3/11/2016

Spotting a fake friend

Happy Friday!!!! I hope your weather where ever you are is just as nice as the weather here in the Northeast region. It's been beautiful here in Jersey!!! I'm so ready for the Spring. Nice weather means more time to socialize and enjoy with some great people but make sure that your people are quality. It's also a great time to add some new friends into your circle but the trick is how to spot quality people?  With social media categorizing everyone that you know as a "friend" it's kind of hard to weed out the real from the fake these days. Trimming the excess out of our lives periodically is a necessity but when it comes to our closest inner circle it can be hard to tell who is real from the fake. Here are a few key ways to identify those who may not be the best for us as well as qualities to look for when socializing.




The #1 way to tell if someone is fake or jealous of your situation is the backwards compliment or they never give you your props. This is the one sign that usually happens without fail in fake friends. You get a new job or a new home and they say something like "you're gonna fuck it up anyway" or "that only happen to you because of xxxx (fill in the blank)?" like you're not worthy of success. Or better yet you just don't ever hear 'congrats' from them when everyone else in your life is showing you support but it just seems to never come from them. Cut that MF off because they are the worst and they aren't going to get any better!!! Also if you're that type of person please stop. You can't be a hater all your life. I've actually had 2 old acquaintances tell me flat out that they couldn't be happy for me because of somethings they were going through themselves like that makes their lack of support better or more understandable. You're not going to go through life at the same pace as others and we all hit milestones at different times but successes do come for us all and your lack of support for a friend shows that you aren't worthy. Friends build each other up. There is enough hate from people who aren't your friends that you deal with already. You need the people in your circle to be supportive so if they aren't cut that fucker loose.

To piggy back off of #1 is the ingenuous friend. The friend who avoids you when you're going through your milestones.  They avoid you like the plague when you're up or having a win. They somehow gets super busy when you want to celebrate or during an important date for you. Again with the BS... cut that dead weight.

This one may be the point that cuts the deepest. The friend who is constantly talking about others. If they're talking about their other friends to you, then best believe that they are talking about YOU to their other friends. It's just that they're bitter and have feelings of inadequacies. They aren't in a happy place so they constantly belittle others to make themselves feel good. I had a friend who did this non-stop and she was aware that she did it too. If you're in this situation, then your friend knows what the hell they're doing too. Don't let them know your business unless you're feeding them stories intentionally. I did this because I knew it fed that hate bug in them but the thing is that I didn't care about the stories they knew. Anything that was of importance to me, would never reach that persons ears. This was a point that I learned very early in life. When I was a kid, I would meet my friends on a neighbors stoop and we would kill the day with stories and play but no one ever wanted to be the first to leave the stoop to go home because of one girl (who happen to be the oldest of us all). She would always talk about the people as they left and everyone knew the routine.  I would hate it when my mother said be home by X time if it was earlier than everyone else but guess what?  This girl has grown into a bitter ass woman now with no real friends and seems to hate life. She's miserable now and it all started way back when because she never learned how to be happy. Now I feel sorry for her and often talk to her sister about how she can continue a healthy relationship because they no longer speak.

Then there is the copy cat. My mother says copying is the utmost form of flattery which can be true to a certain extent. If we happen to have similar interest... cool. That's probably the reason why we're friends in the first place but you need your own identity because there are limits to similarities. My daughter had 2 friends like this who she had to cut off and one was a male. That one baffles me still to this day that a male would copy a females actions and style but whatever. These friends typically try to belittle your style when you two are discussing you and says things like "you're always wearing XXX or doing blah blah blah"... then turns around a copies that same damn thing. If they are just copying you and not trying to belittle you in the process then they may be worth keeping around but keep them at at distance. Watch them because usually these people will turn into having traits 1 and 2 then you'll know it's time to cut them all the way off.

Enough with the dead weight candidates. Now it's time to discuss how to find these quality people. First start off with your current circle of friends. The good ones at least. Go out with them and their friends. You already know that you have stuff in common with the common denominator friend. It's highly likely that you'll have stuff in common with the people they're associated with so start there first.  Then go out and find hobbies. Join a community or a club related to topics that interest you and you'll have a pool of people who share that interest. Do the basic introduction and then let it gradually progress from there. Invite potential friends to accompany you to an event that revolves around your similar interest and then repeat. You'll get to know them and you can see for yourself if these people are worthy of a friendship. Do this with a few of the people you get acquainted with and soon you'll have discovered a whole new group of friends and a great little social life.

Have kids? Then set up play dates with your kids friends. This is a great way to get to know someone and to get outside of your typical crowd and network with others. This is actually how I meant my husband. We were both single parents and we went on a few play dates that turned into actual dates.

The trick to this is just to go out and socialize. When someone invites you to an event... GO. Then when you meet these people make sure that you keep in contact. That could be via social media too but most of all just reach out. Send a little text with words of encouragement. Like this "heyyyy... I really enjoyed us doing XYZ... we have to get together again soon for more fun and laughs". Who doesn't like fun and laughs???

 




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