College Checkered: Your relationships with other people have nothing to do with me.

Brenda Figueroa
The Paw Print

I’m friends with a lot of people who aren’t friends with each other. They either don’t like one another, a falling out occurred, or whatever the reason is, they wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room with each other.
Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean I’m purposely not going to be friends with them because what they did or did not do to you has absolutely nothing to do with me. This isn’t high school. I’m not going to cast somebody out just because it conflicts with you, there won’t be any choosing or ultimatum.
But this also doesn’t mean I’ll be a bad friend by inviting them somewhere you’ll be. You’ll just have to understand that I’ll be doing things with them separately from you as well.
I’d prefer everyone just getting along, we both know that won’t happen, and I like being a fair person, even more so, a decent friend. I understand it will hurt your feelings, and if the shoe was on the other foot, I can honestly say it would hurt mine as well.
The only difference is I wouldn’t put you in the position where I got to dictate who you are friends with. Really, if I wanted to do something with you, regardless of the company you were surrounded by, I’d come along. Why? Because, I’m your friend.
I don’t like resenting people, I don’t like holding grudges, and I don’t like seeing people being viewed negatively because of one person’s history with them. Everyone comes to me with a clean slate and the actions they take while being friends with me dictates if they will stay in my life or be somebody who stays in the past. And if they are somebody in the past, I wouldn’t tell other people not to be friends with them just because I no longer am. I’d say it’s the mature thing to do, but really, its just being the bigger person.