Cut ties with them

A leopard can never change its skin. Wash it with the best soap or give it another name, its skin is something it can never change. This can come in form of friends. The problem we do have as humans is that so far the wrong doesn’t affect us in any way, we don’t care. There is a girl I know with a bad reputation. She’s been involved in one fight or the other with almost everyone in the faculty, but she never for once disrespected me. People warned me about her, but I went with my usual saying_ “Don’t inherit enemies”. I got a taste of her behaviour when she almost embarrassed me in Public, that was when I realized I've dipped my legs into the mud.

I still stand by my rule of not inheriting my friend’s enemy but now I pay more attention to details.

If a friend acts toxic or in a bad way to another it’s best to bring it to his attention instead of waving it off since you aren’t affected. If you ignore the red signs, be assured that he will do that same thing to you and by then it will hurt you a little. Silence sometimes means agreement or encouragement. No matter close a monkey and a Lion are in the zoo, even if they have their cages close to each other with just a barricade stopping them from meeting each other, the day the lion sees an opportunity, he will have the Monkey as lunch.

How do you end it?

I’ve been in this case numerous times due to my friendly nature, I’ve met people online and clicked with them immediately, treating them like I’d treat any of my physical friends. I saw how bad and toxic one was but I ignored his behaviours. “He can never do the same to me,” I said to myself but I started seeing the different things he was doing to sabotage me, but I didn’t want to make a fuss about it.

Thoughts of different ways to end it came to mind. I thought of calling him out and letting everyone know how shady he is but if you fight a pig, you will only get yourself dirty like the pig. So I did the slow but effective method

Silent treatment

I reduced the number of times I chat with him. Before he only need to beep me and I’m at his beck and call. We’ll talk about the most useless things and I’ll go out of my way to please him. I no longer sacrifice my time to him the way I do. If he can do something so ridiculous to my other friends, it’s just a matter of time before he does the same to me. So silence was the answer.

Tell him the truth

People hate hearing the truth and sometimes people hate telling the truth because of how the other party will react. I noticed that, though I know how bad his behaviour is, the reason why I never corrected him or let him know that what he was doing wasn't good was because I was afraid of how he was going to react.

One day I finally decided of letting him know. I told him that his antics are known to me. He denied it as expected but the truth was already out and he withdrew from him.

Conclusion

Just like Loki -Thor’s brother, some people are cunny, deceitful and toxic by nature. If by chance you are friends with one, try as much as possible to let him know that what he/she is doing isn’t good but if he doesn’t change the best thing is to cut ties with them.

Know this fully well, a Leopard can never change his skin, that friend you talked to, who refuses to change will someday learn his lessons the hard way in public but you’ve saved yourself from sharing in the embarrassment since you’ve cut ties with him already.

Thanks for Reading! 🤗💚🤗

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