Feel Good 101_The Outsiders' Guide to a Happier Life

by Emma Blackery

  7

  Bad Friends

  How To Spot A Bad Friend

  Let me make something perfectly clear: you’re going to have a bad friend in your lifetime. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Regular Joe or Taylor Swift. There is going to be at least one person in your life who will try to take advantage of you or make you feel small, all under the disguise of being a ‘friend’. I myself have had so many of what I would now consider ‘bad friends’ (and been hurt/let down/ betrayed so many times) that I learned quite early on to love my own company – which isn’t a bad thing, by the way! Always remain your own best friend. You have to put up with yourself for eighty years!

  Before we go on to listing my own criteria to assess if someone may be a ‘bad friend’, please etch this into your brain – you have a right to remove bad people from your life. You have a right not to be disrespected by someone you trust. Of course, someone letting you down for a movie date one time doesn’t make them a ‘bad friend’ – but repeated actions that make you suspect that someone you care about doesn’t care about you all that much should be enough to tell you to get outta that friendship!

  If you’re starting to wonder if your friend is worth keeping around, here are some telltale red flags of a ‘bad friend’:

  Does this person often let you down at the last minute? Do they agree to hang out with you at the weekend and then always seem to cancel with just a couple of hours to spare? Cancelling once or twice isn’t cause to drop that person – shit happens – but if this is the sixth time their grandmother has died, the chances are they want to spend their time doing something else. Their loss.

  Does your friend often make jokes at your expense, even when they know you’re not laughing along? If this person is nice to you when you’re alone with them, but then joins in with jokes about you in front of others, especially if you’ve already told them how much it upsets you, the chances are they don’t really care about your feelings. Explain to them how these jokes make you feel, and if they say something along the lines of, ‘Oh, lighten up!’ or, ‘It’s just a joke!’ instead of apologising, that’s a bad sign.

  Does this person talk about you behind your back? This is an obvious one. If you keep finding out from other people that your ‘friend’ is bitching about you when you’re not around, or joins in when others are bitching about you rather than defending you, they’re not being a good friend. Period.

  Does this person spill your secrets? Listen, secrets aren’t easy to keep, especially if you’re at school – sadly, gossiping and having the ‘scoop’ on someone can make you more liked in the short-term by others that dislike the person you’re gossiping about. If your friend tells someone a huge secret you’ve only entrusted to them, then that person isn’t looking out for your well-being.

  Does your friend make excuses not to see you? This is different to cancelling on you at the last minute, this is them ducking you altogether. Some people are shy, and simply don’t want to hang out with others outside where they have to, such as at school or work, but if this person is often out with others, or hanging out with a big group of people at school and they make an effort to avoid you or continually decline to hang out, they don’t value their time with you. Try to find someone who sees hanging out with you as something that matters to them.

  As I mentioned in the last chapter, there was a girl in my school year I had a ‘crush’ (actually a ‘squish’) on between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Because she had such a bold, positive outlook, and because she was kind and funny, she was extremely popular with the indie/emo kids that I considered ‘cool’. In fact, there was a whole group of people that she would hang around with every break and lunchtime – and it was a clique I was desperate to be a part of. This group of about ten kids had all known each other for years – they always hung out together inside and outside school, every weekend without fail, and were basically known to the real popular kids as the ‘weird emos’. That didn’t matter to me – they were squad goals. As someone who was . . . admittedly a bit . . . well, weird at school, I usually hung out either by myself, or with the one friend I’d managed to make (when she wasn’t hanging out with girls that she had more in common with). It became my dream to be accepted into the ‘weird emos’ – and every lunchtime I would make a beeline for them, with the theory, If I keep hanging out with them, eventually they’ll just accept me into their clique.

  For the first couple of weeks, this pretty much worked. I would find them out on the school field, sit with them, laugh at their jokes, pretend to like the same indie bands as them – but over time, I started to notice little changes that made me feel unwelcome in their clique. I would see photos posted on MySpace of them all hanging out at the weekend (I wasn’t invited), I would be ignored in conversation, and after a few weeks, they stopped hanging out in their usual spot on the school field. By the time I found them, either in a music room, or in a classroom, it would be the end of lunch. Looking back, it was obvious to me that they would all arrange to meet up somewhere without telling me (I only had a few of their phone numbers, and none would ever text me back) so that I wouldn’t be able to find them. At the time, I tried denying it to myself: Perhaps the field was just too cold. They’re not doing it on purpose, but that didn’t stop me feeling completely rejected, which just made me seek out their approval more. Now, I wish to state here that I am not saying people you like have to hang around with you – they have as much right to feel comfortable around you as you do around others – but if people that you consider your ‘friends’ are doing this to you, then they do not want to be around you. It sounds tough, but you have to get the hint. Move on, walk away, and stop trying to change who you are to make others like you. If I’d heard that as an insecure, rejected fifteen-year-old, and if I’d actually listened to the advice, I would have spent way less time feeling hurt and trying to fit in, and more time focusing on studying and making time for people who would have appreciated my company.

