We’re Way Too Old To Keep Being Social Climbers

I just want to send out a quick public service announcement:

We’re not in middle school anymore. 

This fact has a few implications. (1) Stop trying to be friends with people who do not reciprocate your effort; especially if (2) Your desire to befriend certain individuals is ignited by your belief that they will make you more popular, have more fun, and generally allow you to be happy with life.

This is going to sound a little bitchy, but if conditions (1) and (2) apply to you, you’re never going to be satisfied. This is because you’re basing your happiness off a non-existent, intangible concept. The idea of social ranking only exists because we allow it to. You allow it to matter.

Now, I have this belief that friendships are sacred. It’s a bond with the strength only comparative to that of blood relation. I share my absolute worst and my absolute best and everything in between and in return, I expect you to accept me. I can say stupid things and be generally strange because at the end of the day, I’m not acting with the intention to impress.

Someone once told me that an individual is the combination of his or her five closest friends. Meaning, the people you surround yourself with contribute to your personality and shape your identity. Simply sacred. They allow you to grow and improve yourself. True friendships allows you the opportunity to have your flaws laid out on the table in front of you again and again, challenging you to change.

The moment you start caring about what clique you’re ‘in’ or ‘out’ of is the moment you give that up. You lose yourself. You accept the fact that you care more about what other people think about you than what you think about yourself.

The result? A consistent, perpetual yearning for something non-existent, intangible, and unimportant.

If you want to have more fun, try being more fun. If you want to have more friends, try being friendlier. If you want to be finally satisfied with life, try nurturing a real relationship with someone compatible to you and worthy of your time, effort, and attention. Shoving pictures on Facebook of you alongside people who may or may not know your last name achieves nothing. For every one person who is somehow fooled into thinking  you’re mildly interesting, you have ten who see you in your everyday merely trying to please other unimportant people who give minimal fucks about you or your life outside the context of your interactions.

Like, where does that come from? Why do you care? Why is it so important to you that others see you in this fabricated, manicured light? I just want to follow you around with a neon sign around my neck flashing “YO YOU’RE MISSING OUT ON LIFE”

We’re not in middle school anymore. I think it may be about time to grow up.