*gives you a big hug* Well you got a friend in this wolfy and if you ever need to talk just give me a poke.

thank you hotrod~

*squeaky wags*

*hugs* i tend to agree. It gets frustrating to make an effort to talk with someone when little to no effort is put it from the other person. It seems the only time people wish to communicate is when they want something, and when they get what they want or can get it with less effort someplace else, they simply disappear.

I need to be better at identifying​ those ppl, as I often just kinda shrug and go on with things. But it ends up hurting after a wile.

Hello there! I just watched your video and I am not quite sure I fully understand what exactly the issue is, but I'd still like to give you my take on the subject. I hope that might in some way help you clear up some of the confusion.

First of all, everyone has a different understanding of what the word "friend" actually means. It's not the same for everybody and people are gonna use it differently. From what I understand, for you a friend is someone you can trust completely 100% and vice versa. However, that is not what the vast majority of people would consider a friend. For most people, it is more along the lines of "someone I enjoy spending time with" or "someone I am familiar with and I can trust somewhat more than a random stranger". It's gonna differ greatly from person to person, but I would say hardly anyone would say they have that high an ammount of trust towards their friends, or in fact anybody. I know I don't.

You were also talking about transparency of information and that it is a good thing. For certain areas of information, I absolutely agree, like science, commerce, politics, history, education, etc. However, that in my opinion ceases to be the case when it comes to personal information. To put it very bluntly, revealing personal information can very easily be dangerous for a person, and that's why people are generally very selective on whom they decide to share it with. You only need to look at how viciously people will gang up on prey on anyone whom they perceive to be outside of the norm. Prejudice is still a very real thing in the world, and people literally getting killed for being of the "wrong" opinion, heritage, sexuality, etc. is still a thing that is happening in certain parts of the world.
Now I am not saying that everyone who chooses to keep things about themselves secret is afraid of getting killed, but they might very well be afraid of getting judged for it. History has tought us that mankind is a VERY judgemental bunch and we are still subconsciuously conditioned for that (partly because it still is true). So withholding personal information in general is a very valid form of self-preservation in many ways.
There are of course exceptions to this. Not all personal information will end up being harmful if it is uncovered of course, and if you can trust a person, you should generally be able to share more of it with others than you normally would. Emphasis on "more" of it, not "all" of it. Even then people are still gonna be careful and wary about such things, just because society is forcing us to make being mistrusting towards others a habit.

Another thing to consider as well, I would say hardly anybody is completely okay with everything about themselves. There might very well be aspects of a persson which they are not proud of, or are outright in denial of, which they won't appreciate being reminded of. That might not be completely rational, but well... humans aren't rational, as much as we'd like to believe we are. Most people are ashamed of something or have memories they'd rather not be reminded of.

Then there is also the thing that many people will be completely fine with having incomplete information about others. It's not like you have to assume something if you don't have any solid information to go on. Many will be completely fine with taking the agnostic stance and saying "I don't know, and that's fine by me."

So, that's my point of view on the entire subject. I hope that will be able to grant you a different perspective on things and help you work out the confusion. Have a nice day :)

The main thing is the context. You are speaking in a more of a broad spectrum. I am more pertaining this to friends and the transparency from those two ppl who call each other friends. Someone who will not judge them, or do Intentional harm to them.

When. Someone cannot be open to that person, and speak to them honestly. Then what type of a friendship is that? It is hardly one at all.

Communication between individuals still has quite a long way to go sadly. Whether it's between friends, family, strangers, relatives, loved ones, etc. there are gaps in communication that can make things a bit iffy, but both sides may have reasons for not discussing certain bits of information either for personal reasons, self-esteem issues, etc.

What I do agree with is that deflecting this rather than just stating that it is something you would rather not talk about, is an iffy area to discuss, and so forth does only contribute to make it worse in some cases. For example one thing that may come up between friends is location of living. I'm perfectly fine with giving the state in which I live, but that's the most I will give and you can state that it's because that's your limit for information being revealed in that area for personal protection or whatever other reasons you may have.

As snow said, the idea of a friend can vary from "someone online I hang out with" to "someone I would trust my life with" based on who it is. Friends are not immune from having arguments/disagreements of course, but should something happen they should be able to see past it, agree to disagree, etc. and move on without a faltering in their friendship. Sadly this is not the case, and whether this is because of the growing relevance of online chats compared to real life friends or any other factors that you can come up with, communication is always changing and will never really stay the same as years go on.

I could go on for quite a while about the inner workings of communication (Being a psyc major I get a bit obsessed with some topics like this at points), but when you get down to it a lot of things factor into the sharing and withholding information. As a friend you just have to do your best to dispel any doubts that what they share would be considered harmful. There are many techniques that are based around opening up this trust between two friends more, but even friends have some things they keep to themselves, that darkest kind of secret they wouldn't reveal to anyone regardless of how silly it may be at times. Being one half of the party though, all you can do as an individual is be yourself, open and honest, non judgemental, supportive, etc. and hope that they will see you in that way and as a result open up in the same way.

I can understand your frustration in many of these aspects but for every individual there are different factors to take into account. Just to throw one out there as an example using myself, I have had anxiety most of my life and recently within the past 2 years worked towards reducing it. I would also sing many chances I got when on my own because it was something I enjoyed, but I doubted my ability to sing well, which made me feel embarrassed. Because of this I would not tell anyone that I did sing or if it was asked if I did, at most I would give "Not really" or "Not seriously." I know your situations are probably more than just discussing a manner of what someone likes to do, but it just serves as a base example for one of the many reasons an individual may choose to withhold information from a friend. We just have to be understanding and work to gain their full trust in that there wouldn't be any harmful judgements revolving around any kind of information.

I agree it would be ideal if there were full trust between individuals, but at the same time it would be something that both parties have to work towards to accomplish, and sadly not everyone is willing to do this. You have to find those that click well with you and make your best bets with them and hope they will interact in a positive way as well..

I hope this helped a bit, would love to talk about this topic more regarding any scenarios you would be open to sharing with me in notes if you would like to. Talking about this stuff is great for me since it involves psychology as well, I cant help myself!

hit me up on telegram. i would love to talk more about this! nomadthewolf

Communication is key as they say.

to everything~