Story Time: Ex-Friend was Obsessed

Before I start my story time, I would love to say that I am very grateful for all the people who have read and supported my blog up until now. The amount of comments, followers, email subscribers and people messaging me on social media is astonishing. I really appreciate all the love and support and I hope you continue to read my content.

This will be my first actual story time on my blog! For the sake of the story time, lets give the ex-friend a fake name which is, Jessica. Absolutely fake and I literally googled a random name. 

This story time took place in the 2nd year of my post secondary studies. Jessica, was in her 1st year of post secondary studies and was 1 year younger than I was. The only reason I associated with Jessica was because she was mutual friends with my best friend at the time, and she came along. We pretty much hanged as a group, and we met at post-secondary during breaks and after classes. Post secondary was not the first time I met Jessica, as she also went to the same high school as I did. I did not associate with her in high school as she was not the nicest person to communicate with. Due to that, we just went our separate ways and I never saw her until she enrolled in the same post-secondary school as me. 

At this period of time, we would hang in the general computer lab that was located at the middle of our school campus. It's a pretty decent size, lab hall, where students can just do their work and socialize.  I think of myself as a person who takes time to become friends with someone. I like to warm up to people and see what type of vibes they are giving me. However, Jessica was becoming way too comfortable, way too quickly. It didn't take her long to start opening up to me about her personal problems or people she has an interest in. As time went on, she started asking odd requests. These odd requests would surround her love interest. For me, at least, I was not comfortable in assisting her to track down her love interest. She would be looking elsewhere, and she wants me to see what her crush is doing. By doing this, it doesn't look like she's stalking him, and I was. She would ask me to describe what her crush is wearing or who he is associating with. This started to become a routine where she's asking me to scan the whole computer hall to find where he is. It wasn't just me, it was other members of the group as well who had to tolerate this behaviour. We did not want to be rude to Jessica, so we just did what she said and moved forward because it wasn't harming us in any way, until later -- you will see in my side story. 

This continued for quite some time, however, I started to get more irritated, and she started to become more demanding. She always wanted to talk about her issues with her crush. She did not like that he surrounded himself with many females, or he was not giving her the attention that she wanted. Jessica would belittle herself or she would ask our advice on how to approach the man, and at this point, we stopped caring. We could see that when we did not give her the answer she was looking for, she would lash out and/or be disappointed and go ask the same question to another member of the group. Pretty much, she already had her mind set on what she wanted to do or what she wanted to think, but she was requiring validation from the group members, so she can justify that her actions seemed acceptable. 

Due to this poor behaviour, the guy she had an interest in started to notice, and he ended up having problems with her as he didn't feel the same way. She ended up telling him that she liked him, when he obviously already knew, and he ended up rejecting her. The only problem was he implied that it was a "No", which meant he didn't actually say it. He wanted to be nice and not hurt her feelings but in actuality -- he should have just been honest from the beginning. Jessica decided to not give up and was after him for quite some time. Due to this behaviour, our friendship was on and off and it really took a toll on me when it came to school. I was more than annoyed and I had several fights with her to stop this behaviour, however, she did not want to. The only reason I would become friends with her again was because it was affecting my friendship with the other members. When they would hang out with her, I would not be there and when they would hang out with me, she had to go do something else. It was a lot of work and at that point, I thought it wasn't worth it, so I resolved the issue, unfortunately.  

Side story: She wanted to say, "Happy Valentines" to her crush, but she didn't want to say it herself, where she ended up using my Facebook to do so. Due to this, he started spreading rumours that I was homosexual and I had an interest in him. I had to then message him and resolve the issue since it was not me. Regardless to say, it says a lot about this guy's character and how dumb I was. 

Not that I have to mention this because it is self-explanatory, but we are not friends anymore. We have not talked for over two years, and she tried to get in touch with the group for selfish reasons a little less than a year ago which I will make another story time on in the future. I just want to say, that this story only sums up 40% of what actually happened when dealing with Jessica, and we were only friends for a little more than a year. 

