* sighs *

I'm at a loss. About half a year ago I was in a situation where one friend (male) was having trouble with how another friend (female) was behaving. He was going to deal with it by just move back to the sideline and not interacting with anyone but that would have excluding him not solving anything.. This 'solution' would have made me feel bad.... As I was in a position of organizing gatherings between friends and I took it upon myself to say something to my friend (female) to see if I could remedy the situation.... What I did was presented things in such a way that she could save face... made the situation entirely my fault and asked her to do me a favor of helping me deal with my trouble by not doing certain actions at our gatherings. She agreed. Problem solved right? For them at least it was.

I was also talking about this situation with another friend... someone very trusted... I told her what I planned to do... and later how it turned out.... she agreed that it seemed to work but was very surprised I'd do such a thing... she felt I lied... in a sense I may have... I didn't tell the whole truth instead wanting to spare both friends feelings. At that moment she made me promise I'd never do the same thing to her... I questioned it saying if I did it any other way the situation would have turned out with one person being distant or another person being angry... Still she insisted I make that promise.... I did... which brings me to yesterday....

I needed to decide what I wanted to do about a situation involving me. I made up my mind and this was going to be a change my trusted friend would have noticed... Because of my promise and despite my better judgement... I told her the truth about what I was going to do... As expected she got angry at me... not for telling her the truth but because she feels I was trying to force her to change her behavior. I wasn't... Does she believe me? Who knows.... I reminded her about the promise... and said I probably shouldn't have told her my reasons and that I honestly beleive it's okay to not tell the compelte truth or tell a white lie should it let someone save face or prevent needless hurt. Now the friend no longer trusts me as she once did...

Had I done nothing at all this time it would have been me at the sidelines...Such is life.