this conflict because it's too much and I don't want to deal with this right now."

Funny though, because whenever we have rights, it always comes with a catch.

You always have to have the courage to use that right.

Cheers,

-T.A.D.