u/beachbum1220

Let me set up my mindset…

I understand that as you get older friendships kind of take a backseat to work and relationships and things like that. But for the big moments, I try and make an effort to make my friend or my partner feel seen. Whether it’s something happy like a marriage or birthday or something like losing a family member or pet. I always send flowers or celebrate in person or give them a gift. Over the past few years in particularly two of my best friends have lost pets. One has lost two recently on the other has lost one. My friend who lost two pets is long distance and I sent her flowers for one and a little keepsake for the other. For my other friend, I dropped off flowers as soon as I heard that her dog was rapidly declining. I did not give flowers after the fact, but I did take her out to lunch (she did help pay the bill after insisting).

Last week I lost my dog. I’ve had dogs growing up throughout my life, but she was the first dog that was mine. I was, and still am, devastated.

I am not the person that expects anything from anybody. While I hope people want to surprise me or do something nice to me, I 100% do not expect it. But after losing my dog, I received nothing. One of my sisters did give me two keepsakes, which made me cry and also made me happy. But nobody else, even my partner. I’ve had friends check in on me with a text or two, but that’s it. When I brought this up with my partner, he said he wasn’t sure if he should get me something because he’s given me things that pertain to my dog throughout our relationship (ornaments, art, etc) , and since my sister got me something he felt he didn’t need to.

Again, I’m not expecting anything. It just feels crummy when you realize you may not have made enough of an impact in peoples lives for them to do something nice and thoughtful for you.