Losing people and how to stop it

email me. theres possibility some crossover with my situation this and last year

I guess no one no this board actually has IRL friends to offer advice about. OK, point taken. Never mind, sorry I asked.

well did you email gareth or not? he did ask.

anyway this sounds as though your feelings for her are not being reciprocated. we need more detail. have you two had anything even approaching a "relationship" or is it just friends at work? you don't make it clear in your post. it seems you are projecting sky-high expectations onto her which she could never hope to match, and it's therefore inevitable that you will be let down.

if you haven't told her how you feel about her, then you need to do so now. it might be like cutting your right arm off, but you need to know. at worst she will say no. that might be painful initially, but at least you'll know where you stand. what will probably happen is that she'll be flattered but will prefer to keep you as a friend.

what COULD happen of course is that she will say YES. you have to take the chance. ask her.

i disagree that your suicidal ideation is a red herring. you want us to think it's a red herring. but in fact it's what's eating away at you more than anything else, isn't it? if she vanishes from your life, you feel you'll have no reason to go on. so the job is the real red herring.

but to help you, we need to know more.

I've been trying to think how to answer this, actually, but none of my close friends are people I work with. I THINK if it was me I'd suspect that the friendship could be SAVED by working apart, but you clearly don't think would be the case. 'Stop fighting' might be a good idea - not because you will definitely lose the friendship but because trying less hard can sometimes actually revive things.

i've been emailed and replied (i'm obviously not going to say who it is, so anything i add to this thread will be generic, or about me)

the other anon person i'm not sure i agree with, sometimes less analysis and discussion with the person works better (as archel says), introduce some levity and fun back into things. my mistake was too much discussion with friend about why things had gone wrong, ie, focus on past not future (some discussion is good idea but not too much). you have to do the things that made things good in the first place (ie, resentment and upset has to be overcome FIRST!)

Anon(1) it's not that ppl dont want to help or reply - it's just that it's a difficult and non-specific qn and it needs a lot of thought before anything useful might come up. Trying more to have fun outside work might help, or trying to work on your own for a set time - it's very hard to know without an idea of what sort of work it is.

I have emailed Gareth, yes, he's said some very helpful things.

I suppose the "work" thing is confusing people, because we don't do a normal job, we're self employed, and therefore far more dependant/codependant upon each other than people in a corporate employment situation would be.

We had/have a very close "best friends" type relationship and it's been like that since even before we chose to start this project together. Our lives outside of our project have taken vastly different turns, and gone in diametrically opposite directions, so we don't actually even really *have* anything in common socially any more except our work. If we stopped working together, I really think it would be the end of the friendship, we've got nothing else holding us together.

we have talked about this, her answer is that she cares about me, but it's difficult when the only thing we have in common is that work, and we're both frustrated by that work at the moment. (we both have very defined and separate roles. neither of us can do the other person's job, and i don't think that either of us really understands the pressure that the other one feels. perhaps the strict division of labour is causing the friction...? it's becoming symbiotic in a sick way.) This is a big symptom of all the problems... both with our relationship, and the problems within our project.

I understand why she wants to work with other people. It just doesn't make me feel more secure about not losing her. If she were go to work for someone more established, she'd get more easy rewards for less work (but I'm hoping less fulfillment?) They can offer a lot more than I can, and I'm scared.

I guess, stop whining, stop complaining, and try to be a nicer person, have more fun together, remind both of us of why we were friends and what we LIKE about each other in the first place. Easier said than done when you're not feeling very positive about yourself or your work to start with.

remember why you do it:

http://www.thelollies.co.uk/ass.jpg

Well, it's difficult. When you're working with someone who has more stability than you and is getting attention you're not, it drags up all kinds of insecurities even if your colleague is one of the nicest people in the whole world (this happened to me once, the person in question is out of my life now). I think if she is offered work with others, you should let her take it, otherwise you'll feel guilty for not letting her do it when you really have no right to object to it (and it helps not to second-guess the people offering her work) and she would resent having to toe the line if you asked her not to. If the work is temporary, that might be the break you two need to jazz your own thing up.

Stopping your collaboration is not the answer. A hiatus would be good, and is normal after a burst of activity.

The obvious answer is, of course, to find an external outlet of my own. A hiatus would be good if it were a mutual thing, not a "people want to work with her, but not with me" thing that it feels like.

I don't need to second guess the third party. I *know* that he is trouble, he has cause trouble before and I have my reasons for disliking him and distrusting him.

(BTW, I did not post anonymously before because I wished to deceive, but because A) I did not want to get random sympathy emails from strangers saying "don't kill yourself please" when that is not the issue at all and B) I didn't want people's advice to be coloured by dislike or me or resentment of my profession.)

But knowing your situation does help make the first post make a lot more sense, because I was picturing an office job.

The "finding an external outlet" idea seems really good. You're a good writer, writing might be a good area to get creative with and take a break from all of the profession-related drama.

I was actually on a website the other day where a person was dying to find a copy of the "The Deep Field" online somewhere, so there is an audience out there!

Yes, missy, and you didn't take the Codex details I gave you so go get a book published, it's a piece of pish to do. And you will feel much better.

I can write books like most people can write grocery lists. (Heck, I just wrote another one all about Julian Casablancas' ass.) Writing book proposals, however... grrrraarrrrggghghg. Doesn't help that my "agent" is somewhere on holiday in Scotland with her mother and hasn't had time to read my manuscript. Just like a REAL agent. Feh.

Sorry, I keep forgetting that because this is starting to FEEL so much like a job, that it's not what most people think of as a job. It still requires the same interpersonal skills and problem solving. No matter what the job is, resolving friction remains a constant concern.

Oh, and what website, BTW? Give them my yahoo address, I'll be happy to send them along a word .doc of the Deep Field.

I don't really remember, I was looking at a blur site but I don't remember which one exactly.