When I realized that I outgrew a particular friend group...

I have a pretty good story to add to this video's content.

It was 2008. One of my friend groups (the one outside of work or college) largely consisted of people that I knew in High School. We all graduated High School in 2000 through 2002. I was about to graduate from college and start my professional life. Most of the folks in that group were working low-tier jobs for minimum wage, if they were employed at all. Their entire lives revolved around karaoke on Friday and Saturday nights and the vain hope of getting on American Idol. Truth be told, some of them were quite good at singing in multiple genres. (Pop, Metal, Classic Rock, etc.) However, 'singing for your supper' is a privileged career that few will ever have. To my knowledge, they had no backup plan.

Even worse, they were also quite arrogant about a lot of things. Somehow, they decided that I needed a girlfriend and started trying to interfere in that part of my life. Not only did I not appreciate that, they were also trying to stick me with some of the worst examples of female that you can possibly imagine. We're talking massively obese women who... 

- Drank to excess

- Smoked

- Probably smoked weed or did some other form of illegal narcotics

- Had little in the way of intelligence

- Had at least 1 lovechild from a previous relationship

- Didn't have much of a job, if they were employed at all

- Were just as arrogant (and possibly just as narcissistic) as the rest

- And, worst of all, still expected the Princess treatment without doing anything to deserve said treatment.

It started with me nicely asking this group to not stick their nose in my business and that I did not like 'the big gals'. They would get butt-hurt, accuse me of 'wanting some Hollywood actress' or some other non-sense and (while wagging the finger at me) insist that I needed to lower my standards. Kinda sounds ridiculous since that was coming from people who had ZERO standards, but whatever.

So, I explained it to them again in a rather nasty way (I'm not repeating anything that was said) and also pointed to their own relationship failures as examples of why I didn't even want their advice. They got even more upset. Pointing towards their own failures might have been going too far, but it was too late for me to really care. I had enough of their non-sense. I just said 'f*** it' and gave all but 2 of them the Pontius Pilate treatment. (i.e. I washed my hands of them and never looked back.) 

The 2 that I didn't drop like a bad habit are still friends of mine and did actually make something of themselves. The rest, to my knowledge, never amounted to anything at all. One of them also died in a car crash, taking her daughter with her. That was pretty sad.

As for me... Well, I've had a few careers (5 years in the Army, another 3 working as an INS adjuster, etc.), bought a house and a few vehicles, etc. I'm also about a year away from finishing a 2nd college degree (TYVM G.I. Bill) and am constantly moving upward in life. Dropping those losers was a very good decision on my part. People like that will never do anything but get jealous of your success and try to drag you down with them. I wasn't about to let that happen.

"Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company." 

- George Washington

- Lord Publius