Now I don’t know if we are ready for this topic but it has been on my mind. All of us at some point has had a friend who is extremely supportive of us, yet toxic at the same time. Our enemies become their enemies, they will show up for us when we need them but in the same breath they knock us down. Yeah it doesn’t make sense to me either, how can you be my friend but every chance you get you say something to hurt my feelings you take it.
I’ve literally had friends mock me time and time again about being a country girl. I’m ironically from the left side of an island, born and raised in the garden Parish of St. Ann and proud of it. Today I live and work in the infamous Silicon Valley, California. Home of tech giants like Meta previously Facebook, Apple, Google etc. to name a few. I love it here apart from the high taxes and rent, California is pretty chill.
Needless to say my friend looks for every opportunity available to remind me I am still a country girl. I really don’t know why they do this, I haven’t forgotten where I’m from. The next jab they enjoy taking is my hair, if I have just washed my hair and have it in twists, the running joke will be something along the lines of Nanny of the maroons or anything to make me feel unattractive. The obsession the world has with a black woman’s hair will forever be lost on me.
I didn’t realize until late last year, when I would literally start avoiding this person’s calls how much their little jabs were affecting me. Nobody likes talking to somebody who constantly puts them down in the name of a joke. Another thing this friend tells me that I find so triggering now the more I think about it is this specific statement – “Im not like your other friends I am going to keep it real with you”. Why does keeping it real equate to you being rude and why continuously mention my other friends!?!
I am personally not going to give my opinion on something that does not matter. If you leave your house and you love your outfit and you love your hair, explain to me what good is my personal opinion to you if I don’t like it? what are you going to do with my personal opinion?? There is a time and place for everything under the sun, and it is not always time for my personal opinion or keeping it real as some people call it. A lot of people will keep it real with everybody but themselves, nope we are not doing that this year.
Let me know in the comments what do we do about a friend like this? Do we talk to them or just slowly disappear.
xoxoxo Lauren
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