THE BLOG OF DRU: WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS? (RE-ISSUED)

(This article was written on 09-25-2025)

Friend:
noun. a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

I’m not sure if my Mom, or my late father or grandmother (on my Dad’s side) that used to say this when growing up, but I heard this a lot from somewhere:

“Everyone ain’t your friend”.

Isn’t that the truth? Especially as you get older, you tend to look at the landscape of your personal life and start to realize this. When you’re a kid/child, everyone is your friend. From classmates, to neighbors or kids you met at a summer camp of some sorts. As you start to grow into your adult years, life starts to happen in different ways (families, careers, jobs, etc) and you realize how it gets more challenging to meet up. The love and support (more on that later) is still there, but it’s distant because of the lifestyles and schedules.

Then there’s the other side: the “friends” who downplay your goals, achievements and moves. They disguise it in jokes and call it “support”. Then there’s the ones who embarrass you publicly in front of others (especially in front of women so they can impress them, while throwing you under the bus) to make themselves look good. Then when you call them out, they remind you of how long they’ve known you and to “lighten up” because they were just “messing around”.

I’ve learned that sometimes you’re more of a friend to them than they were to you. The example above was from someone I’ve known for 20 plus years. I would always used to think that I was overthinking their behavior and that I was bugging out. But around 2022 is when it all hit me. Another example of him downplaying my writing goals, and it was curtains on my end. Haven’t seen nor spoken to that former friend since. I felt regretful because I didn’t catch on to his energy earlier on. I used to beat myself up over it because I could have ended our friendship a lot earlier

It’s a painful reminder that friendship is earned. A two-way street. This is why it’s important to put certain people in your life in different groups. “Associates”. “Colleagues”. “Co-workers”. Not saying being put under either one of these names is a bad thing, but I think as a society we need to get back to gatekeeping different types of relationships (among a ton of other shit we need to start gatekeeping, but that’s another story for another day). We really need to start looking at their actions, what they stand for, and how they treat others before we announce them as our friend.

When you start a business, get married, elevate onto another level professionally/personally or when someone passes away, you truly get to see who’s your friend and who falls into certain categories. My father passed away in early 2024. After that life alternating event, I truly saw who my friends were. And it warmed my heart knowing that I have an amazing set of human beings that I can call a friend. It also made me realize that over the last 5-7 years or so, cutting off people that I used to call friends was one of the better decisions I’ve made. Because now I can truly be right in my own skin in front of them, without any bitterness or side smartass talk from so-called supporters that were posing as friends.

Everyone isn’t your friend.

And that’s not a bad thing to recognize.