Friends and Family

When we say “our loved ones”, we are generally referring to friends and family; but beware, friends and family can be some of our most treacherous enemies. The reason is that they are more likely to have our trust, and they have easier access to us, both physically and socially. They are more likely to know our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They usually know where we live and where we sleep. Sometimes they even live in the same household as us.

Family

You can at least choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family members — with the exception of marriage and adoption. In a perfect world, family is always there to meet your needs. Family members shower you with unconditional love. Family members have your back. However, we do not live in a perfect world. If someone is a family member of yours, it does not mean that he/she is a good person, and it does not mean that he/she will not do anything to deliberately hurt you.

We have all heard of abusive fathers and sibling rivalry, and we have all heard of the term “domestic violence”. Nonetheless, there are many other forms of evil that can occur among family members in seemingly normal families. Family members can be verbally abusive, sabotaging, exploitative, back-stabbing, oppressive, and/or controlling, and they are not being this way “because they love you.” They may have an emotional attachment to you, but that does not mean they will always care about your better interests.

The 2011 movie Cyber Bully presents an example of how treacherous friends and family can get. In the movie Cyber Bully, a teenage girl, Taylor, is excited about getting her own laptop. She now can go on social media and mingle with the other kids at her high school; but within a day of being on social media, Taylor is in tears because someone hacked into her profile and made her look like she was willing to sleep with any guy who crosses her path. Consequently, large numbers of disparaging comments appeared all over her wall. Later on, a guy that she had friended had told a lie that Taylor not only slept with him, but also gave him a sexually transmitted disease. Such a rumor can ruin someone’s reputation and may even make it harder to find employment in the future.

So who did this to her? We find out that the person who hacked into her profile was her younger brother, and the guy who said he slept with her actually did not exist. His profile was made up by one of Taylor’s two best friends. What motivated her brother and her best friend to do this to her? Jealousy. Taylor’s brother was jealous that she had her own laptop and he did not. Taylor’s best friend was jealous because Taylor found favor with a boy at school who had previously rejected her.

While Cyber Bully is just a movie, some say it is based on a true story of a teenage girl, named Megan Meier, who actually was cyber-bullied, and ended up committing suicide. In the true story, a family friend was the one who posed as a guy who did not exist, and through this profile, the family friend terrorized Megan. A major motivation for making the movie was to raise awareness of the dangers of online bullying, but the movie also illustrates how rumors can start with the very people that are closest to you.

Based on my observations, people are more likely to feel envy for friends and family members than for strangers. For example, think of all of the famous people in Hollywood who are idolized. Are you jealous of them for having fame and fortune that you do not have? Maybe some of you are, but now imagine that the famous person that so many people idolize is your brother or sister. Would you be more likely to be jealous of them then? It is one thing if a stranger out-shines us, but when a close family member like a sibling out-shines us, we may feel like we are in his/her shadow. We may secretly wish bad on him/her.

Rivaling Siblings or Actual Enemies?

Rivalry between siblings is normal and maybe even inevitable. Innocent sibling rivalry can happen when, for example, both siblings want to play with the same toy at the same time, and do not know how to compromise. A wide array of scenarios can lead to fights. So when does sibling rivalry escalate to full-blown enmity?

An enemy is defined as “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.” When a brother does something mean to his sister, not because he is upset, but rather because he just likes to watch his sister suffer, then in my opinion he is crossing the line into being his sister’s enemy. At this point, there is no toy being faught over. Nobody is competing for the parents’ attention. Instead, one sibling is deliberately doing something to the other just so that he/she can enjoy watching the other one suffer.

Sometimes sibling rivalry is so bad in childhood that siblings continue to be enemies in adulthood.

Toxic Parent-Child Relationships

Getting out of a toxic relationship can be hard enough, but it is even harder when the culture around you expects you to remain in the toxic relationship. People can especially be judged when they try to end their relationships with their mothers. Culture has a tendency to have this “but it’s your mother” attitude. Culture neglects to see that your mother is not necessarily going to be a good person. When a woman has toxic behavioral tendencies, she is especially prone to exhibiting toxic behavior towards her daughters. Conversely, when a man has a tendency to be physically abusive, he may physically abuse his sons more than his daughters because he figures that his sons need to “toughen up.”

Regardless of who is abusing you, continuing in a relationship with the abuser and tolerating the abuse does not benefit anybody. Your abuser knows how to be nice. He/she is just choosing not to be nice. If you set boundaries and make it clear to your abuser that you will not tolerate his/her bad behaviors, then he/she will find a way to be nice again if he/she wants a relationship with you that badly. If he/she is not willing to modify his/her bad behaviors, then the relationship is not important to him/her and should be terminated.

Culture seems to have more awareness of abusive fathers than of abusive mothers. Because of this, adult children are often judged more when they try to cut off ties to their abusive mothers. Though mothers are less likely to be physically abusive, they can still be quite emotionally abusive and leave emotional scars in their children.

The Fetish for Female Self-Sacrifice

Within a family can also be the fetish for female self-sacrifice. As Grace Jennings-Edquist put it, “we [women] so often say “yes” to favours, requests and unrealistic parenting expectations because we fear being accused of being rude, mean or – shock horror – selfish (one of the worst things you can call a woman in our culture that fetishises female self-sacrifice).”

While self-sacrifice can be a great virtue, it is not always the right thing to do. Basic logic: sacrificing A for B is not right if A is more important and more valuable than B.

