By no means am I the perfect friend, however, I like to believe that I am for the most part a decent friend that treats those I call my friends with respect and loyalty. I like to believe that if they are truly my friends they will give me the same courtesy, so when I find myself in situations where I am with a group of friends and something bad is going down and my friends chose to leave me on my own and provide no help I am left feeling annoyed and hurt. Now I could be blowing things out of proportion, because I do tend to be very dramatic, but I was raised in the idea of treating people the way I want to be treated so even if I joke with friends and I play along with some things I still expect them to respect me as I respect them.
Just two days ago, I was having dinner with a group of friends, and one of them was not paying attention to the group as a whole I began to joke with him and took his phone, so he would "have no other choice but to talk with us" which he did. He began to talk to everyone at the table except for me. I laughed thinking it was the perfect reaction and a few minutes later gave him back his phone because it was the right thing to do. In the midst of my having his phone he had picked up my phone, and when it was not returned to me in the same fashion that he was returned to him, I nicely asked for it back. I was told no.
Shockingly, I got annoyed and confused, at first thinking it was a joke and then upon asking for it another number of times still being nice about was continually told no. When I finally reached my breaking point, going on 7 minutes of this, I said: "This is a crime you cannot hold my property and refuse to give it back for no reason it is theft, give me my phone back." To which he responded no.
Before I proceed with the story, understand there are two other people I call good friends at the table and that the person I conflict with is someone I considered a friend. After I said that statement one of my other "friends" jumps into the conversation that has been happening for several minutes now and says "Well technically you brought it on yourself because you stole his phone first making it his right to take your property too."
I was shocked.
To even think that the two actions were acceptable and even equivalent was ludicrous to me. I got mad at that point and began to argue with this friend but the true legality of the situation which was a useless road to take in the entire story because it grew so far out of hand to the point where both the guy holding my phone for at the point 10 minutes and my supposed "friend" were both in agreement that I would be the one who would get jail time despite being the one who had her property truly stolen and not returned. So I just decided to divert my attention back to the main priority of getting my phone back. It took me threatening to get someone else's phone and calling the police before I got my phone back and the ordeal that had now taken roughly 15 minutes out of my dinner was done.
I looked at the other people sitting at the table, and then the final blow hit me. The other friend, the one who had until this point stayed silent had put in earbuds and was dancing, humming, and snapping along to music instead of even trying to defend me.
The reason I felt so angered by this is that this particular "friend" had on multiple occasions said I was her best friend and she would do practically anything for me.
I stared them all down and as the one who had agreed with the guy averted her eyes and the one who had earbuds in took out her earbuds asking "What? What's Wrong? What did I do?" I got up and left no longer wanting to be around them nor talk to them in any way. Was I overreacting? Was I in the wrong on this subject? I thought as I stormed out of the dining hall.
No. I came to realize about 20 minutes later that I was not wrong about the situation because a more new and recent friend of mine who was at a nearby table asked if I wanted to discuss what she had seen and slightly overhead. She said she would have been mad as well especially if I thought those people were my friends. And after she said that I felt betrayed.
These people were supposed to have my back, support me, be my friends, even if we had different definitions of what that meant, and they didn't do that. They ignored me and left me on my own.
This is just the most recent example of myself reflecting on how my friends have treated me and how well they really know me because back in August I started college and I had to figure out if I wanted to keep in touch with friends from high school and for the most part I didn't because I only felt like 3 to 4 of them really knew me and treated me like a friend in my mind.
The worst part for me in all of these cases especially the most recent one is that I feel extremely hurt leaving people in my past when I once thought that I could rely on them for things even if its something as trivial as supporting me in a dumb somewhat petty argument. Friends are the people you go to when the worst part of your day is happening, and it hurts when those people are just going to kick you when you're down. That's why I was left wondering for the last two days if those people were, in fact, my friends. That question has rung out in my head at every free moment is like a constant reminder that people I thought would have my back left me on my own.
Reliving that hurt is not what I want to do every second of my life. I don't want to look back and think, I should have had better people around me, which is why I am now trying to come to terms with the idea of not being friends with them or even people like them anymore. I don't like making that kind of decision because I could miss out on something great, but I think it'll be better for me if I am not always waiting for them to disappoint me.