What should you take from this story time and why did I share it? It's because I want you guys to know that you do not need to do anything you don't want to. If you are not comfortable in doing requests your friends have asked you, you have the right to say NO. If they get angry or disappointed then it's their issue, not yours. Do not put yourself in that emotional state where every day revolves around your friends drama and you feel suffocated. Surround yourself with people that are positive and good for you. I made the mistake in staying in that friendship for much longer than I should have. But I am grateful for the experience I obtained because it helped to shape the person I am today.    

   

5 Types of Friends You Should Avoid

I am going to discuss the 5 types of friends I have met which are best to avoid. They are unhealthy to your social life and usually cause unnecessary issues. This will be a continuous series so you will see more of these!  Tell me if you like this type of content! Also, I now take requests for topics that you want me to write about -- my contact information is on the contact page. 

1. The Deserter  

You know that time where you plan a meet up with your friend and on the day of, they decide to not show up without giving any notification. They either make a poor excuse or they decide to leave your chat on seen when messaged and flat our ignore the situation. It's even more hilarious when this friend is the person who made the plans from the start and then they decided to not show up. This type of friend does not value your company and friendship. Furthermore, they make you feel like total shit when you are standing at the meet up spot and you realize they have ditched you. 

After being in this situation several times and you have decided to continue being their friends, I can understand that an individual would want to get back at them. The best revenge in this situation would be to make a back up plan when you are making plans with the deserter. By making a back up plan, when they ditch you, you continue to your plan B. By doing this, from past experiences, I have seen that it does have an impact on the deserter because they feel jealous and/or annoyed that you easily moved on to something else. It pretty much shows that you do not give a fuck about what they did (even if you did) and you have better things to do. 

2. The Juvenile 

This friend is fun to hang out with in social environments because their childish and free-spirited until you realize that it's gone to far. They handle every situation, including conflicts in the most immature way possible, to the point that it's getting on your nerves or causing more problems. They do not know how to take responsibility or be accountable for their actions. You confront them about their immaturity in a respectful manner and they don't take that well so, they respond to it by talking behind your back with other friends, posting it on social media, or lashing out. Furthermore, due to their immaturity, they have lack of control when it comes to emotions. These types of friends are good for the amusement but they are not long-term friendships that would be sustainable. My tip for friendships is that you should be looking for friends for a long-term association. Short-term friends are a waste of time. If you can't see yourself associating with this person 10 years from now, maybe you should reconsider if you want to put your efforts in the friendship. 

3.  The Rival 

This friend could be a good person at first but eventually starts competing with you for everything and it starts to become very annoying. School, work, social environment, anything that you can calculate who is better is exactly where the rival strikes. They have nothing positive to offer you as a friend. Except being happy for your success and achievements, they spend their time comparing it with themselves. Most of the time, especially with my experience, you can start to notice their competitive nature and it starts to get to you. Friends are happy for you when you achieve or succeed at something, not think badly of you or themselves because they haven't achieved it. 

4. The Live Actor/Actress   

This is the friend who takes movies and television shows to the next level. They crave the drama and conflicts they see on the big screen to their everyday lives. They create drama regularly or get involved in other people's drama to add excitement into their own lives. From my personal experience, this person will admit that their lives are boring without some type of drama or conflict in their lifestyle. You will see this friend trying to pour oil in to the fire by making situations worse that don't involve them. Furthermore, they will blame the conflicts they have caused to other people because they are unable to take responsibility for themselves. This type of friend should be exterminated from everyone's friends list. Due to the live actor's/actresses behaviour, you can lose friends due to the misunderstandings and they do not contribute anything positive into your lifestyle. 

5.  The Fabricator 

This is the friend who lies or manufactures details that does not exist. They add extra invalid information to make their life seem more appealing and/or prominent. It's those small little details within the story that they lie about. For example, they say that there going to a university to study a particular program. But in actuality, they are going to the college located within the university, but the fabricator decided to use that information to their advantage and state the universities name when questioned by others. Another example would be when you are hanging out with someone and to make your meet up seem more fascinating, the fabricator would add in events that did not happen. This type of friend is not honest and is insecure about themselves. When approached, they would call it, "little white lies" but in actuality, it's just flat-out lying. If you don't want to present the listener with accurate information, don't give any information at all. Honesty is the best policy. 

