Unhealthy Friendships

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well :)

This time last year I spent most of my time hanging out with a group of people who I considered my friends. We met at university, did the same course, lived in the same uni accommodation and, so I thought, had loads in common. I thought I was happy. In hindsight, I really don't think I was: I was so convinced that such a group of friends should really be all I wanted, so surely that meant that I was happy..?

Deep down, I probably realised that I was trying very hard to fit in by pretending that I was someone I wasn't. I went out with them and ignored the fact that I wasn't really enjoying myself. I told myself that this was fun, because…why shouldn't it be? 
I stayed up late, chatting about all sorts of things that I can't even remember because I just had no interest in them. Even when I was enjoying myself, I was restless, constantly worried that I would say or do something wrong, that I would lose them if I said that I didn't want to go out.

It's very hard to describe how I felt around them because I certainly wasn't unhappy as such. Maybe the best word for it is 'numb': I talked about things that I didn't really care about and ignored what I did care about. I went along with being friends with them, doing the things friends do, baking, shopping, watching films, going out. But I never felt like I was understood. I never felt like I could be completely myself and I certainly never felt like they inspired me to be a better version of myself. I felt accepted, but not for being a very interesting me, but for being a me that I thought they wanted to have as a friend.

To say it again, at the time I thought I was happy, because I had interpreted how I was feeling around them as happiness. As incoherent as this sounds, I was somewhat happy with actually being unhappy. After a whole year of university, things started to change. Things happened which changed my whole perception of my 'friends' resulting in me completely distancing myself from them. 

I thought I would miss being part of this group. I thought I would be very lonely and completely unhappy. In fact, I was so scared when I had to go into a lecture and didn't know who I was going to sit next to because I all of a sudden realised that I hadn't really made an effort to make any friends outside that group.
Luckily, I didn't end up sitting by myself in a corner, crying because no one wanted to talk to me. The opposite happened: People who I had briefly spoken to the year before started to approach me and just said 'hello' and asked how I was doing. Faster than I could have imagined, I was having conversations with people who I felt happy around and where I could be myself. For the first time in over a year, I didn't feel like I had to pretend. 

This was last September. Since then, I have made new friends who I can be completely honest around. I am no longer tagging along, dealing with not being happy because that's what I thought I should do. I do what I want to do. I have conversations with people who like me for who I am, who like me even if I openly admit that I'd rather stay in and eat popcorn than go out and drink. 

That group of 'friends' I had was, to me, the prime example of an unhealthy friendship. It didn't do me any good and it's only now that I truly appreciate how much better I feel without them, how much more 'me' I can be without worrying about not fitting in. 

Whoever is reading this, think about the friendships you have. Listen to yourself. If you are only keeping them going because you feel like you should do that, then think again. And most generally, don't ever just stick with something because you feel obliged to. 
It will make you feel numb.
xx