The Grail Question & Nurturing Friendships

[qos]

According to one stream of Grail lore, there was a certain point at which the Quest could not go forward unless the Grail Knight asked the Wounded King What ails thee? Some knights failed at this point because they were too "polite" to make such a personal inquiry of their host, who had a wound which crippled him and never healed. Others failed because they simply didn't care. Daring deeds are great -- but compassionate interest is essential.

This morning, I am going to suggest that there is a similar rule where friendships are concerned. Once again, I've found myself smacked in the face by a pattern that's been repeating itself in my life recently, and having it happen with someone new helps to highlight what's been going on elsewhere.

The issue is that of asking questions: curious, caring, interested questions.

I recently drew a line with someone who used to be a very good friend because I realized that not only was I always the first to email or call, his return emails had stopped including any inquiries about me, my life, my well-being. He never so much as asked, "How are you?" much less made specific inquiries into areas of my life which he knew were important to me. I care deeply about this person, but over time have become convinced that he doesn't care for me --not in a meaningful way. He certainly doesn't seem to take any active interest in me or my life.

Last night I was disturbed to see the same pattern with someone else. We had at least four or five different email streams going. When I finished all of his latest replies last night, I realized that none of them included questions to me about either those topics or new ones. Had we just talked everything out? Maybe -- but there was no invitation on his part to continue the conversation in any way. No curiosity expressed about me. As I look back through the past emails, I see this is actually the way his emails have been all along. I was the one whose questions prolonged the conversation. As with the other friend, he was happy to answer questions, to talk about himself, but never got around to inviting me to share more, or to dig deeper into my life and thoughts in any way.

These two people happen to be male, but I'm not going to put this down to male-ness. Two of my best correspondents are also male, and are very good about asking about me -- sometimes just dropping a line to say "I haven't heard from you in a while. How are you?"

I was taught that at the very least it's good conversational manners to ask questions that invite the other person to share and contribute. When the other person is supposed to be a friend, it becomes an expression of caring. A question doesn't have to be a lead-in to an intense personal discussion or philosophical debate. It's the simple expression of interest that maintains connection: How are you doing? Anything new going on in your life? How is your special interest activity going?

Now that this pattern has been highlighted, I'm going to be even more aware of how often *I* express active concern about and interest in the lives of those I say I care about.

ETA I think it's important to point out that the relationships I cite above are primarily long-distance ones. If we saw each other more often, they might be able to express caring in other ways. That said, I still think that actively expressing interest in the other person and inviting him/her to share is a critically important expressing of caring.

Comments

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I've been getting to know someone who asks detailed questions about me and my life. Her interest touches me; it shows me she wants to know how I am and what makes me tick. She talks about herself a lot, but that is balanced with asking a lot of questions about me and listening compassionately to my responses. It's something I want to be careful to balance in my interactions with others, too.

[oakmouse]

Hmmm. Yet another reason why it might not be such a good idea for me to stay up doing email late at night. I've noticed that when I'm tired, I'll respond to what the email I'm answering includes, but very seldom add new material. Also by the time I've worked my way down in a longer email (and most of my close friends do write long emails to me, as I write long emails to them) I've forgotten anything else I wanted to say and can only think, ok, that's done, now hit send. Then ten minutes later I tend to go, oh cr*p, forgot to say that and that and THAT and...

Thank you. I've been exploring alternate ways to stay in touch with the people I love through email, and this post has given me some serious food for thought.

[coen.livejournal.com]

I am a male, and the last time I met the wounded king, I didn't ask him what ailed him. Not because I didn't care, but because I thought it would be offensive to ask a king such a personal question.
Of course I was curious, and of course I felt sorry for the king who was obviously in pain. But I thought that if the king wanted to share, he would whenever he was ready for it. He would not wait for an invitation coming from me.
But I was wrong, he did wait for a question from me. I didn't ask it, and therefore he didn't share his pain.

So we both waited and both ended with nothing.

Okay, the wounded king in my case was not a king. He was a lot of people, and the most important one was my wife. My ex-wife. She felt very lonely because I never asked about her feelings. And I felt lonely because she never told me about her feelings.
She would frequently ask me about my feelings, and I talked and talked about those, and while I talked about me, I kept on wondering why she didn't talk about her. While at the same time she wondered why I never asked anything.

Did I learn from this? I hope I have.
When I wonder about how someone is feeling, I still feel the urge to wait for the person to be ready to tell me, but I fight that urge and force myself to ask.

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

I've had long thoughts about this subject as well.
Sometimes I've been too slow to recognize a pattern of a friend not asking. I've told myself though that I need to notice when I'm doing all the work in a relationship. All the starting and instigation. It's been an old pattern for me to let that happen.
I feel it's easy enough for me to give.
But yah, I'd really like reciprocal relationships and therefore have instructed myself to notice when it's not and to not perpetuate that cycle.
Also I'm coming to understand that sometimes I need to say what I've been feeling wether or not asked. I really shouldn't wait for someone asking me or their permission or assurance that they even care. If they don't, when I do speak my heart that will be obvious soon enough. In any case I shouldn't gag myself cause I'm afraid they don't give a shit.
If I do then I'm just contributing to a hollow, unsatisfying relationship.

So, question, if you realize that you are in a relationship where your doing all the asking and the other is not expressing interest, what do you want to do about it once you realize that? There are different ways to handle it, of course. I'm wondering what your preferred method is.