One Bad Day at a Time

"Dear life, when I asked if my day could get worse, it was a rhetorical question, not a challenge." 

Have you ever been in that situation where you have a horrible day and you cannot comprehend why it happened to you. It can simply be seeing someone you do not want to associate with. It can be an embarrassing mistake you made and you feel humiliated or you just feel unpleasant from the moment you woke up this morning for unknown reasons. Everyone has bad days and it's totally normal. However, there is a clear difference from having bad moments and bad days. To have a single and/or multiple bad moment(s) does not mean that your whole day is going to be bad. We can make the decision to let our bad moments control the rest of the day. We, ourselves, are responsible for having that bad day because we took bad moments throughout the day, and we let our unpleasant mindset push the rest of our day down which ultimately, made it bad. 

Yes, there are days when the bad moments are piling up on you, and you are totally justified to call it, "a bad day." I cannot begin to speak of the times when I feel the world is against me because bad moments keep happening one after another. For us, I would like to say that we need to keep it together and let those days pass. You need to push through the bad times to get to the good. Life always throws unpleasant moments at us, but that does not mean life is unpleasant. Tomorrow is a new day and life might throw the most pleasant moment in your entire life. Those bad moments can be life lessons that will make you stronger for tomorrow. I believe that whether life gives you good experiences or bad, they are both capable of giving you knowledge and wisdom to better yourself. 

Don't let a bad moment, bad day, or a bad experience push you down.   

Potential

Inserting red flag here: This post is from my perspective. All opinion(s) written below are my own. 


Potential. What is potential? How do I measure the amount of potential I have? Potential is limitless, it can not be pinpointed by an individual. Potential is dynamic because there are vast amounts of things that you can do and learn in your life. There is so much capacity for a human to become and develop into something amazing in the future. This can include career-growth or just growth as an individual. Saying this, you can not let other individuals undermine or discourage you from discovering the potential you have. I understand the plight individuals go through when it comes to not obtaining an opportunity you so desperately want due to technicalities. When I say technicalities, I mean something happens that you cannot control, like competition, and it takes away your opportunity. Due to this, it makes you doubt your own potential and eventually lowers your self-confidence. 

I, myself, have been given the short end of the stick in many occasions. The only difference is the perspective I look at life and how I deal with those technicalities. This was the case when I was finding a mandatory coop placement for my post-secondary program. My program requires that I finish two coop terms to graduate. As I was searching, I obtained a lot of rejections and no responses and this did impact me in a negative way. When I read those rejection letters, I felt like a bit of me was dying on the inside because it made me feel like I did not have enough potential for these placements. It came to the point where I started to give up and find alternative ways to become productive in my summer semester which included doing courses from a future semester or finding a job to earn money. As I did this, I would go back to my résumé and cover letter and I would think about why I did not do more to improve my professional background and it took a huge toll on my self-confidence. The main thing that was hitting me about not finding the coop placement was the unfortunate news that my graduation is going to be delayed until I find two coop placements and that is if I even find a coop placement. 

You might be thinking that I somehow found a placement and/or found the light at the end of the tunnel when I least expected it. Yes, I did find a placement for my coop, and I am so proud for obtaining that placement but I did not find it by giving up like I did previously. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, I dug myself through that tunnel in pure darkness and reached the surface myself. I talked to many other students in my program, and I realized that I was not the only one in this conflict. I ended up having an epiphany that my potential was being judged by an employer at a company like every other student. I let an individual or hiring team, of a company lower my self-confidence and doubt my potential. They do not know me and they did not give me the opportunity to show what I am worth by giving me an interview. They took one look at a piece of paper that does not do my qualifications any justice and threw it in the trash with the other rejected applicants. The employers are not thinking about me or any other individual looking for a job, they are thinking about the benefits of their own company. They are not wrong to do so, but that does not mean I am not good enough. One mans trash is another mans treasure and if this company does not see the potential I have to offer than another one will. 

