The desire for close and lasting friendship is a very powerful one and plays a crucial role in most people’s lives. It can lead to great happiness if friendship is a long-lasting and source of enjoyment. But sadly if it is a one sided friendship or a broken relationship then it causes disappointment and misery, too.
Much of our life is spent interacting with other people, and this tendency to affiliate with them has many reasons. In fact, the need to associate with other people and to be accepted as a friend by them may be just as basic to our psychological well-being as hunger and thirst are to our physical well-being.
What is one sided friendship?
In one-sided friendship, the contribution of both partners is not equal. One partner is putting him all effort to save the friendship but the other doesn’t care. One partner mostly communicates while the other did nothing. The bounding between friends is very low. One sided friendship based on the efforts of one party.
How you can decide you are in a one-sided friendship
- You always contact first, your friend never calls or texts you. If he will contact you first then surely he needs your help.
- Always you have to go to them for a meeting, they always make lame excuses for not come first. They will say that they are busy in some sort of work or study.
- They never listen to you attentively and always talking. A perfect gossip consists of equal contributions of both parties. Both of them listen and both of them talking.
- Planning about for picnic or watching a movie in the cinema you always plan, they never take any initiative to do something crazy. Most of the planning you do and suggest them to dinner together or spend some quality time.
- A loyal and good friend always cares about your time. But in one-sided friendship, your friend always reaches late at the fixed place or cancels at last moments.
careless person:
- Your friend doesn’t care about you. He never shows any sympathy or good thoughts for you. In one-sided friendship, this is also a clear sign that your friend is not sincere with you. He laughs and makes fun of you in front of others.
What are the reasons behind one sided friendship?
When most people think about friendship and liking others, then they tend to focus on factors relating to these individuals:
Are they similar or dissimilar to us in important ways?
Do we find their appearance appealing or unappealing?
These factors play a powerful role in friendship. In addition, though, our initial feelings of liking or disliking for others also stem from internal sources-our basic needs, motives, and emotions. There are many aspects behind one sided friendship.
The other person doesn’t need you
The need for friendship and affiliate with others is both strong and general. There are some people who show what is known as the dismissing avoidant attachment style- a pattern in which they claim to have little or no need for emotional attachments to others, and who tend to avoid close friendships.
Are such people really an exception to the general rule that as human beings, we have a strong need to affiliate with others?
This is a difficult question to answer because such people strongly proclaim that they do not have these needs. But the facts show even people who claim to have little or no need for friendship, at least to some extent. They may be lower on this dimension than most other people, but even they show increased self-esteem and improved moods when they find out they are accepted by others- the people they claim not to need. So the reason is simple of one sided friendship, maybe the other person doesn’t need your friendship.
Appearance and behavior also influence one sided friendship
When we meet someone for the first time, we usually know, very quickly, whether our reactions to them are positive or negative so unluckily the other person doesn’t found any attraction in us and his response is not as good as ours towards him. In other words, we form first impressions of others from “thin slices” of information about them, and feelings of liking or disliking are often part of these initial impressions.
What specific factors, aside from facial features, influence our initial level of friendship?
One is physique or body builds. A person with a youthful walking style elicits stereotypes that influence in friendship. A person with a youthful walking style elicits a more positive response than one who walks with an elderly style, regardless of gender or actual age. There are many other factors that also influence one sided friendship. Our way of talking and situation handling is also important.
Reciprocal liking or disliking in one sided friendship
Everyone (or at least, nearly everyone) wants to be liked. Not only do we enjoy being evaluated positively, we welcome such input even we know it is inaccurate and is simply undeserved flattery. To an outside observer, false flattery may be perceived accurately for what it is, but to the person being flattered, it is likely to appear accurate, even if not completely honest. Only if it is totally obvious does flattery sometimes fail? So the other person for whose you are trying to be friends. He/she considered that you are flattering him and he is not responding to you positively.
Similarity: Birds of a feather actually do flock together
Writing about friendship more than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle suggested that similarity is often the basis for this important kind of relationship. Newcomb found that similar attitudes predicted subsequent liking between students. In his research, he reasoned that if attitudes were measured before people had even met, and it was found that later, the more similar their attitudes the more they liked each other, it could be concluded that similarity produced such attraction that causes friendship.
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Is similarity the basis for friendship?
We noted that similarity is an important basis for interpersonal relationships. The more similar people are in any of many different ways (attitudes, personality, interests, values), the more they tend to like one another.
Is this also a basis for friendship?
Would actual similarity or perceived similarity be a better predictor of friendship formation?
Actual similarity should play a key role, other research indicates that determining actual similarity takes a long time and is often an uncertain process. Perceived similarity, however, can develop almost immediately and exert its effects from the start of a relationship. For people who are just beginning to get acquainted, then, perception appears to be more important than underlying reality in terms of friendship formation.
Individual differences in the need for friendship
Although the need to affiliate with others appears to be very basic among human beings, people differ greatly in the strength of this tendency known as the need for affiliation. These differences, whether based on genetics or experience, constitute a relatively stable trait. Basically, we tend to seek the amount of social contact that is optimal for us, preferring to be alone some of the time and in social situations some of the time.
When their affiliation needs are not met, how do people react?
When, for example, other people ignore you, what is the experience like? Most people find it highly unpleasant, and being “left out” by others hurts, leaves you with the sense that you have lost control, makes you feel both sad and angry because you simply don’t belong. Social exclusion leads to increased sensitivity to interpersonal information and actually results in less effective cognitive functioning.
Gender and friendships
Women, report having more close friends than men do. Women also place more importance on intimacy (e.g. self-disclosure and emotional support) than is true for men. There are many benefits to having close friends, but there can also be a pain when you lose a friend or have to separate. For example, when a friendship is interrupted by college graduation, the two individuals must adapt to the emotional threats of separation. As a result, some people fear to make new friends.
What others desire in us? Designing Ideal friends’ interaction
We have focused on many factors that cause one sided friendship. Now consider a different but closely related question.
What do others desire in us?
The perfect person for a particular kind of friendship-a gossip interest, a work-group member, some to play sports with, a jolly or funny friend, a serious attitude type person, trustworthiness, physical health, and extraversion.
What characteristics would the other person want to be as a friend?
There are indeed many characteristics that most people desire in others. No matter what type of relationship we have with someone but there are several traits (trustworthiness, cooperativeness, agreeableness, and extraversion) that we value in others. Second, we value other traits differentially that is, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the kind of relationship we have with another person.
What to do with one sided friendship-leave it or have it?
We already discuss all the aspects of one sided friendship. In my opinion, you should talk to your friend about this topic and tell him about his behavior. You can invite him to dinner at your house or any other calm place. Then start talking in a light manner and tell her that you are noticing that his behavior is not good.
In fact, you have no attraction or affiliation towards me. I hope your friend takes this in a kind hearted and change his attitude and both of you become good friends. Otherwise, you should leave him because you also have self-respect and feelings. If another person doesn’t care about your feelings then it is better to say goodbye to him.
Conclusion:
In sum, although we can’t always explain why we are like or dislike another person. Similar others also do the same in this perspective. It seems clear that human reactions in these respects are somewhat predictable. They are influenced by a number of factors, including our similarity to other people, their liking for us, their appearance, how frequently we interact with them and their possession of certain key traits. So one sided friendship always has a big cause behind it.