Yeah, I'm still not getting any better about this blogging. One problem is I've wanted to write about people who might read what I write! Ha! The point of an anonymous blog lost because I have told people about it. That would be funny, if it weren't sort of annoying. At the same time, I have no idea who else would read this randomness if it weren't the people I've told about it! So, I suppose I will throw caution to the wind to delve into one conspicuous change in my life in the past couple of months: friendships.
For instance, it has come to my attention that a certain individual talks about me behind my back. While this is, generally, unsurprising as the person is a gossip and I've always known that, as well as this: if someone wants to talk about other people's business inappropriately
to you than the chance is very good they will discuss your business inappropriately with others. I
loathe gossip, as most people who know me will acknowledge, and I defend myself against it by pointing out to the potential gossiper that they are sharing information I shouldn't know and to please stop, as I am not interested. (A side note: I do not consider it "gossip" for a person who is pissed at a friend's behavior toward them to have a venting session about her or him with another friend, mutual or otherwise--that's part of what friends are for, and, in essence, that is what I am doing now. I mean: gossip is the sharing of information that would not be commonly known without the approval of the original subject.) That being said, I had already become fairly careful to only tell this person that which I would not mind being known by everyone else we have in common. Unfortunately, I'm not talking about gossip, I'm talking about truly two-faced behavior: one thing said to another friend, something else to me; comments attributed to me, that I never said, about events I was completely unaware of; also, a couple of statements that I can only consider slurs.
Now, the particular slurs demonstrate something unfortunate about this person: the schoolyard bully desire to put someone down to raise oneself up. Some people never outgrow this, evidently, but may add subtlety in adulthood. As ever though, it is still a demonstration of insecurity and, more frequently, jealousy. It can even manifest in a person's perceptions and opinions of events. Whether these opinions are shared with their subject or with someone else is not that important, except if they are shared with their subject it's a much more direct attack, and typically requires more subtlety and the guise of some other reason. If the subject is a healthy person, she learns to recognize it for what it is, regardless.
Something to consider, as my truly close friends, and those who have been very close friends in the past, know--I have no problem with my friends sharing their opinions with me about anything and everything. (Including about this blog, obviously, whether you're one who reads and posts or just reads and tells.) Opinions are great topics of conversation, debate and consideration. However, as those people also know--the only opinions pertaining to me, directly, which would be taken to heart upon hearing are those of my parents. The only two people who absolutely have only my best interests at heart, and no other potential personal agenda, for sharing the opinion with me. All others will be viewed under the basis of the current relationship/circumstance and either tossed or retained for further consideration. (I became a better listener due to some well-considered comments by a friend several years ago.)
These friends also know that I will always respect the other person's right to hold the opinion, but if it is an opinion about me, personally, that I think is judgmental garbage coming from less than altruistic reasoning, chances are I will "consider the source" and will distance myself accordingly. After all, if you know someone holds a poor opinion of something about you, why continue the relationship as it stands? The same way that if I come to hold a poor opinion of someone (or something about her/him) I would choose to distance myself from them anyway. This is how we choose friends; it is what we have done since childhood. We cannot pick our blood families (or for those adopted--the families we are raised in), but we can pick the friends that become our second family as we grow. No one should choose to stay close to someone who judges you poorly, that person will not be a support or an understanding ear. That person becomes a minefield to tread very carefully around.
I have learned that it is very difficult to be a healthy, secure, stable, confident person if you have many friends who do not typically share most of those qualities. The unhealthy, insecure, unstable, less-than-confident will want you to feel the same. I realize I was not in a very happy place for quite a while in the past couple of years. A big relationship collapsed (several times, to be honest) that was not with a particularly healthy person to begin with, and in the midst of it, I had changed. I had become someone I almost didn't recognize. It has taken me a long time to fight my way back to myself, but it finally feels complete in the past year. Unfortunately, I have come to realize that I found some security through that time by latching on to people as equally screwed up or more screwed up than I was! Safety in numbers, I suppose. It is very weird to become blazingly aware that several of your relationships need to be adjusted or even abandoned because the other person is simply a bad influence or wildly self-centered or spectacularly inappropriate or incredibly insecure or is, in some other way, deeply unhealthy. Any and all of which may make them periodically aggressive or antagonistic about whatever healthy trait you are displaying that they don't currently hold themselves! Still, I suppose it is better to be aware of it than wonder why spending time with a person has started to irritate, frustrate, sadden or anger you. Culling the herd, so to speak, and starting to spend more time with those that are in a similar healthy state as yourself. As someone said, "Like breeds like." As such, I need to be spending the majority of my time with the people who are in the same place as I am.
Just to be clear, I'm not advocating dropping friends when they are going through a bad time--NO WAY! I'm blessed with the healthy friends I have who had continued reaching out to me through the bad time. These being the ones, along with my parents and family, who have most likely said, "You are so much more you, again" in the past several months. Nearly all of them recognizing in some way the end of the less-than-me I had been for a while. I note this as we are spending more time together or are in better touch now that I am more myself, again. I have learned it is best to realize which friends are truly friends versus which so-called friends have been unhealthy ballast in desperate times. Best of all, it is a relief to recognize it, and to act accordingly.
