A few years ago I deleted 5 people from my life. If you're thinking I mean deletion as on social media, no I mean in real life not just social media.
I've got attitude coming out of my ears, but sometimes it's simply easier to just vanish.
This group was fostering an atmosphere of dysfunction.
Social media had me befriending people I never knew while growing up, because suddenly they were all over my social media pages. The more we interacted outside of the internet and in bars and restaurants had me fully seeing them. You can't hide who you are without the internet between us in real life. It was fun getting out and I enjoyed getting to know people I went to high school with, because I didn't know them while in school.
It was an extra good feeling, knowing that I had new friendships forming. Slowly the whole crew began having extramarital affairs, or sleeping with one another because they were single. Very few people saw all of them as I now began to see them. One man in the group became overly eager when I'd arrive for our social outings. I worried, because I felt that his amorous implications began to make me uncomfortably anxious. It all came to a head one night when this man grabbed me, yanking me away from our group, blurting out that he wanted me all to himself. He wanted me to be with him.
My husband was furious, very nearly getting physical with this man. We left.
A week later I deleted him, his friend, and three more in the group. I took the week to reflect. This was not a joke to me, I was about to leave my new friend group behind. Thinking about it now, I wish I'd told all of them what I'm writing now, then.
They all killed my authenticity. I would never interact with a group like that before them or since them. It's not moral superiority, it's decency. That group felt doomed to be teenagers for the entirety of their lives and I have been desperately old since I was 10 years old. A life of friends with benefits is not my path. And what's bizarre? Most of them never asked where I went...they knew, huh? It was a bad vibe and I was never about any of that. I've had bad times and there's no way I'd stick around and have my free time spent in a group of immature nothingness filled with moments of promiscuities.
I left and never looked back, but I have a spine that takes me out of ugly scenarios. My brain works differently than most. Have you ever found yourself struggling to find your voice? Until you learn to stand up for yourself, it will weigh on you. Vanishing out of my social group of adults and not being asked where I went is not murky, it's crystal clear that I should not be in that group.
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