Sometimes people don't care.
We all have those people in our lives where it seems that you can never please them. They never accept you fully as a person. You say something, whether it's an opinion or how you feel, and they give you a disapproving look. It seems that whatever you do, they decide to fight against it. You can't pitch an idea without them shooting it down, which you don't recognize until those same ideas are valued, whether agreeable or not.
Well, I have news for you: This isn't what friends are supposed to do. I learned this lesson freshman year of high school. Halfway through, I figured out that I was surrounded by people who didn't really care about me as a human being, or as their friend. If something new and different came along, they would dissapear from my life until they needed someone to fall back on. But I made the mistake of sticking around too long, and to this day I always worry that the true friends I do make will one day just throw me to the side of the road when they realize something better is on the horizon. I am a sophomore in college and still think about this every day.
Leave them. Leave them for the person that knows you love to talk, so when you decide to stay silent they ask what is wrong. Leave them for the person who texts you or shows up at your door because you haven't talked for a bit and they wanted to check in. Leave them for the person who knows what it is like to hit rock-bottom and doesn't want you to experience it. Someone who is willing to be as good of a friend to you as you are to them, because nothing is worse than when you realize you put more into a friendship than someone else.
Leave them for someone who is willing to adventure with you. Someone who includes you in their plans even when they realize you could say no. Leave them for the person that makes you wonder why they are paying attention to you, because you are used to having friends that don't.
This is the hardest thing I have ever learned to do in my life. But so far, it has been the most rewarding. Surround yourself with those who are just as driven, those who will sit down and watch game shows upon game shows while having the most intellectual conversations you need.
The next question should be how you know. How do you know if you made the right choice to end toxic relationships and start more positive ones?
Well. It's easy. One night you'll just be sitting around a table or in someone's room laughing so hard your abs hurt and your eyes are watering. You can't even remember the last time you were this happy, and you never want to leave this moment. Because for the first time in a long time you have forgotten what it feels like to cry tears of sadness, and that is all because of those people in that room or around that table. They are the reason you are finally happy.
They are the reason you don't worry about being loved anymore.
