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Deleted member 16771
Sads... Is he ok now, or you've not heard?
Sorry guys, I was walking.I completely agree with that point bud. I just thought it's horrible what happened with your friend.
In school one of the reasons I as bullied was because I never gave in to peer pressure; I'm proud of being able to do that as a kid. Don't think I'd be as strong now haha. Never said yes to a smoke etc.
First week of uni, some lads took us to their room and started lighting up. I don't know which drug it was but they were heating it up??? I said no, although they said I was ruining it. Simply walked out and never hanged out with them again.
A dear friend of mine has a problem with alcohol and drugs, which is fueled by him not being able to accept himself for who he is. Breaks my heart.
Definitely man, my core values come before everything. Someone fucks about with that then they're gone.
Well, I met my friend in the ACF (uniformed youth service) when we were about 15, so there was always a disconnect between my actual personality and the people that befriended me. I was inexplicably popular with them, but we were very different types of people. We were on a lot of the same regional & national teams together (March & Shoot, Shooting, &c.).
His friends called him 'Samehead' because apparently he looked like he had Down's Syndrome or something, but he was fine. Cruel nickname for a lot of reasons, but he ran with it. When we were first friends, it was just super-strength lager* and (for them) weed - that was for about 3 years when we were close, but afterwards I went off to uni while he was supposed to be training to be a joiner.
I had him try to do my mother's coving in a bedroom once, but he totally fucked it up. He couldn't figure out the corner angles for the joints and I had to get some more coving (my mum couldn't afford any more), figure it out, and basically do it for him. We still paid him but my mum was a bit miffed. I think he was on something then, but after that we gradually lost touch.
Some time later I popped in to the old ACF detachment to see how everybody was doing and give away all my old gear (webbing, uniforms, &c.), and I saw him there by chance. It looked like he hadn't disconnected from that circle, even though you're supposed to leave when you're 18, so he was just sort of this bloke in his 20s hanging around a load of teenagers. He looked terrible and his life was in ruins. Lots of ecstasy, coke, weed and had stsrted on heroin - his life was about managing uppers and downers and his parents were just about to kick him out. Never heard from him since.
With me, it was always about the very long game. I was raised with that whole 'man of the house' mentality by my mum so had a sense of responsibility for keeping things together from a young age. Any family shit that was going down, I would be the guy in the middle emphasising the bottom line and tying everyone back together (though I was also disconnected and in my own world from them a lot of the time); I was the guy fixing things in a crisis. Workplaces, too, definitely. I think I have some kind of (mild?) saviour complex, where I absolutely must be a kind of incorruptible paragon. I didn't want to introduce my future family to anything that could threaten them, or have any dirt on me that could ruin, say, if I wanted to run for political officeat some point. So I haven't had an issue with disconnecting from people who are bad news, though not consciously - I just lose respect for them, and they fade from my life.
Case in point, I had another friend in my mid-20s. Good guy, generous, but crazy. We were both into the powerlifting at the time so we were pretty huge, and he wanted me to come and work doors with him as a sideline. Did it once, but I figured out that the firm was run by a notorious local gangster as a front for his enforcers. Surprise surprise, my friend also got into the shady enforcement side of things - I don't know what the fuck went on (well I do, but I don't want to share it tbh) - and I just had to say 'look, I can't associate with you anymore'. Those people were too fucking dangerous and there was no way I was going to expose my potential future family to any of that shit. Too scary, man. My 'potential fatherhood' overrode everything always, so it was always easy for me to make those choices.
It paid for this guy, though. He has a beautiful fiance now and a well-paying legitimate job... with masses of funds in the bank from his time.