I have spent a good portion of my life caring too much about what people think, and particularly about being liked. A few years ago, this put me on a path my mental health wasn’t particularly happy to be going down (to put it lightly). When I couldn’t get a handle on my anxiety, I felt like my whole life would come crashing down if someone was upset with me, so I would do all that I could to prevent even the possibility. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t a genuinely nice person, but I have to admit that sometimes I was gripped by a fear of rocking the boat that I went above and beyond for anyone and everyone.
I have since realized that all this did was allow people to take advantage of me, while I broke my back trying to keep them happy. I met some incredible people here who helped me realize that I deserved more than one friend in the world who gave back as much as they got. Pretty much all my friendships were equal for what felt like the first time in my life.
However, I will admit to spending a fair amount of my time at Michigan taking the path of least resistance with one particular person, putting up with things I would never allow from someone else. I’ve never wanted to compromise my values of being a “nice girl” and a good friend, but in my situation with her, I feel like it’s gone too far. I saw this quote that said “if it costs you your peace, it’s too expensive,” and I realized that she had invaded so many facets of my mind with negativity, and I had allowed her to for the sake of a so-called “easy life”.
It was when she told me that I wasn’t a good friend that something snapped in me. This was someone I had made so much effort to be nice to, even when she didn’t deserve it and hadn’t ever really reciprocated the effort. At the time, I’d spent so many weeks staying up with her, listening to her sadness and trying to advise her on what she should do when she broke up with her boyfriend. I’d been there with her through it all – from the conversation with her just before she went to break up with him, to consoling her while she was crying in the weeks to follow. Theirs was a Ross and Rachel break situation (except she was Ross, so it was harder to sympathize) and she told me I was the only one she felt was listening to her, the only one who didn’t seem to be getting annoyed that she was saying the same things again and again.
But when she told me I wasn’t a good friend, she also told me that I didn’t support or uplift her and that we had drifted apart over the years. Ignoring the first two statements because of the absolute irony, she was right, we had drifted apart. What is hard to swallow about that, though, is the way she implied that it was my fault. In reality, it was because I felt like I was being suffocated. Any sign that I became closer with someone else would end up in an argument with her. I was made to feel like I had to hide hanging out with other friends because she had never made the effort to build relationships with them, and any time they did spend with her caused them to dislike her even more.
I came to the hard realization that any of the time I had ever put into our relationship, not to mention the effort I put into maintaining my values, was ultimately for nothing. The state of our relationship now is what I had tried so hard to avoid, but she had no qualms about putting us there. The path of least resistance led me to the exact same place I would have landed had I just confronted the issues earlier, but at least then I wouldn’t have had to deal with so much tension, bitterness, and unhappiness.
When people show you who they are, believe them. It didn’t do me any good to just keep putting up with her worsening character because I was too afraid of the consequences, especially when I had to deal with them eventually anyway. I feel like I’ve allowed part of my time here to be tainted by keeping her a part of my life, when I should have just taken myself out of the situation and dealt with whatever backlash there was. I’m heading out into the real adult world, and I’m vowing to myself to stop allowing toxic people any kind of place in my life. I’m aware that one day I’ll likely deal with office politics, but I want this experience to be a lesson so that I can minimize the damage people like her can have in my general life. I needed to have the strength to end the situation, and I hope that by going through this experience, I’ve gained the power to stop it from happening again.