'Pals' and 'Mates' are Not Friends.

For the past few months I've been cutting off people from my life after realizing that they were not my friends. They were, in fact, drawbacks. Allow me to tell you a story about my gaming buddies, to give you a better insight on this problem that everyone seems to overlook.

About two years ago, I was deep into the quick, easy to access pleasure of gaming, not realizing that I was the physically healthier version of a drug addict (more on that later). My main 'passion', if I dare to call it that, was a cute little game which resembled real life with minute details. The game is irrelevant; what matters though, is that I was hooked to a virtual progression system, which provided no real value to real life. Nothing other than pixels on a screen. Add discord buddies in, and what do you get ? The feeling of being part of a group, of sociability.

What I'm trying to emphasize here is that those people were just gaming mates who I'd share a laugh with and a couple dozen shitpost memes a day. Apart from that, no real value was in it for me. No going out with them. No sharing struggles and ideas. No empathy or like-mindedness. Absolutely not a single trait which could pass as friendship.

These friends were making fun of me when I first started out my gym journey. 'Oooh, Mike's gonna be a bOdYbUiLdEr', they'd say. Similar to crabs dragging each other down in a bucket, this type of people will drag down someone who tries to better themselves, in hopes that they won't have someone overtake them. They're insecure about their situation, but won't do anything to change it. Apart from affecting you. Please avoid these people or become aware whether your actual friends behave this way or not.

So, what's my point, you wonder ? Imagine those 'friends' who get drunk with every so often. What value do they bring to each other apart from engaging in degenerate, instant gratification activities? There's a drug that unites them every weekend. Whether it is a literal drug, a video game, or simply just posting yourselves on each other's social media with the underlying motive of gaining followers (attention seeking).

Think right now about a group of people you know who you don't even relate to, apart from those moments when you indulge in the activity that unites you. Do you have that friend who you only message things about the same topic over and over again ? Say, that guy in the gym who you exchange advice with but don't really know each other outside of the gym ? Are you really considering 'friend' someone who doesn't know you ?

I really think the term 'close friend' shouldn't be a thing. Either 'friend' or 'acquaintance'. Excuse if I may come off as a close-minded person, but from my experience, you're better off with 2 or 3 actual friends who you know everything about rather than a big group of people you dap up once a week when going down the hallway.

Now, this is the icing on the cake : only keep around the people who you'd want near your kids. Doesn't your dad sometimes reminisce about his college friends who magically evaporated ? That's probably because he didn't want them near his child (you). I know I wouldn't keep around my alcohol-happy friends if I had a baby coming.

To sum up, try cutting off people who you engage in bad habits with. Hiking friends will always be better than drinking buddies.