  Okay, so what about when someone you consider a ‘friend’ upsets you, but then apologises? I mean, I just told you that friends who do you wrong aren’t worth keeping around, right? How many times can someone do you wrong before you decide to cut them off? Well, for this, I would simply say trust your instincts. You will know your ‘friend’ better than I do – you will know when they seem genuinely remorseful for something they’ve done wrong. Don’t accept a half-hearted apology. If you think someone is apologising simply because they feel as though they have to, or even worse, because a group project is coming up and you’re the one that’s doing all the work . . . trust yourself. Don’t relent and accept an apology that will only enable you to be hurt again in the future.

  However – I always believe in second chances. Give someone the benefit of the doubt at least one time. Sometimes, people make genuine mistakes. They may not be good at owning up to their faults and may find it hard to apologise. I myself am pretty stubborn. I will admit that in the past I have often fought to defend my intentions even though I knew deep down I was in the wrong (more about that later). If your friend has only let you down once, forgive them. Trust them. However, if they continue to repeat their mistakes without learning from them, and you continue to feel let down, hurt or disrespected, keep your head high and walk away. It’s definitely hard to do, but in the long run, you will be happier. There’s a famous saying: ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’

  As for me? I went through a stage where I felt as though I didn’t have anyone – I’d grown apart from my school friends, and I found it hard to trust anyone in the YouTube community in an act of self-preservation. I was convinced that all my peers hated me, and I became extremely reserved. I’ve never hated my own company – in fact, I love being alone. However, as I’ve got older, and past indiscretions have been forgotten, I have made an effort to seek out friends who care about me and enjoy hanging out with me. I have people in my life now who share my love of things such as wrestling or films, with w
hom I share many inside jokes, and who genuinely look forward to seeing me, without shutting me down or making excuses. These are people who don’t let me down, who don’t use me and who care about my well-being.

  Ten years ago, my life was filled with people who did the opposite. If I can go from being the loner who was ditched at every given opportunity to finding happiness in friendship, I promise that there is hope for you. The right people will come along, and when they do, hold on to them, and go the extra mile to treat them with love and respect. When you make a mistake, own up to it and apologise. Engage in open and honest communication. Good friendships are like flowers (gross, Emma, how cheesy): water them, and they’ll last. Fake flowers may seem nice from a distance, but when you stare at them in detail, you realise they’re not real, and no matter how much you water them they’re still fake. What even is this analogy?

  When You’re The Bad Friend

  Okay, so we’ve spoken a lot about ‘bad friends’ – the people you should walk away from when they wrong you purposefully and repeatedly – but what happens when that ‘bad friend’ . . . is you?

  Over the course of your life, you’re going to screw up. You’re going to get carried away with a joke, or fail to defend someone for fear of looking stupid. You’re going to take something the wrong way and lash out, or be too stubborn to end an argument and apologise, even if you know you’re in the wrong. I’ve done all these things over the course of my lifetime, and I’m someone who would consider herself extremely loyal to friends.

  I have been the ‘bad friend’.

  If you happened to stumble across my YouTube channel between 2013 and 2014, you would have been aware that I wasn’t often seen without a girl called Cherry sewn to my hip. I’ll go on record here and tell you all that Cherry is one of the loveliest, kindest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I’m hoping that she won’t mind me telling you all this story, as – I will admit – I was completely in the wrong when we fell out during the summer of 2014.

  Cherry and I had first met at a YouTube party back in late 2012, right after I sat down at a make-up table and grabbed a bottle of foundation to look at, only for her to march on over and tell me in no uncertain terms, ‘Excuse me, that’s mine.’ I knew from that moment on that we were destined to be the baddest bitches in the community, and from then on, we were joined at the hip. I visited her often, we made videos together at her house and even co-owned our own beauty/fashion collaboration channel. Of course, we sometimes did things that the other person didn’t agree with, but we were, for the most part, inseparable. I thought our friendship was tighter than anyone else’s. I didn’t realise that I was unwittingly treating her badly as a friend.

  Fast forward to late summer 2014. The YouTube community, fans and creators alike, were getting prepared for Summer in the City, a YouTube convention held in London every August. A couple of weeks before the event, Cherry and I got into an argument over some things that I had said a while back, not knowing that they had upset her. Instead of acting rationally, as I would now, three years on – instead of putting my friendship with her above my own pride and apologising for how I had made her feel – I got defensive. I refused to believe I had done anything wrong. I wasn’t a bad friend! Without leaving myself even a second to cool off, I completely passed the blame back to her, and just like that, our very public close friendship was over. Over the next few weeks, we unfollowed and unfriended each other on every social media website and we were no longer on speaking terms.

