Holidays can be isolating if there’s no family to spend them with. However, friends can step in to fill that gap.
Reddit user Hopeful-Jellyfish-13 had spent many Thanksgivings with her longtime group of close friends. It was a tradition she always looked forward to. But this year, she didn’t sit down at the table.
After arriving at her cousin’s home, the woman realized her closest people had purposefully lied to her about the dress code to get back at her for constantly outshining them—something she didn’t even know they felt.
It’s hard to get through the holidays without any stress
Image credits: seventyfourimages / Envato Elements (not the actual photo)
But this woman may have even lost her “friends” over Thanksgiving
Image credits: Victoria Romulo / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Karola G / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: 琎达 黄 / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Daniel Martinez / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Hopeful-Jellyfish-13
Many Americans include friends in their Thanksgiving plans
Earlier this month, a YouGov poll asked Americans about their plans for the holiday, and nearly all (86%) said they’re celebrating Thanksgiving this year. Eighteen percent planned to travel for the holiday, and 65% did not.
About one-third (35%) planned to celebrate at a family member’s home, and smaller shares planned to stay at the home of one of their partner’s family members (5%), at a friend’s home (5%), at a restaurant (4%), or somewhere else (2%).
Three-quarters (75%) of Americans said their Thanksgiving celebration includes at least one family member, and 31% said it includes a friend.
Losing friends is part of life
Licensed social worker Kristin A. Meekhof says she, too, has experienced some “friends” throwing slight jabs her way. At first, Meekhof dismissed their comments as a result of them having a bad day, but over time, she realized those individuals were actually jealous of her relationships and access to certain social circles.
We can’t control how other people feel about us, but we can choose how to respond to their betrayal. Meekhof offers three ways to cope with jealous “friends”:
- Develop clarity. “Create clarity around what you are committed to in your personal or professional life. When you commit to a new way of being, whether the goals are outward, such as starting a new business, or inward, such as healing from grief, you will need to be clear what the commitment involves, and chances are this means trade-offs involved,” she writes. “The trade-off might be less time with your friends or spending less on a vacation. If you are truly committed to these new goals, then you can explain what your focus is and why you are committed to this goal. Also, you know that your trade-off may be less time with certain people. In the end, your authentic friends will find a way to support you because they know your goal commitment involves your well-being. And you will carve out time to speak with these people.”
- Understand that shift happens. “While your success may expand your bandwidth in some areas, we are still given the constriction of twenty-four hours in a day. Chances are with your new goals, you are now dividing your time and energy among new tasks, and this means your priorities shift,” Meekhof explains. “You know that you can’t create new opportunities by maintaining the status quo, so a shift is necessary. And new projects are often cultivated when new relationships are formed, and this takes time. Again, you are shifting the focus of your waking hours, and this can be met with vacant stares from your friends. Understanding this shift can be painful. However, knowing that not all friends will delight in this as you imagined will help you when you detect a tinge of their jealousy. Early detection can prevent further damage.”
- Affirm your alignment. “Along your journey, it will be important that you consciously solidify your alignment to your goals because there will be things that will threaten your commitment,” she says. “This doesn’t mean that you aren’t flexible with your thinking, but rejection can get ugly. When you are living out your true purpose, it can seem like a test. Doors will close and doors will open. [When my book] … was sold to a publisher, a very successful businessman told me to keep my ‘inner circle’ of trusted ones very close, small, and to be choosy about who I selected to be a part of this ‘circle.’ This piece of advice I didn’t follow straightaway, as I didn’t think it applied to me, only to people who were considered the elite. In retrospect, I wish I had adopted this approach earlier. My ‘inner circle’ helps me to put things in perspective when I become overwhelmed.”
It seems that our Redditor has realized some of the people want to undermine her, but she’s still figuring out how to deal with them—hopefully, she finds a way forward that protects her boundaries and her peace of mind.