"Space"

Inserting red flag here: This post is from my perspective. All opinion(s) that will be stated are my own and if someone doesn't agree, they can comment about it down below or contact me through my email/social media. I will be talking about asking "space" from friend(s) as that is what I have experience with. 

When it comes to asking friend(s) for space, both sides of the friendship need to be taken into consideration. The person asking for space and the person who you are asking space from need to be on an understanding ground. This is not always the case, but I will discuss that later on. The person who is asking for space needs to realize that this is not an excuse to get rid of a person you do not like. If you do not like the friend you are associating with, you need to end the friendship. From my experience and experience I've seen from friends, a friend would ask for "space" repeatedly, avoid them for a certain period of time without explaining the conflict and then pop back into their lives pretending like everything is great. Their excuse for asking for "space" would be "you're too clingy" or "you're too attached" to them, which is understandable, people do have the right to their personal space. However, this would be hypocritical as the person is repeatedly asking for space and then coming back after one to two weeks. This shows that you are too attached (aka clingy) to your friend to let go and thus, you do the second best thing in your head which is asking for "space" to solve a conflict. This vicious cycle of asking for "space", is not only disrespectful to the friend you're avoiding, but also it isn't solving your problem with your friend. If you genuinely have an issue with your friend, you need to figure out what the issue is and communicate your problem. 

While I read this post over, I do realize that my argument thus far is narrow because I've been using my real-life example as a way to support my argument without taking other factors into consideration. Other factors can include not having an understanding ground, which I mentioned above. For example, you like your friend but the friend causes a lot of conflicts, or they lean on you too much for advice/support which is putting you in a tough position. For this scenario, a few things need to be taken into consideration which includes communicating with your friend and explaining the problem at hand. If that does not work, you can then ask for "space" to help you evaluate the situation (which is not a repetitive chosen action) and help you decide what your next step will be. With this solution, there can be conflicts because the friend can ignore your request and continue to act as if everything is normal which should give you the red flag to end the friendship. Reason being, if there is no respect, trust, or understanding in a friendship, there is no friendship. This would be a very clear example of not having an understanding ground and being in a dysfunctional friendship.

Lastly, if we look at this from the perspective of the person who you are asking "space" from, you are not required to agree with your friends request for "space." This does not mean you should ignore them and act like everything is normal, I mean you can decline and end the friendship. I know you must be thinking that is so ridiculous because they're your friend and you love hanging with them. This makes sense, however, I would like to give a little insight. If your friend is asking you for "space" due to an issue they have with you and you know you won't change or you believe that you are not in the wrong; then there is no point of wasting each others time. Your friend will continue to have an issue with you which will result in your friend asking for space and you'll continue to act the same way. This will become a vicious cycle until one of you either gives up or changes their mind set. What I feel that people need to understand is that you do not need to change yourself for anyone. If you believe that you are in the right, you do not want to change your ways, then you need to start associating with people who like you for you. Giving into peoples pleas for "space" is not in the description of being their friend, and you are not required to do so if you do not want to. 

I can talk about this topic for days, however, I am going to stop it there as we talked about 3 different scenarios when it comes to asking for "space." I hope you like the read and I apologize if you do not agree with my point of view. This is just my opinion on the topic. I do not expect you to follow this and go around ending your friendship with people, however, do keep this at the back of your head when it comes to situations like these.