It's OK to tell them how you feel! :)

Last Friday, I had a misunderstanding with one of my very close friends, the way he replied to whatever I asked him was heavily insulting. The argument grew so aggressive that he refused to take the gift I gave him for his birthday. We left together end of the day and he told me how he felt about what happened on that particular day and that he shouted a little extra due to the work pressure and took (snatched) the gift from me. He was continuously coughing and had a sore throat for couple of days because of which I didn’t want to make him talk more so I gave him a wide smile, waved good bye and left. I sent him a message on how I felt about the whole thing on the very same night after reaching home. I told him that I understand that he is stressed due to work and the type of job he is in, demands so much from him does stress him down at times. Otherwise he is very cool most of the times and I am a great admirer of him. But he should keep his temper low when he gets irritated coz it might threaten the other person talking to him. When I woke up the next day, I saw a message from him apologizing for making me feel insulted and that was not his intention. But I don’t think there was a mistake on my side. Have a great weekend. We normally call each other over the weekend but I never felt like talking to him the 2 whole days and was down thinking of what happened. He didn’t call me either.

Although we are in the same building as he is busy most of the time we hardly get time to talk to each other. So we communicate through mails. When I came back on Monday, I was expecting a mail from him but I did not see any. I didn’t want to mail him either because there was a very strange feeling in me that was stopping me from talking to him. After feeling insulted, let me name it self respect. This was continuing over the week we never contacted each other (I know it sounds crazy! But I didn’t want to!) I felt I should give myself some space to get over it before talking to him. I also felt in the meantime he should miss me as a good companion so that he’ll know that he cannot take me for granted anymore.

If it was me 4 years back, I would have created a scene, cried for him being rude with me, cribbed, ranted, not to him but to some other friend of mine whereas I would have been normal with the person who actually hurt me. A friend of mine told me, “gayu! It’s OK to let them know how you feel! You cannot expect him/her to understand your unsaid feelings.” That got me into thinking. Yes when they can hurt me and yell at me I can say them how I feel about them shouting at me like that. The moment I started saying people on how I feel, I saw them respecting my feelings and think before they could talk to me. In the scenario I have told above, I saw my friend yesterday while returning back to my office from the cafeteria I did not smile at him neither did he. The one who came with me was aghast on me reacting that way to him. She scolded me for being so naive. I told her that I wanted him to understand that I am still upset with him for the unpleasant conversation we had on Friday. If I smile at him now he’ll assume that I am OK and will not bother to ask me how I felt or even worse he might repeat it. I don’t want that to happen. Yes, I feel weird about not smiling at my closest friend but I want him to understand that I am NOT ok with the thing going on between us and I need some time to get over this. I can explain this to him when we talk and I am sure he will understand me.

I am not sure how many of you do this? But next time, when someone hurts you or you pick a quarrel with your friend or feel depressed for someone scolding you. Tell them how you feel. It’s OK to let that feeling out than holding it. You are giving a chance to the person who hurt you to correct themselves and not repeat it next time. It is kind of a warning saying, “hey look, you keep hurting me! You are grounded!”  It’s OK to take some time for yourself to recover from a quarrel. You don’t have to talk to the person you fought with immediately. Obviously, you cannot if you are a normal human with normal feelings! Don’t talk but tell them how miserable you feel about it and you need some time to come out of it.

Also, this doesn’t mean that you wait for the right time to give back or say, “Dude you have insulted me, you are so dead!” No!! Just tell them that you insulted me and I really cannot take it, please don’t do it the next time. It becomes a polite warning and you are also informing the person how he/she made you feel!

when your friend/spouse is getting his/her stress on you, your boss shouts at you in front of everybody, your colleague is rude with you when you ask for help don’t take everything into your head and feel depressed or get revengeful. Move away from the place, take some time, concentrate in something that you love to do (I would start writing a blog  ) and when you come back take them for a coffee with you or call them to say how you felt and also sooth them if they are stressed. Try to understand what made them behave that way! I am sure the bond becomes stronger this way! 

It is really not necessary to have all the junk in your mind. You can surely tell them how they made you feel!