Basically, after I had this moment to think and realize that I am good enough, I started to apply to more jobs. I edited my resume and made improvements, I improved my cover letter, and I started to obtain more skills that revolve around my program on YouTube. Yes, I did keep my alternatives open with finding a retail job and/or doing courses from a further semester, however, I ultimately found a coop placement! This whole experience made me self-reflect about how my potential would have been unfulfilled if I gave up. So my advice to you is to continue working hard until the very end and even then, don't give up because I know every one of you has the potential to be the best.

"Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential." - Winston Churchill 

Forgiveness

Inserting Red Flag: This post is written in my opinion, and it is not written to offend anyone. This is written in a more social perspective which includes friends, individuals you know, classmates, coworkers, etc. 

Forgiveness. Is it easier to forgive or to ask for forgiveness? Neither. If you are looking for an easy route when it comes to forgiving an individual or asking for forgiveness than you are not in the position to be doing either. Why? I am going to break it down to two sections which will be to forgive, and ask for forgiveness.

To Forgive: 

If you are in the predicament where you are required to decide if you should forgive someone then there are multiple things you have to take into consideration. For starters, if you forgive this individual, would it positively or negatively impact your life? If you know this individual for some time then you should have an idea if forgiving them would be a good idea or will the conflict repeat itself. If not, you need to decide if the conflict is small/pity that can be forgiven and if you think this friendship is worth it. Regardless of whether you know the individual for a short period or long period of time, you should be able to determine if they are worth being friends with. Do you enjoy their presence? Are they someone you would trust? Do you think they are honest? Etc. Furthermore, did they work for the forgiveness they are trying to obtain? Did they just apologize by saying, "I'm sorry" and did not tell you why they are actually sorry? If they didn't explain the reason for apologizing, it's not an apology. Throwing words like "I'm sorry" does not fix a situation. Why are you sorry? What would you do better next time? Honey, if the individual is not working for the forgiveness, they should not be forgiven.

I have met many individuals who forgive because they want to obtain peace and avoid unnecessary drama. Due to this, they say they forgive the person, but they did not want to. To this situation, they should make it clear that is exactly what they are trying to do. They need to make the individual aware that they have decided to forgive them for their own self-peace and not for the individual. Why? They are lying, deceiving, and causing unnecessary drama to be created in the future. Honesty is the best policy and if you do not want to forgive them, don't. You are not doing the individual any favours by forgiving them and not meaning it. Forgiveness is not easy and should be thought about before given. 

Asking for Forgiveness:    

If you are in the position where you have to ask for forgiveness because you have wronged in some way, then there are many things that should be taken into consideration before you do. Firstly, do you sincerely want to apologize to the individual? How do you know? You should feel guilty for the situation you are apologizing for and you should know exactly why you are apologizing for. If you don't know the reason for your apology, then there is no purpose of asking for forgiveness. Don't just apologize because you don't like it when someone is upset/angry at you. Figure out why you are asking for forgiveness. Secondly, you can be in a complicated situation where you are unaware of why an individual is angry/upset at you and you ask for forgiveness. Being ignorant does not help you and you need to ask that individual why they are angry/upset. Furthermore, do not assume the reason they are angry/upset for and just ask. If they don't respond to you, asking for forgiveness is a waste of time and its best for you to move forward. This brings me to the third point, don't run after the individual if they don't want to associate with you at the moment. You are wasting your time and you are annoying them by trying to get in contact with them when they don't want to be contacted. If they wanted to fix this situation and wanted you to ask for forgiveness, they would have left a way for you to do so or confronted you. Pretty much, if they blocked you everywhere, take a hint that they don't want to be bothered.   

