Running into The Person You Ghosted
The title kind of says it all here.
I haven't blogged in a couple weeks because I've been trying to write less as a job and more when I feel like it. It's good to have discipline but I was pressuring myself to write and revise two different novels at once. On top of that, I was querying, marketing, and writing short stories too. It was too much. So I stepped back and said I'd blog when I feel like it. I think it produces better work anyway because you blog when something significant happens. You aren't sitting at your desk trying to think of an idea. You already have one.
What's prompted me to blog today is that while speed-walking down the street on campus and listening to the new Midnights album, I passed someone I ghosted last year. It honestly wasn't awkward. We both smiled and said hi, but I feel like it doesn't matter if it goes well; it's still a person you hoped you'd never see again, and so there's always going to be some natural awkwardness with a situation like that.
When I say ghosted, I'm talking about a healthy ghosted. My sophomore year of college was the first year I was actually living on campus because COVID stole my freshman year. I was in the dorms, and while my roommate was very nice, her friends didn't treat me great. This guy I passed on the street was one of them. They excluded me a lot, deliberately didn't tag me in posts, talked behind my back, and had a "secret" group chat (it was a Sydney-free zone); they would still talk about the group chat in front of me, but never invite me. They talked down to me. My roommate's one friend that I will not name would get drunk and then more or less call me an embarrassment when I dared to get drunk. She partied way more than me, but she would always make fun and blame me for ruining the vibe by drinking. My disinterest in partying outside my group of friends in our apartment, I blame her a little bit for. Now I'm more scared to be myself in that kind of setting because she criticized me for being just that.
Anyway, I being the people-pleaser I am, spent my entire sophomore year trying to get them to like me. I tried snapping them, but I would get short responses. All of them were somehow so close, and none of them wanted to talk to me. They wouldn't invite me anywhere. My roommate was so nice, but she seemed less nice simply in association with everyone she was hanging out with.
I'm a friendly person, and I now realize I was trying to mold myself to be like them. I was being fake just because I wasn't owning who I am. So I cut them off the summer after sophomore year. I cut every one of them off. It was maybe a dozen people that I said goodbye to.
I'm personally glad I went through that because I stayed with my good group of friends and they accept me for who I am and include me. I've honestly found myself. On campus, I do a lot of body image awareness and mental health advocacy, and that's what's important to me. I care about that stuff more than partying and fitting in. I was never meant to be friends with them. I have no right to assume whether they know themselves or not because I've been out of their life for a while, and I genuinely wish them the best, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I hope I never see them again. They really hurt me. I even tried to casually non-directly bring it up to my roommate, and she apologized, but she didn't do anything about it.
You can't make people like you. That's the main lesson I learned. No matter how hard you try, you can't make people want to be your friend. It could've been jealousy, it could've been they thought they were too cool for me, it could've been anything. They were extremely cliquey and when I introduced them to my best friend, they were very rude.
Now that I've told you all of this, I think it makes sense why it was so weird for me to see one of them again. It's been several months since I've seen any of them. The second I made eye-contact, I felt like this ex-acquaintance of mine was the ghost from my past, torturing me with the reminder of my mistakes.
Part of me feels guilty for unadding all of them on all social media platforms, but whenever I feel that guilt, I remind myself that I'm happier without them. I'm happier without them making me feel like I'm not good enough. I don't need that in my life. It's not mean to let go of people if it means that letting them go will aid you. Because you are with yourself for your whole life.
Surrounding yourself with positive people is one of the smartest things you can do. And letting go of the toxic people in my life did two things for me. One, it allowed me to get involved more with things that I like such as the Peer Body Project and the crisis line I volunteer for, as well as the literary agency I work for. It freed up time for me to establish better relationships; joining all these awesome things led me to awesome people.
The second thing it did was give me plenty of juicy writing material. I always like to tell people before they hurt me they if they do choose to hurt me, they'll probably end up in a book. Not in a bad way. The only reason I write about those who have hurt me is because by hurting me, they shaped me into the person I am. What better character arc is that? I don't write about them in a bad light; I write about them in a positive light because without them, I wouldn't have changed.
So if you think I maybe wrote about you, you're probably right.
To the guy I passed on the street, thank you!
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