Category: Relationships

DISCLAIMER: This is entirely from my own prospective and I contributed to the toxicity in the relationship in some form I am sure

Having a toxic friend is like having an open wound that you have let fester and get infected. Everyone you meet sees it and goes “Hey you should get that looked at it doesn’t look so good,” and you just respond with “It’s fine. Just a scratch.” In reality the wound is oozing and has gangrene and has caused the entire arm to go necrotic. When it comes to finally realizing that your entire arm is necrotic it always takes a major event that makes you refocus. I like to call this moment “The Line in the Concrete”, because a line in the sand when crossed can be redrawn and crossed again; a line in concrete can never be redrawn. Well I recently got my arm metaphorically amputated and my concrete line was crossed. Weddings are lovely joyous occasions that are cause for friends and family to come together and celebrate the love between the bride and groom. They are not occasions for you to have epiphanies about the fact that your 14 year friendship to one of the bridesmaids is as toxic as toxic gets. What can I say I have convenient timing. Now luckily this epiphany didn’t come with an all out dramatic yelling match (a Lifetime movie this is not), but it did put an unfortunate damper on our best friends wedding day. Something I will never forgive myself for. Hence why it was my line in the concrete.

This was a person I actively called one of my best friends on any given day; I mean we had known each other for 14 years for God’s sake. Her mom is basically a second mother to me and our parents are best friends. There’s a lot that happens in 14 years, some of it good some of it bad and in our case a lot bad. We met when we were 9 (and before you ask I don’t wish I had never met her) and for the first 3 years of our friendship we were inseparable. Everything from sleepovers to Girl Scouts we did together. Then 7th grade hit suddenly we went from carefree children to pubescent moody preteens. Suddenly I wasn’t cool enough to be seen with at school and she would only talk to me after school. Her new “cool” (this is where she went into her “emo” phase) didn’t much like me and I didn’t much like them. Yet our friendship persisted into high school where I was cool enough to be seen with at school again (mostly cause we rode the same bus I think) but that’s kind of where things got bad. I remember the put downs and the snide remarks, but also remember the kind words and the helpful advise. It was in high school that I began to realize that she was jealous of things I couldn’t control and she would weaponize that against me.

I am an only child and I am also a girl. I am the first one to tell you that I am a spoiled and I am occasionally known to be a brat, although I don’t personally consider myself to be a spoiled brat. On the other hand she was the eldest of three and spoiled and bratty in much different ways not that she would ever admit to that. I believe she resented that fact that I in fact did get my way or what I wanted the majority of the time. Every fight we have ever had the fact that I am an only child and I am the sole focus of my parents gets thrown in my face. There were a lot of fights and a lot of times where I just bit my tongue and let her put me down. Especially when were with a group of new people is when she would go in, almost as if trying to make me look bad in comparison. She constantly craved attention and to be the center of everything. Everything in life had to be about her and in relation to her. It was always more of a one way friendship with her and all ways lead to her.

It took me 10ish years to realize that I deserved better out of a friendship. There are going to be people in your life that you love with your whole heart and you want to help them and be there for them, but they just pull you down with them. These are the hardest people to leave and the hardest people to cut contact with. When you finally do cut contact its like coming up for air after being underwater. Its okay to love your toxic person and miss your toxic person, but its not okay to let your toxic person drag you down. I am choosing to surround myself with people who love and support me and who I love and support back. Even though I still love and care for my friend I know in my heart its the best for both of us to be apart and stay apart.

 

So like your girl is single AF and if my dating life over the past couple years is anything to go by I am going to have better luck finding a goddamn leprechaun riding a unicorn in space then finding love in this day and age. I am a 23 year old woman (who admittedly has standards as high as Mt. Everest) and I have been single for about three years give or take. Now I will admit that there are other reasons why I am single that have nothing to do with men, society, or how people find love in this tech filled world and everything to do with me as a woman who is picky and reads WAY to many romance novels. That being said there are most definitely some issues with dating in the modern age. So sit down grab some snakes and enjoy the ride.

