It's not a crime to be picky about your friends

The people we meet in our lives all provide us with challenges. It's our job to handle them in the way we see suitable. And we notice, the people we were once joined at the hip with, we haven't spoken to in years. People drift apart, and then some people never leave. But it raises the question about who you let in your life.

We all set boundaries of what we tolerate, and what we consider acceptable behaviour that we will allow. If someone treats you badly, or is doing and saying things you don't agree with, shouldn't you challenge them? Stephen Chbosky wrote in The Perks of Being a Wallflower: "we accept the love we think we deserve." And I believe this. But that leads us to another problem, which is people not knowing what they deserve. 

It isn't a crime to know you deserve better. It isn't a crime to recognise a toxic situation and to remove yourself from it. We need to understand that sometimes we are worth more than we are getting, and that too, is not a crime to admit. The bigger problem is that people like to avoid confrontation, but not every disagreement has to go badly. Nothing just improves on its own, or at least very rarely. We have to change our own situations if we aren't happy, and sometimes that includes being picky about your friends.

Not all the friends you have are the same kind of friends; for example, you might have a great relationship with your neighbour, and you spend every day together, you go out often and really enjoy each other's company. Then, you might have a great relationship with your friend from school that lives in another country, and you rarely speak, but when you do you have so much fun. Distance or anything similar isn't necessarily a reason to cut someone out of your life, but people have a problem with putting themselves first. We think it's bigheaded to ask for what we deserve, so we don't. We just accept whatever we get. But why should we?

No matter what age you are, or how long you've known the people in your life, you need to recognise when you're not being treated the way you deserve. So, get better. Ask. And if they don't see an issue, or they can't understand your perspective, then you have to decide whether that's someone you want in your life. It sounds harsh, because it is. But the alternative is to bite your tongue and be unhappy in this persons company, and what sort of relationship is that?

Above anything, as I've said, it's about knowing what you deserve. Look at your relationships and question whether you deserve how they treat you. Then look at yourself, and look at the way you treat people. We all make mistakes, but mistakes are fixable, but only if you try.