Throughout my four years of high school, I learned a lot about myself from the people I involved myself with. Through years of maturing, I can confidently say that all of my experiences with these people were lessons learned rather than time wasted. However, what is different about those experiences and the ones I have had, thus far in college, has to do with dealing with empty shelled people. "Empty shell" refers to someone who is physically and financially secure, but lacks in matters of the soul: thoughtfulness, loyalty, compassion and understanding.
Friends come and go throughout our lives, but a recent experience really opened my eyes to a new perspective on relationships with these types of people.
In the beginning of the semester, I found myself attracted to someone who exhibited most, if not all, of the physical qualities I look for in someone of the opposite sex. A few days later, he reached out to me and wanted to get to know who I was as a person. After many dining hall dates later, we both developed emotional and physical attractions to each other and started planning when we would see each other again after classes.
As time went on, I started noticing the little things, but I didn't think much of them. He dwelled on negative past experiences with friends and relationships, complained about how terrible the weather was compared to where he's from and bragged about how great his life back home was compared to here at school. As months passed, these types of conversations increased and I often found myself trying to change the subject to something more engaging and thought provoking -- like politics or interests other than the superficial; but, I would typically end up walking away disappointed and relatively defeated -- empty.
Towards the end of the semester, I learned a lot about the type of person he was and this made a significant impact on me, internally. Body image was a big priority of his and because of this I felt self conscious of my own body for the first time in my life. He told me stories of luxurious poolside hotel parties and the beautiful, voluptuous women that attended them. As a result, I felt that some parts of my body were too small for his liking and other parts of my body, a little too big. I also began to feel guilty, instead of proud, of where I was born and raised because he made it seem as if the place he called home was superior to mine.
When I left school for the summer, I noticed that his texting style became very detached, as we would only talk about what our plans for that day, that night and how "lavish" his life was in the South. I would try to have meaningful late night conversations with him about goals, aspirations and life as I usually had with my friends, but sometimes it took hours for a response. If I was lucky, I would get a Snapchat of the steering wheel of his father's Ferrari.
I often wondered if he ever thought of me while we were away from each other, because when we were together, he would spend a lot of time on his phone, and when we were apart it always seemed that he was too busy to reply. At one point, out of curiosity, I asked him if he ever thought about me during his day. He seemed confused, and when I wanted to talk about my feelings with him -- since I did not think I was getting the attention I deserved -- he would reply with a simple, "lol," or a cute little "eye-roll" emoji.
Day by day, I would push the negative voices to the back of my head, and my doubts about him vanished after he invited me to spend a week with him at his home. Initially, he mentioned a few times that he couldn't wait to show me off, so I was very excited to spend time with him outside of campus. Upon arrival, where I was greeted at the airport with a lackluster welcoming, we climbed into his white Porsche, and headed to his home. We went on impressive dinner dates, where the food received better attention than I did, as every meal was photographed and posted on social media pages. But after a few days, I learned that it was not just money that ruled his world, it was the ulterior motive of making a past significant other jealous.
I was relieved to come back home and tell my friends about the time I had while I was away, but I was disheartened to see a photo of him uploaded to Facebook, with me completely cropped out of it. I remembered that photo, too, since we had both decided that we didn't look good in it and it wasn't going on any social media platform. Several seconds later, the picture was deleted, and I knew this was not right for me.
Sometimes I questioned why I kept pursuing someone like this, but I realized that I kept making excuses for his actions and it slowly tore me apart. Today, I am extremely grateful for the experience because now I am able to recognize the people of substance and character in my life, and I'm thankful every day that my vision is clear and my heart is full.
