Maybe this is just confirmation that I'm a terrible person, but I'm never afraid to cut people out of my life. I don't think I do it for trivial reasons, but I reach a point with people that I just can't spend my time or energy being around them.
In the past several years I've found that I have made friends with people who are extremely negative in one way or another. I'm not one who has lots of friends, at least not the type of friends that I hang out with. I am friendly with lots of people, but once I go home, I'm a homebody and I don't have much contact with people outside of work. I've always been like that, even as a kid. I had friends at school, but I didn't always spend lots of time with them outside of school. Anyhow, several years ago while I was living in Utah I had a friend that I worked with named Stacy. The thing was, Stacy always seemed to feel that I was competing with her. The fact is, I wasn't. She also was one of those people who has to go around correcting everyone because she thinks it's cute. She especially loves to do this with grammar. You'll be in the middle of saying something and she'll correct you. Yeah, real cute. Basically she is incredibly self-conscious and has low self-esteem. She also was one of those people who would be confrontational, but in a passive aggressive way. For example, whenever she would accuse me of competing with her, she never came right out and said it. She would say that "other people" had mentioned that I was competing with her. Anyhow, long story short...I finally reached a point with her that I got fed up. Her negativity began to affect me. I decided to just cut her off, and that's what I've done. I haven't spoken to her in almost four years.
Well, I've had a similar issue with another co-worker/friend. I've realized that he is a major drama queen. He gets into these hissy fits and gets upset and starts arguing over the stupidest things! He's one of those people who thrives off of arguments. I have been in conversations with him and had him argue with me about things when I KNOW that he agrees with what I'm saying. He just likes to argue. I remember our boss one time talking about how she loves American Idol, and he goes into this tirade about how it's such a fake show, it's stupid. It's a waste of time, it's contrived, blah, blah, blah. Oh, but what didn't he mention...HE WATCHES EVERY SINGLE EPISODE BECAUSE IT'S HIS FAVORITE SHOW! Yes, he's one of THOSE people. Honestly, he just argues so that he can argue. Well, last week I reached my limit. I went it to tell him about something funny I saw online, and he blows up and starts yelling at me about it. I finally just walked out of his office, and I haven't spoken to him since. I'm done with him and his negativity. It is just too draining to spend time with him wondering when he's going to blow up into one of his temper tantrums. Once he gets going, he won't stop. So I've taken this weekend to decide that I'm going to limit my contact with him.
I think the problem I have is that I am one of those people who relives negative moments over and over in my mind. I become obsessed with them. When I spend time around these people, their negativity feeds into my own personal negativity and I dwell on it. On a certain level it bothers me that I do this, mainly because it's something I've seen happen in my own family far too often. (Not my immediate family.) Is cutting people out of your life hereditary? Did I learn this from them? Does it make me an awful person? I just feel like I'd rather have no friends than spend time with negative friends. If that makes me a bitch, so be it.
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