#asklyss

And Jake’s been good at keeping his trap shut and not blabbing to me 😂😂😂

Love you bestie 😘🥰

OH THANK GOD! I hope Mav is the only one that knows because as I am writing these next couple of chapters I’m like… wait… does this person know or do they not… but thank you bestie!

Team work makes the dream work!

🫣

So now I’m following you (again) for reals 😂

Fighting amongst your friendship circle can be difficult, and sometimes the most difficult position is not the aggressor or the victim, but the one stuck in the middle. What do you do if two (or more) of your closest friends are fighting?

Let’s get one thing clear, you can play peacemaker, you can stay out of it and let the chips fall where they may. But please remember these two rules… do not take sides and do not get over involved. Other than that, go for your life! I can give you a personal example of what happened to me when I was trying to play peacemaker, got myself overinvolved and it came back to bite me on the butt. Suddenly I went from someone who had nothing to do with the drama, to losing two friends. If you’re an OG AskLyss fan and you followed my YouTube channel back when I did YouTube for a hot minute, then you remember this story about our much beloved characters Betty and Gerty (obviously fake names to protect the identities of my ex-friends). So here we go: Once upon a time I had two good friends, probably even best friends, who were friends with each other as well. But one of them (Gerty) confided in me that the other (Betty) had been doing some things that upset her. She told me she hated confrontation and asked if I would be able to talk to Betty and let her know that she was doing things that were bothering Gerty. Just a side note, no one forced me to get involved especially since I didn’t have a problem with Betty, but I decided to do it anyway thinking I could open up a line of communication between them. So while what comes next was unfair on me, no one forced me or even made me feel obligated to get involved but I did, and that’s on me.  Back to the story: I then I went off to talk to Betty, telling her that Gerty had some concerns but didn’t want to cause a fight so she asked me to sort it out. Betty was (rightly) confused as to why I was the one relaying the message, and suspicious considering Gerty had never voiced any concerns to Betty’s face before. Betty then told me she’d rather hear it from Gerty instead of a messenger. I thought that I had opened up the line of communication, Betty was going to go speak to Gerty, allowing a space for Gerty to air out her issues. Everyone says their piece and resolve it and move forward, right? Wrong! Betty did go and ask Gerty what’s up, to which (get this ya’ll) Gerty responded that she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, she had no issue with Gerty and didn’t ask me to speak to her at all! And so, the two did move forward, but they moved forward without me because Gerty had somehow twisted me to seem like the problem. Betty and I hadn’t spoken since then and this happened about 7 years ago, and all of this could’ve been avoided if I had helped out or stayed out.

Now, that’s not to say you can’t help out! You don’t have to throw your hands up and turn a blind eye to your fighting friends. If you think the fight is black and white, where one friend is severely mistreating the other or one friend is clearly at fault, you can step in and voice your opinion and outrage, but speak for yourself! Don’t speak for the other friend, rather support and comfort the other friend. For example, a black and white fight to me would be if one friend assaults, intimidates or threatens the other who has done nothing to retaliate. In that case I would voice my concern and upset to the antagoniser about how they are treating the other friend. That is not meddling. I would also encourage the other friend to stand up for themselves and confront the antagonise, or support that friend. That is also not meddling. Meddling would be to tell the antaganosiser that the other friend is feeling a certain way or said a certain thing. Speak for yourself and no one else. If a fight is more one that you don’t want to get involved with at all, then try to keep the conversation about anything else besides the other friends that they have a problem with, and if they do start bitching, try to nip it in the bud where you can. For example, if they bring up the friend they have a problem with, instead of agreeing with the bitching or changing the subject right away, say something like ‘maybe you should talk to her about this’, or ‘I want to stay friends with both of you I really don’t want to hear you saying nasty things about this person’, or ‘I’m here to listen and support you if you need to vent about how you feel, but nothing’s going to change if you don’t either confront her or choose to part ways with her altogether.’. That way, you’re offering your advice and standing up for the person being bitched about, but you’re also not getting yourself directly involved by choosing sides. If you keep responding to their bitching this way, you may slowly be able to get them to confront their issues or at least stop bitching and do something about their problems with each other. In terms of your own friendship with them, if you find it boring and frustrating to be friends with people who bitch about other people, then tell them! Tell them that when you hang out with them you don’t want to talk about other people, and you’re happy to be of support but you won’t stand for having to listen to them bitch constantly about another person. As a last resort, if what you’re saying is not sinking in, try to steer conversation back to something else when you feel like it’s turning into a bitching sesh, and eventually they’ll get the hint that their bitching is making other people uncomfortable. One thing to remember other than my giant rule of ‘NO MEDDLING’ is that if you want to stay friends with people who are fighting, be cautious not to bitch about one friend when you’re hanging out with the other, just because they are bitching about each other! And