7 Things Having Fake Friends Teaches You
Thank them for the lessons, then let them go
Though I’ve had a couple of fake friends back in my school days, I wasn’t spending a major chunk of my day with them. And also, since the number of good, real friends I had in school outnumbered the fake ones, I was very much protected from the effects a ‘fake’ company could have on you.
It was in college where I had my first literal experience with fake friends, and though it only took me a couple of months to realize that these people didn’t give two shits about me, I decided to stick with them because I felt like I had nowhere else to go to. And they knew it as well because I’ve been told to my face that I was with them because I didn’t have anybody else to hang out with.
Though my time with them was absolutely shitty, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t learn anything while I was with them. Looking back, I feel that I needed that experience to become a smarter and stronger individual.
We all talk about the negatives of being surrounded by fake friends, but we never talk about the things it teaches us.
1. People like a People Pleaser Only When They Are Pleasing Them
The only reason my ‘friends’ — who were at the top of the social pyramid — even hung out with me is because I shred every ounce of authenticity and self-respect I had in me to be with them.
They didn’t want a friend with his own personality and opinions; they wanted a people pleaser and a yes-man. Lucky for them, I checked both those boxes. They didn’t care if I was going through some stuff in my personal life or if I needed help in a subject, they just cared if I could boost their egos or not. If I could outdo myself at embarrassing myself just to entertain them or not.
I have come to realize that it’s not worth faking your personality or even embarrassing yourself just to get somebody to like you. If they only care about you when you are pretending to be like them, they’ll never care about the real you.
2. Being Alone Ain’t That Bad
I was terrified of shunning my friends, not because I was afraid of being left alone with my thoughts, but because I thought that everybody would think I had no friends.
I was ashamed of sitting alone at the table to eat lunch and was scared of being labeled as a loner. Now that I look back at it, I realize what an idiot I was. When things got bad, and my self-esteem was at an all-time low, I decided to cut ties with my friends, and all of a sudden I was all alone in a town hundreds of miles away from home.
That’s when I understood being alone isn’t as bad as people make it to be. Being alone without the awful feeling of having friends who walk all over you stinging at the back of my head, I achieved a sense of calm that I hadn’t felt in months. Soon, I started enjoying my own company, started understanding myself better, and musing alone in solitude helped me overcome most of the things bothering me.
Kirstie Taylor has written a great post that talks about the benefits of embracing solitude.
There’s a tremendous difference between alone and lonely. — Drew Barrymore
3. Standing up for Yourself
There’s this line in the Bollywood movie Mary Kom that roughly translates to: “Don’t scare anyone so much that the fear ends.”
When you’re constantly being walked over by your friends — or anybody for that matter — you go into a fight or flight mode. You either succumb to the person or you revolt. Luckily, I fought back.
Being with them taught me that no matter how much I want someone to like me or befriend me, I will not let them treat me like crap. As much as it sounds like a quote that you’ll find floating on Facebook, it actually is true that if you don’t respect yourself, no one else will. Not to mention, people appreciate those who stand up for themselves.
Don’t compromise your self-respect for anybody.
4. It’s Okay to Be a Little Paranoid
Once you’ve been betrayed by the people you opened up to and considered your friends, it’s understandable if you’re a little weary of the new people who wish to enter your life. Trust me, it’s okay.
I remember one of my math teachers called me a couple weeks before I was supposed to leave for college. And he stressed on choosing my friends wisely in the span of our 15-minute long phone call. At first, I didn’t pay much attention to it, thinking he was asking me not to socialize so I could spend more time studying, but only if I had known better.
I learned that it’s not the best idea to open up about your entire life to a person you don’t completely trust; that it’s okay to be critical about a person’s character and their motives in the first few weeks of meeting them, and the importance of choosing your friends carefully. And that seeing through people is a skill that’s important to acquire.
5. Becoming Independent
Becoming independent is an extension of lesson 2: that being alone isn’t all that bad.
When you get comfortable with being alone and start enjoying your own company, it’s time to discard the shame that comes with being alone. As I said, I was embarrassed to eat lunch alone in our cafeteria. I didn’t even dare consider eating out alone.
Once you realize that being alone isn’t bad at all, you understand that the embarrassment of being seen alone at a restaurant makes zero sense. And soon, you stop depending on others for happiness.
You realize that it’s actually pretty liberating when you don’t have to hope somebody accompanies you to that new cafe that you’ve been wanting to try or that new movie you’ve been waiting for for months. Over time, you realize that you don’t have to rely on others for emotional support or validation, either. Sure, it’s nice to have somebody to hear you out, but you’ll be just fine if there isn’t.
Don’t say you’re eating out alone; say you’re taking yourself out on a date.
6. Getting Yourself out There
Want to know the hardest part of having fake friends? Making new friends.
Though I hated being treated like crap, I stayed with my group for months because I knew making new friends now, when everybody else had found their groups would be tough. I’d be the odd one out, and I’d have to start from scratch, from finding out where their hometowns are to what they are majoring in. On the other hand, though jerks, those people were familiar to me now. I later found out that this is the same mindset that makes people stay in a toxic relationship.
I did finally leave my group and had to start afresh. No matter how much I talk about how awesome it is to enjoy your own company and embracing solitude, but the reality is that we can’t stay forever without any social interaction or friends. Humans are social animals.
Having shitty friends pushed me to find new and better ones, helping me work on my social skills and making me confident in my abilities to hold a conversation, and make friends in general.
7. Loving Yourself
If you haven’t noticed yet, standing up for yourself, enjoying your own company, becoming independent, and prioritizing your self-respect are all signs of beginning to love yourself.
When you’re surrounded by negative people all day, you turn to something that makes you happy. For some, it’s vices that only makes them worse in the long run. But some make themselves that something that makes them happy. Be the latter. Is it easy? hell no. But it for sure is worth it.
Being with people who brought me down left me no other option but to love myself and choose what’s the best for me. It taught me how important it is to love and respect yourself, but also left me with the bitter realization that I wouldn’t have gone through any of this if I had loved myself in the first place.
In Conclusion
Being with fake friends absolutely sucked, but it’s essential to note that it also taught me things that are important to live a happy life. And these are things you only learn with first-hand experiences. They are:
- Staying true to yourself and stopping people pleasing
- Embracing solitude
- Standing up for yourself
- Choosing your friends carefully
- Becoming independent
- Making friends
- Loving yourself.
