Thursday, January 24, 2013

Control - Alt - Delete




Shortly after the holidays, Kim and I headed out on a Saturday evening to attend one of his comedy shows in Northern Kentucky. Nothing out of the norm, here. As we're walking in to the place, I get a Shannon Barno to my left, and I look over to see an old girl friend that I haven’t seen over five years. For the sake of this blog, I will call her Allison.

I cannot for the life of me explain this, but this run-in with Allison was bittersweet. While I had a fantastic time catching up with her, both of us knew damn well that we didn’t end things on a good note. When the night ended, we exchanged numbers but there was a strange silent understanding that there wouldn’t be any further contact. Not to mention, with the shenanigans that she and I used to get in to, I’m pretty sure that her husband can’t stand me. But that is neither here nor there.

Back when I was still friends with Allison I had the tendency to play the friendship game with some pretty toxic people. I don’t want to say that I was a pushover per say, but I did find myself putting up with a lot of shit that I shouldn’t have - and for what? For the sake of keeping the peace with people who weren’t even worthy of it?

Because I was keeping the company of contaminated people, Kim eventually brought my defect to a head. I was whining to him about Allison again who, at the time, was completely taking advantage of me. Kim stopped me and asked me why I let Allison constantly make withdrawals from our relationship without making a single deposit. To him, my relationship with Allison was obviously bankrupt. Puzzled, I looked and him and thought, well isn’t THAT is a fantastic question.

Very shortly after hearing those simple but very important words, I pulled the plug on our friendship. Sad, I know, but I felt much better. No more drama, no more withdrawals, no more heartache.

It would be wonderful if this was the only time I've had to end a crappy relationship, but anyone who either knows me or has read even one of blogs knows it's not. Not even close. Not by a long shot. I've had to weed out the liars. The manipulators. The cheaters. The pumpkin-pie eaters (kidding). You never see the bad ones coming because as a wise man once said, bad people are intriguing (thanks, Jorge Garcia).  About three months ago, I walked away from yet another toxic situation. This one wasn’t quite as obvious, but eventually I saw this individual's true colors, very shortly after Kim and I got engaged. This one was tricky - we had been great friends for years! But with a small jab here, a bitchy dig there, and an off-handed comment just about everywhere (not to mention her threat to kick my ass on my birthday) I soon realized that this gal was jealous. Who gets jealous of their own friends? You're supposed to be happy - better yet, ecstatic - for your friends and family, not jealous. Haters always gotta be hatin', right? Anyway, after receiving a super-shitty group text message regarding a un-invitation to her party (that’s right, instead of just calling me and talking to me like a freaking human being, I was uninvited via bitchy, threaded text), I was done. Of all the things in the world, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Control, alt, delete.

If there is someone in your life who is making you unhappy, either because that person is constantly putting you down, or leading you into bad situations, or lying to you, or cheating on you, or generally treating you like garbage, and you're thinking of pulling the plug on that toxic relationship then just do it! He /she is NOT worth the pain and frustration. The genuine people that truly love you for who you are (GOOD friends; family members) will still be there. And all those little things about yourself that those toxic people used to refer to as annoying, or irresponsible, or stupid, or lame? Those things will undeniably be embraced - not ridiculed - by the people who really love you.