"A person's actions will tell you everything you need to know about them... Pay attention!" This is a great quote. And, unfortunately, I have no clue who originally said it. Even so, I believe it is good advice.
I'll give you a couple of examples. Have you ever met someone who would say one thing and then do another? I had a friend who would only say nice things about people in front of their face, but as soon as they were not there, would actively plot against them to cause them grief. When I first saw this in action, I thought that it was only a one off, that something must have happened that I didn't know about and that he must have gotten angry and was just venting. It was not always overt. Sometimes, he would say this stuff to only one person at a time... trying to get them to turn against the other person. Many times, he would lie or use a half truth to get another person angry at his target. But always, he would slowly lead the brunt of a group of friends to turn against the other person. I saw this in action, and I thought that as long as I was cognizant of what he was doing, it would be alright. And that surely the others could see it to. I was wrong. When I brought this up to a couple of the guys, not only could they not see it, but they disagreed with me wholeheartedly... until they were the target of his wrath. Then they began to see what was happening. At one point, he turned his wrath towards me. I knew what was happening, and decided to avoid him. It didn't matter. He would find things to do with the people I usually hung out with to isolate me. Some of the people he would invite to events he didn't even like. He just invited them along to isolate me from members of the group. Luckily, I hung out with a lot of different people, so it did't bother me too much. I was out of college by then and had numerous friends who only vaguely knew of each other. Still, it was a nuisance when I did want to hang with some of my local friends. Well, things got back to normal soon enough, but I never forgot that action, and kept my distance from him as much as I could. I did not trust him. I do not know about you, but I find it hard to remain friends with someone I don't trust. Finally, I saw a situation where his actions could be brought out into the open in front of the whole group. He had set up to go see one of the other guy's girlfriends while we were all hanging out. He didn't know that I overheard him talking on his phone and that I recognized the girl's voice. He feigned a headache, and we left the bar to drive him home since he did not drive his own car to the club. After driving him home (I was driving that night), I drove around the block and waited up a side street with the guy whose girlfriend he was going to see. This guy never could see anything bad in his "friend" and didn't even realize that the other guy really hated him and looked down on him. At any rate, I told the guy that the "kid with the headache was going to leave from his house and go see HIS girlfriend. Naturally, he didn't believe me. "CL" would never do THAT! Well, sure enough, five minutes go by and "CL"'s car came down the other street. He must of saw us when I turned my lights on, because he shot off down the road at an accelerated rate and turned in the opposite direction from my friend's girls house. It didn't matter. I knew where he was going. I told my friend that he was likely going to the liquor store to pick up some beer and that all we had to do was go wait in front of his girlfriend's house. He was skeptical, but we did it. About ten minutes after we got there, "CL" came walking up the street. He was almost next to us before he noticed my car. We were sitting with the windows open and he turned to us and said, "oh, and don't think I didn't see you down that side street, I did!" And he walked away. My friend was stunned, But he believed me. I then told him everything else I had observed and something clicked in his head. He said, "you know, now that you mention it, I have seen him do some different things to towards others"... and he told me what he observed. He had never put two and two together and figured out the whole story. Not only that, he never even realized that he had been targeted that way too. Once word got out about what happened, none of the regular members of the group would hang out with him any longer. That was effectively the end of that group of friends. We all went our separate ways soon after that. I did notice that some guys who were mutual friends of me and "CL" stopped talking to me soon after that. One actually said, he had heard that I had said something nasty about him. I asked him if he believed that, and he said he did, so I ended that friendship right there. I had never said anything even similar to what he said he had heard I said. "CL" was actively trying to protect his position among of friends. At that point, I didn't care. These people and I were friends because I had met them through him anyway. I didn't want to associate with him, and so I did not care if these people did not want to associate with me. I bring this up tonight since one guy contacted me a year or two ago when he saw my name pop up on Facebook. We started chatting every once in a while, but he lived in North Carolina, and I lived in New Hampshire, so we always knew it would just be causal conversations. He brought up that "CL" had visited him last year, when he had been in the area on business trip. He had always been tight with "CL" and he did not know why we all stopped hanging out together (at least I am quite certain he did not know the real reason anyway). At this point in my life, it doesn't matter anyway. After so many years, I do not want to get into a he said/she said kind of situation. I am glad that this guy contacted me over Facebook, and that he leaves whatever happened between me and "CL" between us. In the end, a person's actions do tell you everything you need to know about them... if you pay attention. What you do with that information is up to you. At age fifty, I find it is best to avoid people whose actions are not up to my standards. I have had enough heartbreak in my life. There is no need to invite strife into my life by allowing those with reprehensible actions to enter into my circle of friends. You learn a lot after fifty years. Hopefully, some of you younger readers can learn a life lesson from this story. Sometimes it is hard to do the right thing. But I find that the sooner you can make that move, the better.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2021
Categories
All
|