Wednesday 25 January 2012

Friends and Foes

I wrote a couple days ago about the low-life, this miserable person who may not even realize what a negative force she is and how badly she is affecting people. All I know is she treated me poorly and for that I decided, in what I now know is a very immature mentality, that no one else should interact with her, much less have a relationship with her and to do so would only end in them getting hurt as well. Also, there’s a very selfish side that can’t shake that teenage girl in me saying “I don’t like her so my friends should be blindly loyal to me and not like her either”. Selfish is exactly where both those trains of thought come from.
Here’s the thing, my friend, Katie (not her real name) is somewhat acquaintances with the low-life (should be her real name) and I tried to tell Katie she will get hurt. I tried reasoning with her, like why do you even want to be seen with her? The bottom line is maybe Katie will get hurt, maybe she won’t but it’s not for me to stop. That logic and conversation always starts with “I’m only looking out for you” and almost always ends with your ego and you wanting your friend to show her loyalty. This turns into said friend feeling the need to sneak around or hide the relationship, so who’s getting hurt now? Plus, how good does it feel to say “I told you so”! Ha, I kid! But in all seriousness, just because one relationship didn’t work out doesn’t mean another won’t. Not that the low-life and I really had a relationship, but just because our personalities clash and we don’t get on well, that doesn’t mean she won’t get on with Katie.
Same goes with exes. I have a close friend, let’s call her Stephanie (I would never use my friends’ real names, this is an alias) who is struggling with her ex moving on. We’ve all been there. It’s not necessarily that we want the ex back, it's more we question what’s wrong with us. In Stephanie’s case he’s moved on and grown up. He’s kept a steady job when he hasn’t been able to before, he’s living with the new girlfriend when he wouldn’t commit to Stephanie after three years of dating and he’s on the fast track to marriage with the new women. So, you can see how Stephanie is questioning herself and what’s wrong with her. Why didn’t it work for her? Why didn’t he want to grow up and marry her? All I could tell her in her is; just because it didn’t work with you two doesn’t mean your love for each other wasn’t real, it doesn’t mean that you are a bad person or he is a bad person, it just means you were bad together or maybe even not bad but not as good as it should have been. That doesn’t take away anything from you and who you are or how amazing you are. It just means they are better suited for each other. If it helps think of another ex, one you broke up with and moved on from, look back and tell me you didn’t love that ex at the height of the relationship and he must be a good person, otherwise you wouldn’t have dated him to begin with. See how you look back at this ex with a slight smile, he probably thinks the same of you. That it was right at that time in life, it’s just not right now.
As hard as it can be, let your friends and foes alike live their lives, build the relationships they need and want. Basically, award them the same opportunity you were given, to grow and learn.  

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