As I groggily type out this blog post, I am faced with the reality that today is a Monday and I don't like Monday's and I wish I was asleep right now. (But don't we all?) Anywho, I've been thinking about what I want to post about. If you have any suggestions that you would like my take on, you can actually go to my about page and email me! The emails y'all send go straight to my inbox and I read every one, so if you have any ideas, let me know.
I will say that I do share the majority of my life here online at the world's disposal, so whatever happens to me or whatever I go through, more often than not, it's shared on this website. So I'll be honest, per usual, I've been thinking about friends recently. I've got some pretty rad friends. I have my OCSA friends, my Mariners pals, my THHS comrades, and everyone else I've met at other points in my life. I have been thinking though, about what it would look like to change the way I view my friendships.
Now, I'm the type of person who calls almost everyone my "best friend" or "my favorite" and I put all of my hope into others. Once again, more often than not, I feel like I'm let down because I set my expectations so high. It hasn't been working out well for me. I'm learning that I need to shift my lens and view friendship with a different perspective.
I was scrolling through social media the other day and I came across a couple posts about "good friendship" and what that meant. I won't list any of them here or I'm gonna sound extra cliche and cheesy, but I will say that a lot of those posts really put things into perspective for me.
Recently I was put into a situation where I didn't trust my gut, and I should have.
(Let me preface this story by saying, no one was harmed, injured, or did anything illegal. Everyone in this situation was safe. Not necessarily responsible, but safe.)
I was hanging with a group of my amigos the other night. I hadn't seen this particular group of kiddos in a while, but since I thought we were all so close, I didn't expect our group dynamics to change drastically. But they did. All night I felt like whatever I said or did wasn't funny enough or I wasn't acting "too immature" for their taste. We had made plans to spend the night together though, so I expected it to get better as the night progressed because I was only supposed to be with them for a couple hours, so I wasn’t too worried. That's when they threw a curve-ball at me. My phone had died, but they decided to switch around some plans that involved me getting a ride home. I wasn't able to let my family know and these friends kept pushing the time back later and later because the majority of them took into account what they wanted to do, rather than making sure it was okay with everyone in the group.
Now hear me out, I'm not saying that I need to be in charge or make all of the decisions, but my friends knew that there were some things that I wasn't comfortable with (for example taking an Uber) and they persuaded me to do so anyways. It was at that moment when I should have called my family to come pick me up, but I was too embarrassed to be the one left out of everything because I feel like I'm always the odd ball out and I was tired of it.
(*Disclaimer: That part was completely my fault. I should have listened to my gut and called my family sooner. I shouldn't have let myself be so easily swayed by their decisions.)
So continuing the story, I ended up taking the uber with everyone and we went to our friend’s house. I was under the impression that we were only going to be there for a little bit, when in reality they turned on a movie and we were going to be there for a couple hours. I kept asking when we were leaving and everyone was pushing back their departure times. It was stressing me out and so I got up, plugged my phone in, and then went back to sit on the couch.
I kept looking around the room. At these folks who I have called my “best friends” for at least four years, but to my surprise, I didn’t see any of them. They all were acting like different people.
Each was snuggled up with, or sitting next to their significant other or close friend, and I felt left out. I was the ninth wheel in this situation. I finally got up and called my family to come and pick me up, and as soon as they said they were on their way, I got up and and left.
As I sat outside on my friend’s driveway I began to tear up. Everyone talks about those moments that you’ll have, especially in high school, where you’re going to be at a party or something and you realize that you shouldn’t be there, and then you ask yourself how you even got there in the first place. It’s an all-time low. This was one of those moments. As I sat there I thought to myself, “how did I let that happen?”
When my dad pulled up to the house, I got in the car and cried all the way home. Now when you picture this story playing out, it wasn’t like a light couple of tears that rolled down my face. No. I was sobbing. Ugly crying off all my makeup. My eyes were red and my face was puffy and I kept coughing and repeating to myself how upset I was that I hadn’t trusted my gut sooner.
Once again, as another disclaimer, this was partially my fault. MY FAULT. I'm taking the blame. But I will say that I was sad because of the way these folks were treating me. With that, I just want my younger readers to view this story as a learning experience because I don't want that for any of you. I want my littles to know that real friends won't argue with you when you're feeling uncomfy. Real friends won't push you to do things you don't want to do. Real friends will stand up for you and watch out for you. I want y'all to have real friends. That's all.
Much Love,
Delaney Miller