It’s funny, isn’t it? We keep ourselves in situations sometimes when there isn’t a single particle in our body that wishes to stay. How a girl can force herself to stay in a relationship because she’s afraid of what the boy will do if they split; how lonely he will get, or how much he may dislike her. And of course there’s the fear of physical abuse, which leads to another fear of asking for help, because a situation like that is never worth approaching alone. But then there are also situations in friendship. It could be someone that just disagrees for the fun of it or does something just to follow a fad, or maybe someone will oversimplify or objectify us and make us feel like less than people. They could drive us insane, but we force ourselves to deal with it because we may be afraid of their reaction, or not wish to hurt their feelings. We tell ourselves, “oh, that’s just their personality,” and try our best not to take it to heart. But how do you just ignore something like that? Better yet, why should you? Why should we have to put up with something that makes us just so incredibly irritable? Because when you think about it, merely humoring someone too often is ultimately an act of selfishness — on a couple of levels. We put off breaking off the relationship/friendship because we are afraid, because we won’t take the time to find the right words to express to them how incompatible the situation really is; it’s because we don’t want to do something that will make us look like the bad guy. Furthermore, we’re assuming that they need us in their lives because it would be so utterly devastating to find out that our personalities don’t mix with theirs. It’s also sort of a mild self-harm in a way. (Not to compare it to any other type of self-harm). But it does affect us. It’s just getting the tough words out and knocking down the dam so the water can flow under the bridge. I know — easier said than done.