Myjellybean.com

Dear Jellybean,

My friends have been getting the wrong idea of me. Here's the story:

One of my friends that loves singing sang me one of the songs she wrote after I sang one of mine, and she asked me what I thought of it. I told her I liked the song, which I did, and that i'd love to hear another one some time. Since we were on the topic of opinions on music/singing, she asked me what I thought of her singing. At first, I asked her if she wanted the honest answer, and she said yes. (Right now, I think you should know that she's really sensitive to critisism.) I told her (gently!) that I really didn't like her singing, then I said something that I thought she should work on to be a better singer because she had potential. I half expected her to cry, half didn't, because like I said she's really sensitive to critisism. I was on the line for 2 hours trying to calm her down and explain everything, but it led to a bigger argument. Then my mom told me to get off the phone, so I decided to try talking to her in school the next day.

She told 2 of my other friends (lets put the letters P and A to identify them) about what happened over the phone. I talked to A about it, and she listened to my side of the story. But she also listened to what P thought of me, which wasn't very pretty. P had said that I was being very self centered in saying that the other friend was a bad singer just because I thought I was the best singer in the world. I don't think that, but I guess that P was still mad about the 4th grade, when I did the same thing to her, and I tried to let her off gently. She said she stopped singing because of me, and that got A to join her. I didn't mind that, P gets little minions anyway. I wanted to yell at P, and ask everyone that was involved why MY opinion mattered so much, but I decided not to. I also wanted to yell that I didn't think that I was the best singer in the world, but I was very afraid of losing the "minion" friends, so I kept that to myself to.

I tried to be the bigger person and let everything go, I managed to make up with the singer friend, so she asked if I was still ok with P. I said yes and that I was trying to be the bigger person about what she said and just brush it off. Turns out, the singer friend was on the phone with P and telling her all this (we were in a chat room). Singer notified me of this after she told P everything, and she typed that P said that if I was trying to be the bigger person, she was going to trash me and let the whole school (including my crush who really doesn't have a first impression of me yet!!!) know that i'm apparently self centered and thinking that I have that kind of authority.

And that's how it goes.

I have absolutely no idea whether to explain, ignore, or what!!! I need help!!! I'm sorry this is so long by the way.

-Katti

Dear Katti,

First, I need to tell you something that may be useful to you in future. When a friend asks your opinion about something creative they're done or a personal talent - such as their singing, a story they wrote, or a drawing they did - they are not really asking you to critique them, even if they insist and swear up-and-down that they are. What they really want to hear - the only thing that any of us want to hear, from the people who love us - is something along the lines of, "You're amazingly good" or "It's absolutely perfect" or "I'm totally jealous of your talent."

You are not a singing teacher, a producer, a talent agent, or anyone else whose negative opinion (no matter how nicely stated) could help your friend. You're not an expert in other words, so if you don't like her singing, she doesn't know that your opinion is objective - even if it is. Your relationship with her is a personal one, and so it's only natural that she took your criticism personally, and was hurt by it.

So now you now what to do the next time a friend asks you, "What do you think of me?" But right now, you've got to deal with the giant drama caused by your offhand remark.

I think you should apologize again to your singer friend, just to make it totally clear that you know what you did was wrong. (She's obviously still a bit miffed at you, if she three-way ambushed you on the phone). Tell her she realy does have a nice voice, you don't know why you said what you did, maybe you were PMS-ing or something, and you want her to know you think she's at least a good a singer as you. (Just swallow your pride and say it).

Then, tell your singer friend that you just want everyone to be friends again, and ask her if she could talk to P, and let her know how genuinely sorry you're feeling. Offer to apologize to P, too, if you somehow offended her, and keep stating how you just want things to be back to normal, and you feel responsible that they got out of whack in the first place.

If you can claim responsibility for the situation, which is a hugely mature thing to do, it's possible that everything will settle down again. It's worth a try, anyway.