Working at friendships

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Yesterday my sister told me that "friendships need to be worked at." She says this alot and I still don't really know what it means. Does it mean that friendship is like a game of chess and they make a move and then I make a move and so on? I don't understand. I feel like I make so much effort with people. It is always me that does the getting in touch. It's always me that does the inviting and I don't get anything back. Am I meant to ignore the lack of interest and keep texting and keep inviting. Doesn't that make me look like desparate loser.

A situation that confuses me would be as follows, I mentioned to a friend on Facebook that I was looking for a flatmate. Her response was, "so am I. I'll organise something with a couple of friends and we can get together and talk about it". She didn't. Do I text her and see if she wants to go for coffee so we can talk about it? The thing is she said that she was going to organise something. so why didn't she? She can't be that interested if she hasn't done anything about it. I don't understand why people say they will do things then don't. Why say it in the first place?

I can never work out if they were being polite or actually mean it. It's like when I guy I know said he would help me out with my car and book it in for an MOT and then didn't. I had to find somewhere to MOT the car at the last minute. Why do these things keep happening to me?

I know what you mean; sometimes it really is hard to tell if someone's just saying something or if they genuinely mean it.

Equally, your friend may have thought you were just being polite when you said it was a good idea. I think because she has already made the first move and taken the risk of mentioning it, contacting her yourself and discussing things further may be the best move.

There are a lot of flakey people out there, and perhaps she didn't really mean it, but the best way to find out as quick as possible (so you can continue with your own hunt) is to ask her directly yourself.