Social settings can come with a lot of drama, you can find yourself in a situation where you need your friend to stand up for you. But we all know that this is not always the case.
Before you give up on your friendship, take a look at some of the ways that you can deal with your friend not defending you
How do you deal with a friend who won’t defend you?
The best way to deal with a friend who won’t defend you is by understanding that not everyone is brave enough to stand up for you. You must also pick friends that have the qualities that you want in a friendship, this will help you attract friendships that will stand the test of time.
7 Ways to deal with a friend who won’t defend you
Decide what qualities you want in a friend
Believe it or not, a lot of people randomly pick friends for the sake of having people around, and this can lead to situations of feeling isolated. Deciding on the qualities that you want will enable you to ignore people who don’t display the friendship qualities that you need, once you know what you want in a friend you can look for people who have such characteristics.
Defend yourself
You know yourself better than anyone so of course when push comes to shove you can stand up for yourself. Don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe in even if your friend doesn’t defend you in front of other people. If you feel cornered or people are treating you unfairly then say what you mean and mean what you say.
Explain later to your friend
If you are in a social setting and your friend didn’t defend you, confronting her in front of other people is not the way to get your point across. Firstly you run the risk of others overhearing your conversation and secondly your friend might feel uncomfortable and it could create more issues for your friendship. Set aside a time and a place after the incident and speak to your friend in a calm and relaxed manner that way she will probably tell you the truth as to why she didn’t defend you.
Forgive your friend
Hey, you can’t expect your friend to always be your night and shining armor moreover people make mistakes and this so happens to be one of those times. Your friend might not even be aware that you wanted her to defend you, some people take a long time to take hints. If this is the first time that such a situation has happened and your friend is sorry, then you can forgive her.
Keep yourself occupied
If after the said incident you have spoken to your friend and she doesn’t see anything wrong with her actions, then it would be the perfect time to occupy yourself with activities which don’t include being around each other, let the air cool down for a minute. You can also see how remorseful she is by seeing if she will reach out to you when you are no longer doing a lot of things together.
Understand that everyone reacts differently
Truth be told, not everyone is brave and opinionated, in social situations your friend might be naturally outspoken or quiet depending on her personality. Maybe your friend wanted to defend you but didn’t have the know-how as to how she would go about it. In addition to not knowing what to do or say, she might not have even known the people that you were having a confrontation with or be involved in the situation that happened, again, if this is the first time, cut her some slack.
Do not create drama for yourself
I know, you are probably thinking “ I never create drama”, but think about this for a second, what if you like going around creating dramatic situations that force others into this type of situation? If you constantly have to go around defending yourself all over the place as hard as it may be, you need to do some self-introspection. How many social arguments have you been involved in? Are you the one who is constantly being picked on?
Bear in mind that some people do get picked on all the time for no apparent reason, we are not talking about that here.
Why won’t my friend defend me?
Some people do not know how to stand up for others, your friend might be shy, socially anxious, or not know what to do.
5 Reasons your friend won’t defend you
She takes you for granted
When your friend takes you for granted this means that she knows that no matter what happens you will always be there for her. So when she doesn’t defend you, even if your feelings will be hurt, she takes for granted that you will be around.
You can take control of this by showing her that she can’t turn her back on you and still expect you to be around, being a friend means being there through good and awkward times.
She is socially anxious
Take it from me, defending a friend when you are socially anxious is not easy. So many things run through your mind, and the dreaded ‘What if this fight gets physical and I get injured?’. Yes, these are some of the things that we think about.
You never defended her in the past
This point needs no explanation, if you have never defended your friend when she needed you, then you can’t expect her to do the same for you.
You are not good friends
We can link this point to being socially anxious, I should add that even though I am nervous in social settings if my friend needed me I would go all out and defend her no matter how awkward I feel. Ask yourself, are you, close friends?
She is a hypocrite
Now, I don’t know why your friend didn’t stand up for you, but speaking hypothetically, if you are arguing with people that she has said bad things about you to, then she will not defend you. They will see her as being two-faced. Why wouldn’t they? I mean here she is talking about you behind your back and at the same time defending you in front of them.
To wrap it up
There are plenty of reasons why your friend felt that she didn’t need to stand up for you, the best way to find out why is to ask her. The most important thing to keep in mind is that people react differently when out in public, but the one thing you should always be able to rely on is your friend defending you.