That sums up the general knowledge about forgiving and asking for forgiveness. If you do decide to forgive the person who has wronged you in some way, I would like to give my opinion now how you should handle that situation. "I forgive, but I don't forget," is a quote I stand by which means that you forgive the individual, however, you don't forget what they did. Keep it at the back of your head when it comes to them because when they do you wrong again, you will be less surprised and you can change your decision of giving them forgiveness a second time. Also, a note I would like to insert in the end, if you have a forgiving nature, be aware that gives individuals the opportunity to take advantage of you. What I would recommend is keep it to yourself. Don't announce to your friends that you have a forgiving nature, or don't just automatically forgive the individual, take precaution.

"When dieting controls your lifestyle"

Inserting red flag here: This post is from my perspective, All opinion(s) written below are my own. 

I want to give some background information before I decide to continue with this topic. I have done many diets that I have found reasonable or I think will benefit me, and I agree that some of them do work in the short run depending on the person. I am not targeting any particular diet, and this is just what I think/have experienced with dieting. I have always been a bigger body size, and I have always wanted to lose weight thus, I go on “diets.” I am now a believer that changes you make in your life should be affecting your lifestyle permanently. I do not believe in short term results or the quick fix because if I wanted to make myself feel and look better than I would want to obtain it as a long-term result which a diet does not provide for me.

Lower your calorie intact, eat fewer carbohydrates, have more protein, add more fiber, decrease the amount of sugar, become a vegetarian (I am a vegetarian but people do say this.), become a vegan (I do support the cause of veganism, but I am using this in the context of being a vegan just to lose weight), count your macros, and so many other types of diets out there. To be honest, when I read all these different types of "diets" and I see that they are telling me to avoid different types of food depending on the diet and it makes me very confused. Why? Let me break down my thinking process. I pursue one diet and take into consideration all the information they have given, and I decide it's not for me, so I try another diet. When I try the next diet, I take all the core details of the foods to avoid from the previous diet and I incorporate it with the current diet because I remember that those foods are not good for me. It doesn't necessarily need to be a particular food and can be to "avoid foods with high contents of sugar."So when I do this and let's assume that I have gone through several diets, and they are telling me to restrict or lower the quantity of different food types and it gets to a point where I am unsure what to eat, it boggles my mind. Like am I suppose to eat nothing? The problem I find with food is I find a product with a lower number of carbohydrates and fat but the sodium and sugar is high. I always have this issue, the product is lower in particular areas of the nutritional facts and higher in other areas to compensate it. There is no winning to this situation. 

You can debate that I can go into a raw fruit and veggies type of diet or extreme veganism (not trying to offend anyone) I would call it where you avoid everything except natural foods. It sounds like a great idea until I go to the doctors, and they're like my sugar is high, so the doctor would like me to cut down on particular fruits and vegetables because they have a higher natural sugar content. So I get rid of root vegetables and fruit with high sugar content and now I am in a position where I am eating a different variety of fruits and vegetables that can be counted by two hands. See the issue with diets? IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT RESTRICTION. You can say that oh well if you do a 1400-calorie diet, you can eat whatever you want and it just needs to be within that calorie intake. How is that not restricting yourself? Manipulating words to make a diet sound like you can eat whatever you want and lose weight is not fixing the issue. Don't get me wrong, but big boy gotta eat. 

Okay, let's say that this diet works out and I lose a lot of weight, and I am content with the results I am at. Then I think to myself, and I got the results I want, so now I can eat normally like I used too before I started the diet because there is no point in restricting myself anymore or motivation to restrict myself. Pretty much, this backfires and I end up at the same position I was at before the diet. Like seriously? Was there a point of me doing this? I know, you must be thinking I have low self-control and I did this to myself, and you're 100% correct. But this is the reality of dieting for my situation, it just backfires in every direction. Side note: dieting is a whole life process by itself because you need to think about everything that you consume in your body and make sure its compatible with the diet you have chosen to pursue. So along with backfiring on results in the long run, it's a complete waste of time for me. 

