3. Shitty gamification
Related to 2, it's when the other party turns the whole friendship into a game of guessing the "right move". They lose all authenticity, are increasingly cautious with the words they choose, and their personality disappears from the bond. That makes them prone to increased resentment.
This is almost impossible to fix because any conversation about the issue will also be shittily gamified. This is what Bateson calls a double bind.
wrote:Some of my warning signs for failing friendships—a thread. I happen to care a lot about friendships, so for me when they break it's quite salient. I spent a lot of time thinking about them, read academic articles of sociology and psychology on the topic, etc. What I'm going to talk about is typically reserved for romantic relationships, while friendships are comparatively disinvested and set aside (that's amatonormativity), so if it sounds like I care too much, that's why, don't @ me.