Conflict, Good Friends or Enemy In The Blanket?

Many from the older generation feel that i still have a lot more to experience since i am only 26 years of age which i do not deny. Yet the countless amount of backstabbings and betrayals i have experienced seemed to be more than those friends i know that are 40 or 50 years old have experienced.

This for a fact isn't something to be proud of or somekind of recordbreaking event in the history of my life. These are just painful experiences, unbelieveable experiences of the process that i have gone through owing it big time to a bunch of people i call my friends or "brother"

To describe myself, i am not much of a fighter though i always believe that i should live with a warrior spirit of never giving up and dare to stand up for the things that matters to me. If i have a choice i'd rather choose to peace out instead of getting myself into trouble.

Some labelled me as lack of agressiveness but i look at myself as playing it street smart to keep myself out of trouble. Getting involved in gang fights, getting blacklisted in police stations all around the country and checking in and out of prison cells isn't cool to me and neither is it macho though some of the guys i know purposely get themselves caught to leave a reputation among our peers.

I once was close to a dude and he was like a brother to me but i have never given credits to his attitude of boasting and bossing our friends around . A lot of our friends have never liked him but because we didn't want to hurt his feelings, our disagreements towards his ways were never brought up. I guess most of our friends do not like the idea of him trying to steal the attention each time we're out for tea .

I do not know whether it was done conciously or subconciously but most of the time when his around,he would condemn other people's stories and expect people to listen to his stories, follow his examples, as if his our big boss or something and we were obliged to listen to him.

It happened to me too at times subconciously but the only difference is upon realising it i didn't
take pride in it thinking that i can never be wrong and i must always be right.I once asked him that both of us had our fair share of mistakes, yet why is it that a lot of people were annoyed by him? isn't it time for him to self reflect?

It became so annoying till it reaches a stage that each time we go out for tea no one wanted him around. I still recall him calling me and asking for our whereabouts and i actually had to lie because the rest isn't comfortable with his presence. Some of our friends find that his stories were too good to be true or too fake. I received a lot of negative feedbacks about this buddy of mine from lots of diferent people that had known him before me and i even had feedbacks from members of the gang that he had joined. It was ironic for even some of his own gang members didn't like him.

I guess i couldn't keep my disagreements and grudges towards him within me for long. It reaches a time i couldn't take it any longer and upon a small incident that turned into a major conflict, the situation actually created an opportunity for us to have a honest confrontation.I guess the way i look at it, it was a blessing in disguise for i was tired of being around pretending that it didn't bother me but it does.

We had a long chat, over the msn, over the phone and even face to face. I told him that we should handle things as adults and talk things over like a gentleman. A lot of disagreements were thrown out. Stuff that i have done that i have never thought bothered him finally came out. Issues that he had never thought had been an insult to me were highlighted. It was a long discussion of how we have disrespect each other and after all that talk and mixed emotions, we've finally come to a conclusion that all of us have flaws and all of us did something wrong towards the other before. I mean who has never backstabbed ? or who has never been a hypocrite? without knowing it,we did those things , we were those people.

The outcome was to forgive and though it will be tough to forget but we will put things behind us and try our best to start a new. It was a major disappointment to me, for a couple of days later, i received information that he went back to his old ways refusing to admit that he is ever in a wrong and pushed all the blame to me.Stories spread around like a wild forest on fire as if i am the culprit towards every wrong doing that had ever happened among us. Even then, i have never instilled hatred or vengeance towards this friend of mine. I am still looking forward in offering a sincere friendship but i am perceived as somekind of sworn enemy . Well this is life...