The Fauxmoi People
This is honestly a rant. I know, I rant a lot but but this is something that has crushed me more than I realised.
Okay, then, let me just get straight to the point. I don’t think I’m the typical cool guy. You know the cool guys that you see and hear about, the crowd-puller, the ladies' man, the extrovert, the party guy—all that Jazz. There are a few key people who made me who I am. And this is a story about one of those circles.
When I was growing up, till the age of say 16, I did not have any friends near my home. In fact, even when I’m writing this now at the age of 24, I still don’t know who my neighbours’ kids are.
The place where I grew up is not really well known for the kind of people who stay here. What I mean by that is the culture of the people here is borderline vulgar. Sure, there are a few diamonds in the rough, but mostly the kind of people who are my typical neighbours are not the people you'd want to associate with in everyday life. Not exactly the role model kind, if you know what I mean.
Because of this, my parents decided to isolate me from the kids in the neighbourhood. They didn’t want me influenced by the wrong crowd—which, in hindsight, worked. But it also meant I had no social circle growing up.
And there is a certain friend that I made in 10th grade who started to help me socialise with this, in fact, I believe if he had not entered my life, I would have never left my comfort zone, and my entire life trajectory would’ve been different.
But the problem is people change, now let me come back to the story I was initially sharing. Eventually, what started out with one friend expanded to a very big circle of around 20+ people. Eventually, the circle dwindled down and ended up being a few people, including me.
Now I ain't a saint, sure I have done a lot of shit in my life, but I think everyone in life should live by three things: their ethics, morals and principles. Your concept of these seemingly simple words dictates your character.
If you do a lot of introspection, you will understand what kind of person you are and how you came to be who you are. For example, I was referred to as the "Pookie type" as an insult by one of my friends, but I guess that is honestly very true.
Giving more backstory to that, I recently read a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert A. Glover. From what I understood, I became the typical "nice guy" due to my conditioning, growing up in a dysfunctional family where I had seen abuse, the inner child in me must’ve decided not to be rude to anyone growing up, especially to women.
Similarly, the kind of environment you grow up in or surround yourself with dictates who you are as a person. And this environment can be as simple as the friends you hang out with. What would you do if you knew the only best friend you have was moving counties, and the other people you know are not the kind of people you want to associate with? Would you still stay, or would you choose to walk away?
While I am eternally grateful for that circle, the circle that brought me outside into the real world, I always thought that I owed them a lot. The thing is, somewhere along the line, we drifted apart. The priorities we had seem to have taken a different trajectory altogether.
But being in one too many toxic relationships (by relationships I mean all kinds, not just romantic), I have come to understand that once people start to show you who they are and you realise that you don't want to be associated with such behaviour, start to walk away. Believe in the characteristic traits people exhibit, and people hardly change. Change always has to come from within, and once you hang around with people enough, you can understand if the traits they exhibit are things they wish to change or not.
Why am I writing about all of this? Honestly, writing makes me feel better, and what I have realised is that everything you go through in life, somewhere, someone else in the world goes through as well. And well, writing is a good cerebral exercise. Change is an extremely difficult process, and it has to come from within and can not be external.
Now, if being cool means being all of what I said at the beginning of the blog, I think I would rather stay boring, old and single and continue to bitch and whine like an old man on how the society has gone to shit rather than partake in all of this madness.
People change; it could be due to multiple reasons. We grow out of friendships, we grow out of relationships. Now, the reality in front of me is how I will be deprived of social contact moving forward. Because of my lack of other social circles and the work-from-home nature of my job, when you choose to cut contact with one of your only social circles, it will have a significant impact on your mental health.
But then again, you can't dictate how life happens to you. I guess life just happens, and you just embrace it. Is this the end of my social life era, at the ripe old age of 24? Have I just decided to sabotage my mental health and decided to screw myself. So many questions that are floating in my head, for which I don't know the answers.
Weekends should now be something that would be very interesting, from brain rotting to bed rotting, I should be able to pick and choose what rotting I want to do :P
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