My Friends

Recently I had a falling out with a friend for the second time, so I want to make a post about my experiences and my advice I have for you in case you're dealing with the same thing. No major warnings are needed for this one.

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I'd known this guy for a while. We've talked for a few years. I genuinely did enjoy talking to him for a while, he has a pretty interesting personality. But back when I first new him, I was a bad person and I acted irrationally often. I didn't understand I was acting poorly, but after our falling out, I began changing a lot because of that and many other unrelated things.

We reconnected a while (over 6 months or so) later through a mutual acquaintance, to which he initially said some bad stuff about me to them, but I believe his anger was justified being he knew no other me than who I was previously.

When we started talking again, I would feel that I was being "left out" of the conversation because most times whenever I mentioned something about myself, he would circle it back to him and continue speaking. That as well as whenever I disagreed with him on something or believed him to be in the wrong, he did this thing where he would delete entire conversations and get an "attitude" towards me before leaving for a day or so and refused to talk about it any further.

When this started to become even more frequent, I was stressed, especially when I have other bad stuff going on. I would vent through amino posts because these are a way that help me relieve stress and cope, because when I would talk to him personally about it, he would proceed to act as if I was acting irrationally, "what are you even taking about" was a common phrase or he would just try to tell me I'm wrong or do things like bringing up other people he talks to and saying "x doesn't think I do this/x says I'm not like that".

Even then, he took my posts asking for help regarding the situation or ones simply made for venting as an attack (to clarify, I didn't name him) and would retaliate by sending me angry dms or making posts of his own where he would say some bad stuff about me.

I was scared to take things to him personally because of the way he reacts. I understand venting on a platform where he would likely read it isn't the best way of going about it, but I would rather have got it all out in a way that relieved stress for me if I was going to deal with angry dms either way. I hope you understand.

Recently, he had been constantly venting to me out of the blue daily, sending dozens of voice notes & messages all the time with no regard for how I am and would hardly ever allow me to vent as well. I allowed him to do so, of course, I never spoke against it because I love to let my friends vent and get all that stress out and I definitely do not have a problem with that alone, but at a point a line needs to be drawn.

That line was feeling like I was being treated as if I was only there to serve his own needs and kiss his ass. The other day, he needlessly entered an argument & began shit-talking the other person and I calmly told him I believed him to be in the wrong, to which he did the usual thing of becoming defensive, telling me to stop talking about it, then deleted all his messages from that conversation again.

I had enough of everything and I messaged him, I told him how I was feeling in a direct, but not aggressive manner and he never even addressed how I was feeling. He avoided it responding to anything I was actually saying and went around my point, then said "ok" and left and blocked me on the other social media we speak on.

I realized that even though I had grown as a person, it's not always the same case for other people. Some people stay the same for a while. He exhibited the same behaviors I was upset by from when we first met, but I didn't know how to properly understand even the root of my feelings let alone how to address them back then.

I have no cold feelings toward him though, and I hope he changes for the better. But I finally understand I can't trust him and I can't be his friend.

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I want to tell you that you're worth more than that. You are better than letting people walk all over you. Their company isn't worth the mental gymnastics and stress you have to go through in order to be their friend.

A bad friendship is not always directly hurtful in a way that they're straight up calling you names. Sometimes your friend may not even understand that they've hurt you. The problem arises with how they react to your feelings, problems, and being told they've hurt you.

Your friend isn't being a friend if you have to convince them it's a real problem whenever you talk about one, if you have to convince them your feelings are real and justified.

Don't waste your time on people who don't care about you or people who don't show you the same understanding as you show them ESPECIALLY if you have to be understanding to tune point of accepting they won't listen to you or see you point of view.

Someone who makes you feel like your emotions are stupid, people who neglect you then come back when THEY need you, none of that is worth it. It's not normal for you to spend more energy & time on them than they do in return, neither is if they compete with you about who has the worst situation. You're a person too, you are deserving of love and respect.

You'll find good people out there. Just keep looking, alright?