If you don't have anything nice to say...

We all encounter people we don’t like on a daily basis. They’re at school, at work, in the mall…they’re everywhere. But how do we interact with people who aren’t in our good books? I’m a people watcher. Not in a creepy stalker way, but I pay attention to how people interact with each other. I often see this: two people talking with one another, both seemingly engaged and enjoying what the other person has to say. Seeing this leads me to assume that these two people like each other…but you’d be surprised how often that isn’t the case.

Usually once I get the chance to talk to one person from the conversation I’ve been spying on, they usually can’t wait to say things like “Oh my god I hate her”, or “He’s so annoying”, or “If I have to see her face one more time today I’m gonna SCREAM!” These statements always confuse me because just moments earlier, these two people seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. 

A lot of people fake being nice; they pretend to like people whom they can’t stand. Do they put on a happy face to avoid hurting the other person’s feelings? Are they nice because it takes less effort? Are they trying to avoid conflict? 

Personally, I hate being fake with people. It just takes way too much energy, energy that could be put to better use. If I don’t like someone, I’m not going to be intentionally rude to them or anything, I can be civil. However, I never feel in the mood to go out of my way to smile and chat with people who drive me absolutely insane. I used to be a “loud mouth.” I used to always say what was on my mind as soon as it popped into my head. But for the past few years I’ve adopted the old “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” motto. Seeing as how I’m so opinionated, following this motto has left me to be fairly quiet (not always, but a lot of the time).

But this whole quiet streak I’ve been on has been really getting to me lately, yet I’m not quite sure how to fix it. Should I revert to my loud mouth self who doesn’t care what she says out loud? Should I start being fake and pretend I like everyone I’ve ever met? Or is there some in between balance I can be comfortable with?

Decisions, decisions.

P.S. My quietness isn’t always because I’ m in the presence of people I don’t like…just to make that clear!

Friendships: To Keep or Not to Keep?

Unfortunately, this is a question I seem to ask myself a lot. It’s kind of like the moment you decide to go crazy with the delete button on Facebook, something else I need to do. Last year I did away with the bad “friends” I had floating around. You know the type...people who talk about you behind your back, keep things from you that would be useful for you to know, enjoy stabbing the knife so deep into your back that their hand gets stuck...that type! 

That left me with a few really good friends, some mediocre friends, and acquaintances. Not too shabby right? That’s what I thought. Somewhere down the line, 1 or 2 of those really good friendships seemed to have come to a halt. Why you ask? Your guess is as good as mine. The last things I remember of those friendships are making dinner for said friends, and catching a movie with other said friends. Perhaps the meal I prepared was too bland? Should I have provided wine? Maybe I should have offered to pay for their movie ticket? Sprung for popcorn? Not quite sure what I did or didn’t do so if anyone has an idea, feel free to share.

Now for those mediocre friendships. Some of those mediocre friendships were originally placed in the really good friendships category, but got demoted to mediocre because somewhere down the line, they turned into one-way friendships. Try to stay with me folks. One-way friendships are those in which YOU are ALWAYS the one initiating conversation via text, Facebook etc..., YOU are ALWAYS the one making plans to hang out, YOU are ALWAYS the one to do cool and interesting things for the other person or people, YOU are ALWAYS the one to view plans falling through as disappointing and do what you can to reschedule, and YOU are the ONLY one who sees all of the above as problematic. 

Often I get sick of being the person carrying the friendship. Every now and then I conduct these little experiments to confirm that these little factors aren’t just all in my head. I’ll pick one of my mediocre friendships and stop being the person who initiates conversation and plans. You know what happens when I do that? Nothing, nothing at all. I don’t hear from them, I don’t see them, nothing! Depending on who this person is, I’ll usually end this experiment and text them a friendly “How’s it going? You wanna do something this weekend?”

However, 2012 may go a little differently. I’ll probably conduct this same experiment as usual, but once the silence settles in, that’ll be that. No more texting to see how they are, no more calling to make plans, no more commenting on their Facebook statuses (because they’ll have been deleted of course), no more! I’m 23, going on 24 in a few short months, in school working towards a degree in public relations, trying new things every week.....I don’t have time to fight for these types of friendships. One-way battles are too much work and often a waste of time. It sucks because I know that in doing this, I will lose friends that I really do care about. But is it worth it to keep people in your life that you love, but whose lives would be uninterrupted by the loss of you as a friend? 

Not 100% sure I’ll go through with this master plan, but it is definitely something that needs to be done. 

New Year, new things, new friendships...new Charmaine. 

 No More Drama- Mary J. Blige