Humans are social creatures. We like to surround ourselves with people that we like and get along with. We call these people: friends. When we are in happy times, we often try to increase the number in our social circle. It makes for livelier parties, more interesting discussions, and options for whom to take to the next concert. We meet friends all over the place now. They can be someone we work with or got introduced to at a barbecue. They can be a person we met online or just a friend of a friend.

I think that we also try to acquire more friends when things are tough in our lives. Going through a difficult situation, makes a person need to feel happy, cared for, and wanted. It is nice when you are having a bad day to be able to call upon your friends to cheer you up. When those bad days start to outnumber the good ones, it is nice to have more numbers to dial, more people to reach out to.

.

I’ve been guilty of this myself. The last year has been a rough one for me and I found myself wanting to make changes in my life. I started reaching out via the internet and going to more local events. I met people through existing friendships. Slowly but surely, the group around me grew. For a while, things were really good. I had a close knit group that I could rely on and a larger circle to have fun with. It was the type of situation that most people want. Then I hit a bump in the road.

That bump turned into an enormous hurdle. I was forced to examine those around me more closely to gauge their intentions. As a math major, I use the lingo a lot and I created a mantra: you either add to my life or you get subtracted from it. I was hesitant to put that into effect though. When I’m friends with someone, I put them on a pedestal. I think the very best of them. Those rose colored glasses are probably why I get into trouble.

At various times in my life, I’ve had a large group of friends around me but eventually, I get to a point that I can’t keep it going anymore. I take the blinders off when I can no longer come up with reasons for why someone doesn’t act the way they should. That is when I get to see the true person underneath.

Following my own tribulations, I discussed my habit for binging on friends with those closest to me. That is when I realized that I am a social bulimic. I binge because it feels good but too much of a good thing can lead to discomfort.

Then I purge.

That’s right. I throw those rose colored glasses in the trash and confront the situation at hand. What that usually means is a purge of the negative forces in my life. My confidantes and I talked about these habits at length and I began to wonder how many other people do the same thing. My besties told me about times when they had to come to grips with being mistreated by those around them. They told me about being taken advantage of by the users, put down by the conceited, and inconvenienced by the self centered. I realized that these are the traits that seem to get overlooked in the romance stage of a new friendship. No one wants to think that a person they care about doesn’t reciprocate, so we ignore those feelings of intuition in the hopes that they will see the error of their ways. They never do either.

It usually gets to a point with me that I am pushed to my limit; I let my feelings get hurt repeatedly and overlook the bad because I want so much for the good to come back. The aftermath of the dissolution of is never pretty for anyone and, unfortunately, the person who got dealt the short end of the stick most of the time is the one who comes out on bottom. But it is also this person who is able to build more healthy relationships the next time around.

We all need to surround ourselves with those that increase the positive in our lives. We need friends that feed our soul. It is when this binging to bring happiness turns sour that we recognize the real person we let in. We must stop swallowing down the negative in hopes that the bad taste in our mouth will go away. We have to recognize when someone around us is toxic and see the signs of that reaction in ourselves. We must learn that a smaller portion of friends may not always be satisfying but it is healthier for us. Because if we don’t push back from the table to realize that our plate is already full, we’re going to repeat past mistakes. Then it’ll be time for another social purge.