Are We Really Who Our Friends Are?
Are We Really Who Our Friends Are?
Do y’all remember when we were in junior high or high school and our parents would say, “You are who you hang around with”?
Usually, they said it because there was somebody they didn’t want us hanging around with. 😂
And of course, when you’re 15, you’re thinking, What are you even talking about? There’s nothing wrong with my friend.
Or maybe there actually WAS something wrong with your friend, but you sure as hell couldn’t see it. They were your friend. You liked them. Whatever everybody else was seeing clearly wasn’t bothering you.
Looking back, I’m pretty sure I was probably the kid some parents didn’t want their children hanging around with. 😂
My grandmother raised me, and it was just the two of us. She worked all the time. She had already raised her own children and suddenly here she was raising another one. She never once made me feel like a burden, but she also had a life to live and bills to pay. So I had a whole lot more freedom than some of my friends did.
And somehow I survived. 😂
But the older I get, the more I understand what our parents were trying to say.
Because now I’ll see someone I know — someone I really respect or think highly of — hanging around with someone I know to be a little… questionable.
And I catch myself thinking:
Wait. Y’all are friends?
And whether it’s fair or not, it changes something.
Maybe not completely. Maybe I don’t suddenly decide this person is terrible. But I start wondering if I knew them as well as I thought I did.
And THAT is what got me thinking tonight:
Are we really who our friends are?
If you hang around people who do drugs, does that mean you do drugs?
Of course not.
If your friends drink too much, does that make you an alcoholic?
No.
If you hang around some certifiable whack jobs, does that automatically make you a whack job?
Lord, I hope not, because I think we’d all be in trouble. 😂
But here’s where it gets complicated.
Even if we don’t become the people we surround ourselves with, do other people start to associate us with them?
And maybe the bigger question is: Should they?
Because we’re also supposed to love people through their flaws. We’re supposed to understand that people make mistakes. Good people can love complicated people. You can be friends with someone without approving of everything they do.
And nobody is perfect.
I sure as hell am not.
But I also think there’s a difference between loving someone who struggles and consistently choosing to surround yourself with people whose character, behavior, or values are completely different from the ones you claim to have.
At some point, the company we keep does say something about us.
Maybe not everything.
But something.
I saw something on the internet today involving someone I had always thought very highly of. And when I saw who they were with, I literally stopped and thought, What in the hell?
Did it make me think they were suddenly a bad person?
No.
Did it make me look at them a little differently?
If I’m being truthful… yeah. It did.
And then I had to question myself, too.
Was that fair of me?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Sometimes we put people on pedestals because of the version of them we’ve created in our own minds. Then we see one little thing that doesn’t fit that version, and suddenly we’re shocked.
But maybe they didn’t change at all.
Maybe we just never knew the whole person.
So now, all these years later, I finally understand what those adults were trying to tell us.
Maybe “you are who your friends are” isn’t completely true.
But I do believe the people we choose to keep close to us tell the world something about who we are, what we tolerate, what we value, and what we’re comfortable being around.
Fair or unfair, people notice.
Apparently it only took me about 40 years to realize our parents might have actually known what the hell they were talking about. 😂
So now I’m curious…
Do you believe you are who your friends are? Or do you think we judge people way too much by the company they keep?