"People who test their friendships with others aren't friends; they're arseholes", she wrote.
Well, as a self-confessed arsehole, I'm glad we're not friends, because the people who write things like that with conviction are the people who are fair-weather friends, the people who fail when their friendships are tested. (They know it, too, so they try shift the burden onto others as if they're not the ones in the wrong.) They only care about themselves and what value they get from their friendships, never about what they can bring to the table and offer in return.
I should have dropped and blocked her right there and then. I don't know why I didn't. Instead, I smiled sardonically, left no comment and moved on.
It was only through falling on hard times and not being able to give of myself as generously as I previously had that my friendships were tested. That's how I found out that they weren't really my friends, but selfish time-wasting thieves and energy vampires. The people I thought cared about me, supported me and had my back were only in it for what they could take for themselves.
I learned that the person I should most care about and look out for first and foremost is me. I need to learn how to do that first, before I can make room for caring for anyone else. That's not to state that I won't do that in time or that there aren't people whom I'd like to invite to have a bigger part in my life, because there definitely are. There are people who have proven they're worth caring about and for, because they care about me (and not only what I can offer them). But I first need to shed the deadweight that's holding me back and live my life on my own terms for a while, establish my own space and be my own man, sort out my own issues and problems to a point where I have a good base I can add to. I've got enough of my own crap with which to deal, without involving other people's. Only then, when I've dealt with it, will I be ready to add the complications of other people and theirs, being fully aware of the inevitability that there will be a point where we will have to part ways. That's how life goes.
I am really hoping that being employed again works out long enough for me to do that (and also put away enough to survive coming hard times) before I invariably mess things up again, even if I literally have to pay my way out of other people's lives. After all, my money's the only thing about which they ever seemed to care. Bugger my ideas, hopes, plans, needs, wants and well-being.
"Oh, it's not fair
And it's really not OK,
It's really not OK,
It's really not OK!
"Oh, you're supposed to care,
But all you do is take.
Yeah, all you do is take!"
— Lily Allen; It's Not Fair; "It's Not Me, It's You" (2009)
Post thumbnail: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels
