Finding friends is hard. There will be some who judge you of your decisions, some who will make fun of you in a joking manner, but some are just right for you.
Author Pia Edberg once said, “You can’t make everyone like you. If you pretend to be someone else, you will attract the wrong people. If you choose to be yourself, you’ll attract the right people and they will be your people.”
And the years leading to right now, this quote becomes more relatable and deeply resonates with me in a way that hurts. I know I shouldn’t fake myself just to be friends with someone who I see and think “I wanna be friends with them.”
Even my friend’s lover makes jokes about me, and hearing about this leads to me becoming paranoid, questioning if I look good or bad to everyone.
Knowing that I feel insecure because of what everyone else thinks has a feeling of envy, those voices inside telling me “you don’t look perfect” or “everyone thinks bad of you.”
I sometimes think to myself if I’m the one being a little “schizophrenic” or if I’m just going crazy. Not even that, knowing that other people’s hurtful opinions can come from school, or from an Instagram comment, or DM.
I used to have a friend, who lived near my house, but moved back to New York City, they would always call me names, but also came for my wallet – no matter if I had said no, that person used to beg for money and would get mad at me for saying no, other people may say “It’s no big deal, they are gone now.”
I’ve realized letting people control you is the dumbest idea. It could leave you isolated or thinking about your life choices.
But there’s this one voice in my head that always tells me, “They will always come back. They will always come back.”
And it always ends up being true.
But the people who helped me avoid them also belong in my life. I want to take the time to thank my mother, my theater friend and my co-worker Kirsten for helping me in my deep times.
My mom helped me on what to do if I found out about name calling toward me and told me how to handle the situation if it goes out of hand. My theater friends have also helped me on what I should be doing and helping me out all the time.
You might ask why I included my co-worker in my thankings, but I can relate to them the most, the most that I can’t put into words, and she was the only person I would only talk to; they match my energy in a way.
