Bad Friends
Back in high school, I had a group of friends that mostly consisted of girls. I wasn't necessarily friends with them because they were girls I was interested in or anything, but because they were fellow students at my school who happened to live in the same neighborhood as me. So we often hung out at the bus stop together or walked to each other's houses to do stuff after school. I considered them among my better friends until I started noticing things about them. For example, I'm pretty sure one of them stole money directly out of my bedroom in my own home once, and while I was pretty convinced I knew which one of them had done it, I had no evidence pinpointing any one of them other than to say that they had all been in my room that day, so it was something I really only knew and kept to myself. Most egregiously though, for me anyway, was that after high school, the one I thought I was closest to got married and never really thought to get in touch with me again afterward until she was in the process of getting a divorce. To me, that was indicative that she only felt our friendship was necessary when she wasn't in a relationship with another dude, which is honestly pretty gross.
This person, last I had heard, had entered a new romance as well and to no one's surprise, I haven't heard from them since.
After high school, I worked at a job where I made a number of new friends. I thought they were pretty great and I was eager to get to know them because I wanted friends that had nothing to do with where I went to school. I wanted adult friends. Friends who were friends with me because they actually liked me, not because they saw me every day and it was more convenient for them to be friendly than hostile. We went to a lot of movies and parties together. They were a blast, but again, because I was so eager for new friends, I turned a blind eye to a lot of the weird things that should have made me doubt them. The absolute worst moment was when I rode with them to a party in an unfamiliar neighborhood only for them to all leave in the middle of the night without me. I told myself that maybe they had just forgotten that I rode with them when they left, but after growing up and falling out of touch with all of them, I know that I was left there on purpose. Especially since they had tried and failed a number of other times at ditching me places. I even remember the whispering when each of them got up in the middle of the night to rush out the door. It was humiliating trying to figure out how I was going to get home the next morning and thankfully the party host was gracious enough to let me hang out until I figured it out.
That was the last I ever heard from that group of people.
When we believe people are our friends, we want to believe the best in them. They wouldn't steal from us or cut off communication from us or outright ditch us, right? Then when you find out or realize that these kinds of things have, in fact, taken place, you feel kind of stupid. Like it's our fault for not knowing that these people were bad news from the beginning. But while our judge of character might be a little off, know that you aren't stupid for wanting to believe the best in people. The fault lies in the people who do these kinds of things to other people in the first place and hopefully they've learned from their mistakes. Especially since I think all of the people that I've written about here have children now. For the sake of their kids, I hope they've changed how they behave towards other people.
Until next time...
Anyone that steals from you or strands you somewhere were never friends to begin with and unfortunately their kids will probably be just as much of an asshole as their parents.
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