  For an entire year after our argument, Cherry and I didn’t say a word to one another. It wasn’t until Summer in the City the next year that I saw her in the green room. We exchanged glances. In the twelve months that had passed since we’d fallen out, my anger had completely died away, now replaced by regret and sorrow for the loss of someone I’d been so close to. In front of me wasn’t the person who had hurt me, but the person that I had hurt, and who I had been too stubborn to apologise to. Taking a deep breath and finally swallowing my pride, I walked towards her, expecting her to walk away. She would have had every right to – but she didn’t. We went outside, shared an awkward exchange, and hugged. We both talked over how we’d handled the situation (and let me be clear, I definitely handled it worse than she did), and she graciously accepted my apology. When the time came, we walked away from each other, knowing the air was a little clearer.

  I am grateful that this story has a happy ending. Over the past three years since our argument, I have made it my mission to become a better person each and every day, and I am happy to say that I am a great distance from the stubborn, proud fool that I was in 2014. Cherry and I are close again, albeit not as close as we were before, and I have done everything I can to show her how much I regret how I handled our argument, which would have been resolved had I not been so quick to anger at having my ego dented. The only real positive, along with learning my lesson, is that our friendship is definitely more equal and honest than it was when we were inseparable. It has taken an awfully long time for Cherry to feel as though she can treat me like a friend again – with good reason. I have paid for my sins by enduring three years of the loss of a truly great friendship, ruined by the rift I helped cause. Sometimes, you can be so blinded by the rage that you convince yourself is justified that you cannot see the hurt that you are causing – and once that rage has subsided, you are left with nothing but a room filled with regrets.

  Cherry and I talk most days now, although I would completely accept it if she never spoke to me again. She didn’t have to forgive me, but she chose to, despite all that I had done to escalate our relationship breakdown. I cannot say I would have been able to be as gracious as she was if I was in her position.

  If you feel as though your ego has been dented, and you feel enraged, it can be easy to fire back heated words out of anger and say things you don’t mean, which can ruin a friendship for ever. If I had taken a day – or even a few hours – and responded to Cherry after I had calmed down, who knows where we’d be right now? The chances are, if I’d calmly apologised, taken responsibility for my part in our argument, we’d still be as close as we were before, possibly even closer. Instead, I chose the quick, easy thing to do and acted defensively, forever tainting our relationship. Sometimes, you will be the ‘bad friend’. Sometimes, you have to bite the bullet and apologise, and do what you need to do to make it up to that friend. Communication is the foundation of a good relationship – it is so important to communicate your feelings calmly, as well as being able to put your pride aside and listen to what your friend or partner is saying, because they are not expressing their feelings for nothing. You must be as willing to listen as you are willing to defend yourself. If you feel the need to defend your actions, make sure that you are not simply defending them out of hurt and anger. Explain your side of the story, calmly and with respect – it may just save a relationship from breaking down.

  This entire situation has changed me a lot – I am no longer afraid to put my pride aside and apologise when I am wrong. I no longer try to pass the blame off on others, and now wait until I’m calm before responding. There is no shame in saying to someone, ‘I need a moment to process this, I’ll speak to you about it in a while,’ if you need to gather your thoughts. I don’t plan on making the same mistakes ever again with any friends in the future. It’s just a shame that I had to lose my friendship with Cherry temporarily in order to learn how to treat other friends with the respect I should have always shown.

  And, Cherry, in case you need to hear it again, despite me boring you with the same words over and over again, I’m so, so sorry. You’re still my caramel crème.

  Peer Pressure

  Everyone, at some point in their lives, will experience peer pressure. Whether it’s a colleague begging you to go to the office party, friends chanting ‘Chug! Chug! Chug!’ at the pub, or friends handing you a marker and telling you that writing graffiti on the school wall isn’t a ‘big deal’, we’ll all experience a battle b
etween our morals and our desire to be seen as ‘cool’. As I have said, at a young age I was insecure, and therefore very impressionable. I thought I was ‘uncool’, and that by doing the things that the ‘cool’ kids were doing, I would be ‘cool’ too. After feeling rejected by the ‘weird emos’ that I so wanted to accept me, I went in search of a new group of people to hang around with (yes, I was that uncomfortable with being alone, fearing that being on my own would attract attention from the bullies) and found company in a smaller group of girls in the year above.

  No matter which year you’re in at school, anybody in the year above you is cooler than you. It’s a natural hierarchy. They seem more mature, as though they have their lives in order. They’re smarter, funnier, and if you’re able to get in with them, then kids in your own year will see you as cool, right? That’s what went through my head when I was fifteen years old and first hanging around with a girl we’ll call ‘Kat’. Kat was the cool friend you read about in young adult novels – sixteen years old, with tattoos that she got by pretending she was older, openly lesbian and yet left completely alone by the bullies that would pick on anyone else for being the same, and seemingly the most confident girl I knew. For lack of a better word, to me, she was awesome, and everything I wanted to be. I didn’t have to pretend I was someone else around her, and she and her cool friends were seemingly fine with me hanging around with them at lunchtime after I found myself ditched by the ‘weird emos’ clique in my own school year. I’m still unsure on how I felt about Kat, but looking back, I remember imagining kissing her and doing other stuff without feeling like I was forcing the idea on myself. To me, Kat was the coolest, most incredibly perfect girl I knew.