As millennial we look at love and dating very differently from the generation before us. It’s like we are all terrified to meet people these days so everything is just online where its safe and cozy. There are a multitude of dating apps and websites out there, from eHarmony.com to Tinder, and I’m pretty sure that I have tried most of them. The one I use and love to hate the most being the almighty Tinder. The amount of mind boggling stories I have form this app rivals the amount of times I have deleted and re-downloaded it. Men on Tinder range from completely skeevy deadbeats to the rare and elusive actually respectable guy. In my experience there are approximately three types of guys on tinder, “The Complete Asshole”, “The Supposed Nice Guy”, and “The Boyfriend Material.”

1. “The Boyfriend Material”– I have only met one of these on any kind of dating sight and due to neither of in a good place to sustain any kind of relationship, it was very short lived. But shot out to him for being a decent guy!
2. “The Supposed Nice Guy” – This group is arguable the largest and the most migraine inducing. They are the guy you meet who seems really nice at first (if he describes himself as a nice guy he falls into the third category which I will rant about in a moment). I have meet so many of these guys, like it feels like hundreds, that I can make them flip in less then a day. These guys act nice and sweet at first but they come with an air of entitlement about them. For some reason they seem to think that because they are nice to you that you seem to owe them your time, energy, body, etc. I have also nicknamed them “The 180” because that exactly what they do. It usually starts off a little something like this… “Your so beautiful! Like your eyes are just like wow!” and then you respond for a bit and then next thing you know they are calling you a fat ugly bitch and they can do better.
3. “The Complete Asshole” – I mean do I really need to go over this one? This is the guy that swipes right just to tell you that he wants to fuck even though he thinks your fugly.

Now that we have defined our groups lets chat about what frustrates me the most about what these boys (cause that’s what they are lets be honest) think is appropriate. I think the first thing that boys tend to do that drives me up the wall is the Dick Pic. There is no rhyme or reason as to when a girl might receive these beautiful works of art, but receive them they will. I don’t think I will ever understand what processes a human to send another human a picture of what could arguably be the ugliest body part out of the blue. Like seeing your penis does absolutely nothing to turn me on, unless its physically in me then that’s a different story, but a picture does nothing but make me feel repulsed. Then they like to get angry when their assault to your vision doesn’t have the effect they wanted it to have. I once had a guy call me a “stuck up bitch” because I didn’t respond to his picture. So then I have to explain why I as a human being don’t A) want to have a picture like that sent to be just out of the blue and B) how its really inappropriate to send that to someone with out their consent. This tends to make them more upset. They get offended by you not wanting a random DP which boggles my mind really. Now if you as a man are talking to another human and that human asks for one then send away, but if they don’t ask DO NOT SEND!

My second favorite thing guys do is expect you to meet them at the drop of a hat. I work full time and I go to college full time; I need advanced notice if I am going to meet up with somebody, especially if that somebody is a stranger from the internet. And really lets face it I want to look as close to my profile as I possibly can when we meet cause that shit is with makeup and filters. First impressions matter people! I usually work pretty late, at least till 11PM most days, the last thing I want to do when I get off is see somebody least of all a stranger and I DEFIANTLY do not want to go to a strangers house in the middle of the night! I don’t understand how this simple concept is so hard to comprehend for some “men”. Why on God’s green earth would I willingly walk into a situation where I could be potentially harmed? I watch Criminal Minds. I watch the news. Ladies if a guy you met on any kind of dating site and he goes just come over to mine and we’ll hang out and its after 10 o’clock at night A) if this is the first time you are meeting DO NOT GO and B) If you have met him and he does this he just wants to bang (if your okay with that then go just be safe about it. But not even thinking how dangers it could potentially be for the women think about it as a guy, like you don’t know the girl you invited over either she could drug you and take everything you own or worse! So like maybe set up a date that takes place in a public area during the day time and give ample time to get ready.

I have so much more about dating that riles me up and makes me want to punch a hole in the wall, but for know I will just leave this here. Honestly if I talked about everything that annoyed me about dating I would have a epic novel.