Friends opinions

[nightshade]

Does your friends opinions make you want to to change who you are? Or is being you more important than what they think?

 

[zobothehobo]

My friends' opinions used to influence what i said I liked. They also influenced what I did and what I didn't do. Then I dumped those friends. Well, more like we grew apart. They went off to college and I stayed here. The distance forced me to discover who I was as a person away from them. It also made me become more confident in that. So when I would spend time with them, I was less easily swayed by their opinions. This caused a lot of friction in our friendships. I had two main friends who swayed my opinions. One I ended up just not talking to anymore because of a lack of common interest. The other I tried to be friends with even though he and I shared less in common that the other friend and I... just because previously, our friendship was stronger. Anyway, after trying to get in touch with him for several months, I gave up. He pretty much had said he no longer wanted to be friends with me. Which I've taken as a blessing. He used to try and "condition" me by not speaking to me and/or bringing up sensitive subjects and saying things to hurt me when I would talk about something I liked that he didn't (like Buffy). Every time I suggested he do something that I like to do because he might like it (like watch How I Met Your Mother), he'd do the same thing. Basically, he was trying to condition me to like what he liked and do what he did and forget about everything I liked and everything I did. He wanted me to lose my individuality when I was with him like I used to in high school. When I called him out on it and told him it wouldn't work, then called him an asshole for it, he stopped returning my calls. So... yeah.

Now, the people I'm friends with generally share my interests. And the areas where our interests differ, they understand that I am an individual and I have my opinions and interests and they have theirs. I can be friends with people who don't agree with me on everything and still maintain my own individuality without making them give up theirs... as long as both of us understand that we're both individuals with our own thought processes, opinions, and interests and neither one of us' thought processes, opinions, and interests are more important than the other's.

May I ask why you've asked this question?

 

[sisterofmercy]

I will always be myself, regardless of whether my friends like it or not. If they're really my friends then they'd accept me for who I am, not try and change me. I put up with them and their 'faults' so they should do the same for me; if they're not willing to then they're not worth being friends with in the first place.

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

I used to act how people wanted me to act. I pretty much agreed with everything other people said. People didn't know me at all.. I had a feeling like I'm fading in the background. One day I woke up and asked myself, what happened to me? Where's the girl who wanted to change the world? From that day on, I was nothing but myself.

 

[kittenpoker]

This is something I really really struggle with. I have this insane need to be liked by everyone all the time, despite the impossibility of that.... and when it doesn't happen I'm deeply bothered. It's not so much that I change to be what others want me to be cause, I'm pretty much stuck in my ways and I am who I am (whoever that is)....but more that I people's opinions fill and fuel me way way more than they should. I'm sort of on a (seemingly life long) quest to find inner strength.

 

[Whirlwind]

I'm a Democrat. But I live in Mississippi. So right now most of my friends are Republicans. We chide each other sometimes, but I've never really changed my attitudes, actions or opinions for them or around them, and I don't think they want me to. In high school, however, most of my friends were playing Yu-Gi-Oh at lunch, so I bought a starter deck just so I could sort of join in, but I quit the game shortly afterwards because I didn't get it, lol. But other than a few occasions like that, I don't really try to change or hide who I am around them.

With family it can be a little different. My grandmother is conservative, so when I went to see Drag Me to Hell at the movies, and she asked me what I was going to see, I told her a different movie. She would have started worrying about the stuff I was into, etc when I just like Sam Raimi movies, and it is just best not to worry her. If she calls and asks me what I'm doing right now, I won't say I'm posting on a forum about a show featuring vampires, demons, and werewolves either. 😉

 

[Chosen Enemy]

I think the word "friend" is defined as someone who likes you, no matter what you are and what opinions you have. True friends will accept you. Not the other way around. I don't see why I should change myself for someone else. You shouldn't be afraid of what people will think of you, because we're individuals, we're all different. And if one's opinion is different than the other one's, it shouldn't matter.

We work hard to be liked. I know I've tried it. It doesn't always work. I've learnt that being nice in order to be liked is not what's gonna make you liked. For example, there are mean girls in school, who are popular. And they're mean to me (or you). And I try so hard to be nice to them. Like, give them stuff, sharing my homework, smile at them, etc. But they still don't like me. It doesn't make them be nice to you. Nice doesn't cut it. And it's something you see at every school and many other places in life. Those mean people won't give a s*** about you no matter what you do. Therefore, why change for them?

 

[BuffyElevated]

I think the word "friend" is defined as someone who likes you, no matter what you are and what opinions you have. True friends will accept you. Not the other way around. I don't see why I should change myself for someone else. You shouldn't be afraid of what people will think of you, because we're individuals, we're all different. And if one's opinion is different than the other one's, it shouldn't matter.

We work hard to be liked. I know I've tried it. It doesn't always work. I've learnt that being nice in order to be liked is not what's gonna make you liked. For example, there are mean girls in school, who are popular. And they're mean to me (or you). And I try so hard to be nice to them. Like, give them stuff, sharing my homework, smile at them, etc. But they still don't like me. It doesn't make them be nice to you. Nice doesn't cut it. And it's something you see at every school and many other places in life. Those mean people won't give a s*** about you no matter what you do. Therefore, why change for them?

This... Exactly what I was going to say. 🙂
You should never allow what others think to change who you are as a person. I did this in high school and I have so many regrets. I wish I knew then what I know now, 'cause my high school years would have been a lot different.