I Found You. I Found Them.

I was a person who always trying so hard to please all of my friends. I always said yes when I wanted to say no. I think less about myself, and try to put my friends first. I’m not asking anything in return, but only for them to love and care more for me.

Respect me.

Yes, all I need is for them to respect me as a friend.

I don’t really like being in a big crowd of friends. I hate dramas. I’ve been able to make friends with certain people who are really nice. Yes, I’m friendly. I smile and wave and say hi to people. All these years, I managed to stay in a small circle of friends, best friends. They are still my best friends until now. Yeah we do fight sometimes over some silly things, but we managed to put all the troubles behind us.

And then I entered this university. I don’t know, but here I'm surrounded by very big circles of friends. They all are friendly. Well, maybe not all.

Being a friendly person, I have a lot of friends here. And somehow, I started to feel that I love being surrounded in a large group of friends. You know, hanging out at mamak place with a large group of people, and doing stuffs together.

It was fun.

Then something happened, a year ago. Some folks got attacked by trolls. Some people started to become paranoid. Then, as people began to discover that some of their best friends were associating with the trolls who had attacked them, they became even more paranoid.

People spread rumors, rumors become lies, and people attacked each other over said rumors and lies. And people lied about the rumors and lies that they started. People apologized, people lied some more, and a couple folks started up some more rumors and lies in order to betray their friends in favor of the trolls.

The trolls then used this divide between friends to their advantage and they pushed friends even further apart. As tempers flared and paranoia ran rampant, all of those shiny facades of social responsibility and compassion fell to the floor. Personal flaws and emotional handicaps jutted from the burning social landscape like broken and bloodied bones. People failed upon each other with what little were left of their betrayed sense of self-esteem.

In other words, the shit hit the fan.

So, that was a year ago.

I am no longer that person.

Now, I’m not hanging out with the same people anymore. I feel like I don’t fit in. I feel that their friendship is not the type of friendship that I was looking for. And then I found another group of friends, which I feel really lucky to have them now.

See people, you don’t really need friends who talks behind your back. You don’t really need friends who admit that they really do love you, but take no action to prove their love to you.

Find friends who are willing to cry with you. Who are willing to make a tough call just because they care about you, although you might hate them, but I’m sure it’s only for a while.

And the most important thing is, a good friend is someone who's there to provide support when times are tough, or someone you can rely on to celebrate a special moment with you.

Friends might come and go in your life, they might make you laugh and cry, but most importantly of all they love you for who you are.

I found them.

Did you?