4 Reasons Why Good People Don’t Stay in Your Life for Long

No, it’s never because you’re a bad person.

If I can be honest, I have a reasonable amount of resentment towards extremely social and extroverted people. Because they’re most likely to be the epitome of “too good to be true.”

Maybe that’s another reason why I love writing. I can express my thoughts in the corner of a dark room and let others digest them quietly too. No appropriate body language, physical assertion, or strong speech is needed to get your points across.

The root cause of the resentment is that the majority of those whom I’ve encountered so far tend to shame people with a strong sense of individuality who often say ‘no’ to them. They can’t grasp the reality that they finally come across somebody who isn’t a crowd-pleaser like them and choose to keep a certain distance away from another individual(s) whenever appropriate.

Those are the same people who always complain about loneliness despite having 100x more opportunities to build wholesome and long-lasting relationships with their natural ample social skills, compared to someone like me. Yet, ironically, I feel excessive with less than 10 best friends.

I’ve seen my friend’s ex being repeatedly scammed and owed by a bunch of others whom he claimed to be his "friends"; MLM agents, co-workers, relatives. Despite being such a reliable and positive guy. Although I got to admit that he had rubbed me quite the wrong way plenty of times due to some misplaced opinions.

I’ve read a post on Reddit about how this person’s social life turned 180 degrees after the pandemic hit and realized how lonely he truly was because the so-called “best friends” never even once checked on him since. His venting and asking for advice from random strangers on the internet obviously speaks volumes.

We’re social creatures but how could these wonderful people who seemingly put others first before themselves ironically get the short end of the stick?

Lacking a sense of self

What happens when you don’t have any clear idea who you truly are? You would either shut yourself off from the world or mask it all together. The latter is a pain in the ass because metaphorically speaking you resemble those counterfeit luxury goods…and their suppliers.

Counterfeiters make a quick buck off desperate people who want to look lavish in front of their cliques with limited budgets. They could have warded off these illegal activities by coming up with fresh and unique business ideas that might be more sustainable and work just as fine if not better but choose not to.

They plagiarize because they don’t have any vision beyond “people go nuts over those branded bags already but not all can afford them so there is that.” It’s the same with being extroverted people who “hoard” connections and friendships, fake or genuine, without filters.

You see yourself as a sponge that absorbs the identities of others with whom you interact, hoping that they become yours too. You make interacting with as many people as possible and sacrificing yourself for irrelevant ones your whole personality that you don’t have time to sit down, self-reflect quietly, amplify yours to look for the right audience.

Crowd-pleasing attitude

Because you have a weak foundation of self, it’s a logical step that you tend to please every human being on this planet. You think that you’re doing a huge service for the large crowd. No, they see you as disposable as a plastic cup that is quickly thrown away and forgotten once they’re done with you.

I don’t completely condemn online activism. I agree that many issues need to be voiced out where and when necessary to a certain degree. However, more often than not, it gives room for people to talk about something they don’t actually believe in or have a lack of knowledge on for the sake of virtue signaling. Pleasing a certain crowd online for extra social brownie points due to the fear of cancel-culture and political correctness.

I frequently express my own “unpopular” opinions that some might find “controversial” on my social media because I am never worried about the repercussions of going against the mob who has little to no effect on my life outside the internet.

When you say one thing on your Instagram post then express another completely opposing view on it to your real-life friends, you’re showing both sides that you are just another coward who can’t be trusted. They are assuming that you’ll snitch on them if they ever open up to you.

Nobody wants to befriend someone who posted the black square once whilst actively seeing black people as some sort of threat in real life for no apparent reason.

Denial of the reality

“After everything I’ve ever done, this is what I’ve got in return?!”

There is this particular frustration that is bound to emerge when you’re self-repressed for the sake of being likeable so hard. I used to work under a seemingly outgoing and bubbly superior who threw tantrums like a 15 year old angsty teenager once he found out that my colleagues and I were in a separate group chat to vent our frustration on how he was one of the causes for making our office environment demoralizing.

The group chat wasn’t created intentionally to gossip or spite anyone but we have had enough because nobody, especially our superior, who had the power to tweak things around, just wouldn’t want to listen and take in our feedback.

My superior saw himself as this typical “white knight” who viewed everyone working for this company as his “family” who needed saving. Which was not the case at all. We instead saw him as another boss who attempted to exploit our labor and refused to be criticized.

Not being willing to accept and improve the negative aspects of yourself eventually pushes people, who want to see you do better, away no matter how much agreeable you are 99% of the time.

Zero expectations and efforts to set the boundaries

The aforementioned superior of mine couldn’t seem to be capable of separating his professional and personal relationships. Imagine having a manager or boss who texts you on the weekend, not because he/she has something urgent for you to get done.

They instead ask you inappropriate personal questions like, “how are you spending your Sunday?” “I’m bored today because I have no one to take on a date. Would anyone want to join?” on Slack.

No employee would feel comfortable having a boss who acts like their nagging mom on times when they’re supposed to enjoy free time, would they?

If someone at work is capable of crossing a line like this, imagine what they could’ve presumably done to those who are intimate to them. Possessively asking where you are and what you’re up to every minute? Most likely.

My boss was having a hard time saying no to projects that were obviously unfit for the company as well. Even after being suggested how those projects were extraneous and only added more burdens rather than being helpful to the start-up’s growth by my other superior.

“But they may bring in lots of money for us! Why are we rejecting blessings from others? You can do it! Stay positive!”

What is a blessing to you can mean a curse to anyone else. You set boundaries not because you’re arrogant or obnoxious. You do so to filter out what doesn’t suit you but to do that, you must start by getting in touch with your spirit, or inner child as coined by psychologists.

You have the right to be inclusive of every person you meet but you can’t risk your personal space for that. You need a set of standards that can govern your life in your best interest. Please don’t take the advice to be selfless out of context.

To recap the main ideas, things you should start implementing to avoid taking good people in your life for granted:

• Stop all the redundant interactions and spend some time alone to search for yourself
• Get to know your core beliefs and values
• Identify what’s so unique about you
• Stop doing things out of societal pressure
• Being stern about what you believe in and stand up for yourself
• Accept that out of 100 people you meet, there will be at the very least 20–30 on the dislike button. Focus on the remaining 70–80 instead and don’t derail your attention from that to hoarding again
• Set your standard and boundaries
• Learn to say no to people or things that no longer serve your purpose
• Being selfless doesn’t have to be at the cost of your dignity

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