My friend only wants to keep me to herself & is resistant of me dating again

I made a personal choice to absolutely not date anyone for a whole year. I've kept my own promise for myself and now I'm interested to meet new people. I found that a close friend of mine, is being resistant to me wanting to date again. She shows no interest to hear me tell her about the new friends I've met. It's been so obvious that she's given me the impression that she wouldn't even want me to hang out her circle of friends because in that circle of friends, theres a person who has shown some interest in wanting to get to know me. I feel that because of the year I spent being absolutely single, I spent that time with my friends and she's having a hard time of me having a seprate life. I feel that my close friend will have a hard time having to share my time with someone else. It is not as though I'm planning on gettting married in the next month or if I'm having to choose a relationship over a friendship. I feel as though she's not willing to share me with anyone else but to keep me to herself. I don't understand where she is coming from and its so hard for me to be understanding when I feel she's only looking out for her own best interest. How must I deal with this? I'm not even in a serious relationship just yet. I'm simply only testing the water and getting to know people through converstations.

If this was me I would continue meeting other new friends but when with the one friend that does not want to hear about all your other friends I would respect that and not talk about my other friends with her. Instead I would spend what time I have with her by making that time just her and I time.

I know that when I am with my friends I don't spend that time talking about so and so and I did this or I met this one person who. Thats not being a good friend to the one I am with. I know I wouldn't want one of my friends spending our time together saying "yes like when so and so and I..." "Guess what I did with so and so." doing that tells me that this person doesn't want to be with me and is just spending time with me because they have nothing better to do. Im just a fill in kind of thing.

One rule I set for myself is that no matter who I am with I don't talk about my other friends unless that friend is also with me when I say whatever it is.

Even in my therapy I don't disrespect my friends by talking about them without them being there. I basically enjoy the time we have together making it just that persons and my time together.

I feel that because we are friends that we could be able to go to each other and talk about our experiences. If something exiciting or bad happened I would think I could share that with my friend. I feel as though she would be okay to come to me about how her dating life is going but she wouldn't have the room to hear about mine.

Jennifer -

I agree your friend is being overly possessive. I hate it when you hit a brick wall with a friend.

Keep us posted.

EJ

To me friendship is spending time with each other in which ever ways that friend can be. I have some friends that I can discuss my public life with. Others I can talk about the dating things, still others we talk about being parents and the "joys" that sometimes comes with that. Friendship to me is just accepting each other and their limitations. for example I know nothing about race car driving. and a nother friend was into race car driving. but when we were together we didn't talk about race car driving for it would not be much of a conversation in fact it would be only one sided her going on and on about race car driving and my sitting there not knowing the terminology or the mechanics of what she was saying. and then she would feel hurt because I could not identify with what she was talking about and then that could lead to her thinking I thought she was a bore. So where is the fun of our time together? in the end neither one of us having a good time together. So instead we talked about the common ground that we have - both of us had children with challenging problems. We both could understand and offer each other various parenting strategies that worked for us in that situation.

Kind of like sexual abuse and being DID. Someone who has never experienced either one cannot offer me anything from the personal experience point of view. All they can offer is what they have read or got through gossip lines. So I could sit there using words like dissociated, fragmented, parts, and talk about my developing co consciousness and integration with some memory pieces but the friend who knew nothing about it would be sitting there going "uh huh" and "Hmmm" because she didn't know what I was talking about. Having a 2 hour conversation and getting only "uh huh" and Hmmmm" from someone when what I wanted was someone who could really understand what I was doing and going through would not be a good or great way to spend our time right.

friendships are formed on common grounds. The more flexable you are at accepting the other persons limitations the more lasting friendships you have.

Your friend may not want to talk about dating because she is afraid of dating, or she just doesn't want to discuss her significant others with you. or she's really not interested in hearing the behind the scenes details of what other people do on their dates.

Now that you know she is not comfortable talking about your dating that is one topic that should not come up when you spend time with her.

Think about your own boundries. Would you want people forcing you to discuss things that you have no interest in, are afraid of or just don't want to hear about the behind the scenes details of?

She does not want to talk about your dating. To bring it up to her would be abusive of your friendship with her and she may also take it that you don't care enough about her to honor her boundry that this is not a topic that she wants to be included in.

You say you are making alot of new friends through dating. These are the friends that you can talk about dating with.

as long as you respect each and every friendship for what it is and isnt you will have lasting friendships. A person who is a good - great friend takes each one of the various friendships and finds the common ground and those are the things that the two (or more) parties in the friendship will be able to participate in and will be able to enjoy each others company for what it is.

A friendship becomes abusive when you have a person in the friendship looking for the faults and what that friendship isn't and continuing to partake in forcing the other party to partake in things they are not interested in.

you would not want others to force you into doing things you don't want to do so its time to accept her limitations and base your friendship on the the common grounds instead.

Good luck and take care.

Hello, ok here is my two cents worth... a true friend will listen when you have something good to say and something bad to say... someone who will stick by you when the tough and when things get tougher. And when things are good and getting better. She should rejoice in you wanting to meet people and having a life. It is hard for some of us to take that step in meeting someone. As long as it is respectful language, and nothing offensive she should be fine with it. I am happy for you. I wish you the best on your quest....

We have to recognize, understand and respect each others limits. Adjust our behavior accordingly. Many freinds for many needs. Also, changing an stablished pattern effects everybody in the pattern. Shifts in relationships are scarey. Sounds like she is dependant on you and needs to take a peek at that. Hope you can find a way to both reassure her and move on at the same time. Maybe a special meal where you honor the special year of closeness you shared, give her props, clear the air. She has to find her new balance too. Good luck.

Thank you for everyone's input and helping me feel that I'm not alone. It's been hard to accept that I do have to set this boundary with a friend that I consider to be a close one. I had just assumed that she would have wanted to be a part of the exciting part of my life. Yes I do agree that I must not share the things that may offend her and that I can't be as open that I would like to be with her. I just thought that by me going to her about what I've experienced that I'm some how including her on this new journey of mine but now that I must restrict myself from talking to her about certain things I must accept that she's not wanting to have anything to do with it.