u/hazel_chase

Just kidding ofc, but I do have this sp5 friend who’s generally as closed off as you’d expect from a 5 within average health levels, and in our wider group of friends it’s pretty casual for us to say we love each other at the end of conversations. Now she doesn’t usually say it first… until today, to me! Which I consider amazing, and I’m so happy to have her as my friend and to be getting closer to her, which for a long time I didn’t think would be possible with both of us being pretty bad at consistently initiating conversations.

What’s your experience with becoming close with other 5s? Does it come naturally to you to propose hangouts or do they usually happen because of external circumstances like working together?

To be honest, I have always had mostly unsaid conflicts in my bonds because the other person expected me to be available to them always once we were close, and that’s not really something I like to commit to.

In many stages of my life though, I perceived myself to be very very generous with my time and energy, even though the person on the other end didn’t necessarily seem to think so. It is usually an effort for me to show up consistently and when I do I perceive myself to be a very good friend. I’ve learned that’s not necessarily true, and that giving what you can and then retreating for days on end can read as being uncaring or unstable, which was very disappointing to me. I love my close ones a lot, and I genuinely believed I was good at showing it until I thought more about it.

Cutting ties with people who overwhelm me more than they interest me was something I also hadn’t realised I was doing. Or rather, I didn’t realise what the reason was, just that I needed to get out of every conversation as quickly as possible, and somehow communicate that I’m not looking to form a long lasting connection unless there’s a real reason to.

I’m not sure about the morality of this whole thing, whether it makes a 5(or an unhealthy 5), a bad friend. Is someone who scoffs at seeing messages from friends a bad person if they eventually gather the energy to check in on them anyway? Ignore the question if you want, the 1 fix is showing.