Pursuers Versus Persuees At Work

My husband sent me this theory on friendships by the wife of a prominent ESPN blogger.  He doesn’t remember where he found it, so I’ll just have to quote rather than link:

 

 

“I have always said that female friends are "pursuers" or "pursuees." I am a "pursuee." You have to pursue me to be my friend. I don't like planning things or calling people, I'm bad at returning e-mails and will absolutely let four months pass without you hearing from me. That's why I usually stay in touch with "pursuers." They are the ones who like to plan everything and be in charge. Pursuers plan Vegas weekends or baby showers; pursuees just show up. The problem is that two pursuees can't be friends because neither of them ever calls the other one!  Like, Bill always gets mad that I don't hang out more with my friend Lynette (we both love music and we're both easygoing), but she's even harder to chase down than I am.  I wish there was a Web service (pursuer.com?) that could organize lunches and buy concert tickets for us.  Then I'd see her more!”

 

 

Thank you, thank you blogger wife.  It is so nice to see this acknowledged, especially by a self-proclaimed pursuee!  You see, I have been the pursuer in the majority of my female friendships for years, and it has always bothered me to no end.  See, I don’t want to be the pursuer all the time.  I want my friends and me to call or e-mail one another, and instigate plans, on a semi-equal basis.   Especially if I’m going through a particularly busy or stressful period.  There have been several points in my life where I have decided to stop all my initiations and see what happened.  Well, you can probably guess.  I sat home alone for a very long time.

 

 

It has occurred to me to wonder what pursuees do at work.  Are they the same with colleagues and managers as they are with their friends, and how does this behavior (or lack thereof) fly?  There must be a correlation between people’s “pursue” status and the degree of success they experience in their professional lives.  After all, pursuers actively go after what they want, while pursuees wait for someone to come around and give it to them.  But what if some people are persuees socially, but up the ante at work?   Is pursue status the type of thing you can turn on and off, or is it central to your core personality?

Discuss!

Comments

[Brian Baute]

Here's the link: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080912

[Erika with Qvisory]

I'm pretty sure I'm a pursuee, but I'm not impossible to a hold of and I'm not that way when I'm working. I know for me, I tend to place too low of a priority on friendships. I love my friends, and they're important to me, but they get lost in the shuffle a lot. Luckily, my friends are like me, so when we do see each other once every 4 months it's after a few re-schedulings but no one minds!

[Alexandra Levit]

Erika, I really appreciate you coming out and saying that you place a low priority on friendships. The honesty is really refreshing. I think that if some of my friends would just admit it, I wouldn't have expectations and end up being disappointed.

[Alexandra Levit]

Thanks for the link, Brian!