My solution? What I have been doing since the beginning of this year is taking things out/changing things in my lifestyle that I know that I don't require and I make sure this is a lifestyle decision. If I make the decision to keep it out, I keep it out forever. They are not huge changes in my life that will clearly backfire but small changes I can survive with like taking out Ice caps from Tim Horton's from my lifestyle, changing white bread to whole-wheat bread permanently, adding fruits and vegetables to every meal, or drinking more water progressively (I am used to drinking two bottles of water which is equivalent to four cups, now I drink three bottles.) Along with these changes, I have added some sort of physical activity in my daily routine to help me out and I keep this going consistently. I have seen results and these changes are things I can do for the rest of my life without having an issue. I don't know if this will work for you, but it is working for me and it's not complicated to do. 

It might seem like I am bashing diets, but this was purely my experience and if dieting works for you then you should totally pursue it, and I am with you 100% as long as I don't think it's dangerous to your health. I wish all of my viewers a healthy and prosperous life. 

"Learn from your past, don't live in it"

Inserting red flag here: This post is from my perspective. All opinion(s) written below are my own. 

I would just like to say that I am guilty of holding grudges for a long period of time and I let my past control what I do in the present. The past has a huge impact on the decisions I make today and it molds my values and beliefs. So do not read this post and think I am a strong individual who has his life under control, because I am in the same or even worse position than you, the reader, are at the moment. You might be thinking, "Why are you making a blog post about not living in your past if you live in your past?" I would first like to say that you have a point, however, I see this blog post as a letter to myself. I will come on my blog page every day, and I will look at this post and it will remind me that past experiences and events don't control my present. But enough of this self-reflection, lets get back to what this blog post is actually about. 

The problem I tend to see people, including myself, have is that they have a series of bad events or conflicts and the outcome of those events and conflicts causes some type of internal shock. This internal shock now resides with you for a huge period of time controlling what you say, do, and think because you know you don't want the same outcomes to come again. You, the viewer of this blog, is probably wondering what I am talking about? The best way to explain is to demonstrate it is through an example. An example can be that you gave advice to your friend that backfired and your friend got extremely angry at you. Due to this situation, the outcome became a burden on you, and you decided that from now on you wouldn't give people advice because it causes fewer complications. Yes, I agree that this does cause fewer complications because the reality is that you should not be interfering in other peoples conflicts and you're not their spiritual adviser. Your friend, family, significant others and side hoes, should be solving their own problem themselves and you should be going on through your day without that complication. However, it doesn't always work that way because that same friend comes back to you for advice even though it didn't end well the last time you gave advice. You are now in a predicament because your past experience is weighing down on you telling you not to give advice while your friend is standing in front of you asking you for advice. If you say no, it will cause an issue. If you give advice and it backfires again, it will also cause an issue. Now your past is weighing down on your present situation, and you are stuck. What do you do? You use your past experience as a learning experience and you let it go. You do not forget it, and you just stop it from controlling your current situation. What would I do if I was in your position? I give advice if I can and I will explain in very stern words that this advice is my opinion, and I am not telling or advising your friend to take it. Any decisions that your friend makes due to the advice I gave, is fully their responsibility and if they get upset like the previous time, I will no longer be in-service as a friend or adviser. Now you must be thinking, "What did you learn from your past experience?". It's quite clear, by saying what I said, you have learned to communicate better with your friend that the past situation was unacceptable and you will not accept the same outcome this time. Furthermore, you have made it clear that the advice is just advice, you are not forcing any decisions upon them. They have to make the decision themselves. Thus, you have learned quite a lot from a past situation without it burdening and stopping you from doing something in the present situation. 

What was the point of this blog post? If I were to give you an honest answer, there is a reason your past is called the past. It should not intertwine with your present and pull you down. It does not mean that you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again because I am telling you to not let your past control you. If you know that a past situation does not have a solution and its best to avoid the situation overall, then by all mean do it. Our lives are too short to be having constant drama or causing conflicts over and over again due to the same scenario that happened in the past. Learn from your past experience and let that learning experience help you approach life from a different perspective.