Women historically have had more familial responsibilities, and still do today. While taking care of family is important, the fettish for female self-sacrifice becomes wrong when family members demand more from the woman than is necessary. She is given more chores and responsibilities than she can handle, and she becomes exhausted. Her family members make her feel like unless she is sacrificing her livelihood for them, she is a terrible person. Meanwhile, her self-sacrifice may not even be fulfilling the needs of her family members, but rather their wants, which only exist because of greed.

Women are often raised to be polite and are taught the virtue of self-sacrifice. Such teachings can place these women into a position where they can be taken advantage of by their family members. In such a setting, children are taught to be self-entitled monsters who expect the woman to be catering to their greedy wants to the point of exhaustion. A good person would not want someone waiting on him/her hand-and-foot to the point of exhaustion. A good person does not want anyone to have to sacrifice her livelihood for him/her. A good person wants to be a joy to others, not a burden.

Recall the previous post, Planet Loser, where losers like to create an environment around them where being a loser is the norm. In a lot of parts of the world today, women are still subservient to men. Therefore, when a man is a loser, he at least has a certain status above women that he never had to earn. Losers do not earn what they have. When they do have status or authority over others, it is often a result of something besides merit, such as inheritance or being born of a certain race or gender. Losers like to have status over others that they do not have to earn. It helps them to forget that they are losers, and to forget that they never amounted to anything. Hence, one of the last things that a male loser will want to see is a woman in his family achieving things that he could never achieve himself. So what does he do when a woman in his family aspires to something great that he does not have the courage or talents to take on? He shames her for being “selfish”. How dare she better herself! He wants her to remain in a lower-level existence below him.

There are numerous challenges facing the world today: hunger, homelessness, violence, wars, cancer, etc. We need all the talent we can get to tackle these challenges, but some of that talent will be made unavailable if a sizable portion of the world’s population is prevented from developing their true talents, and is told that they are being selfish whenever they try to better themselves.

When women take care of themselves and try to better themselves, who suffers as a result of this “selfishness”? Nobody. For example, who suffers when a woman decides not to have children? Nobody. Her parents may be disappointed that they do not get grandchildren, but having grandchildren is only a want, not a need. Conversely, who suffers when a woman does not better herself, and instead does menial work that is either unnecessary or that can be done by someone else? The world can suffer because any rare talents she has are not being utilized.

Friends

We can choose our friends, but that does not mean we cannot be deceived or manipulated. Friends can be enemies in disguise as well. One red flag for an evil friend is when your friend is the one who initiates the relationship, and initiates the relationship aggressively. Another indication of an evil friend is one who is not considerate of your time, and one who from the beginning always seems to want something from you.

When I was at a social group gathering, Krystina asked me for my phone number, saying that we should get together sometime. Later that week, the first text message I received from her was a message stating that she needed somewhere to live. It was a turn-off. It was as if she was not really interested in me as a person; rather, she just had a use for me.

Later on she began showing lack of consideration for my time. She would request that I pick her up at a certain time so I could show her my living space, and then she would not show up. When we decided that she could live with me for awhile, she seemed to only be interested in moving into my place during the week when I was at work, and not on the weekend when I had off from work. Her lack of consideration for my time was another red flag that she was not a good person, and had potentially bad intentions.

Generally when evildoers make friends with you, it is because they have a use for you. Their use for you may be to get money from you or they may see that you have a good reputation while they do not. By associating with you and allowing themselves to be seen with you, they may hope to improve their image in the eyes of others. Yet another use someone may have for you is to make another X-friend jealous.

Nepotism

Another characteristic of evil friends and family members is the false sense of entitlement to favors. For example, say you are running a business and you have to hire some people. Evil friends and/or family members may believe they are entitled to get hired before other candidates who are more qualified. In addition, if a friend or family member is already hired and is performing poorly on the job at the expense of your customers, you may be judged for firing your friend or family member “because they are family.”

The truth is that favoritism is destructive. Depending on what the job is, hiring an under-qualified person can put customers and other employees in danger, and can jeopardize the business. Hiring unqualified people can cause customers to receive defective products, which can result in safety hazards, and can lead to the loss of customers altogether. Having unqualified managers and supervisors can lead to toxic work environments ridden with harassment and low morale. Unqualified employees can also be guilty of poor adherence to safety protocols, which can place themselves and others at risk.

Are you tolerating them? Or are they tolerating you?

Sometimes an evil friend or family member will try to make you feel like you are the bad one. He/she may even tell you that you should be grateful that he/she is willing to be around you “despite how you are”. (This has happened to me a couple of times.) His/her bad treatment of you may get you upset. Rather than feel bad for getting you upset, the friend or family member may act like your being upset is the problem rather than the bad treatment that made you get upset. He/she may try to convince you that you are just too sensitive, and he/she just never knows when you will unexpectedly get upset. If you fall for this trick, then you will be unable to stand up for yourself against bad treatment. You will instead believe that you are always the problem, and you may even try to make yourself numb to the bad treatment.

Because we associate family with unconditional love, an evil family member may tell you that while he/she will always love you, the rest of the world may not. Meanwhile, you may have friends that do love you for who you are. The evil family member is just trying to convince you that you are incapable of receiving conditional love, and the only love you can ever receive is unconditional love. According to the evil family member, if others found out “who you really are”, they would leave you. So you should be grateful that the evil family member knows your true colors and is still there for you. In reality, it is not he/she who is tolerating you, but rather you are tolerating him/her. He/she does not want you to know that.

Summary

To summarize, friends and family can be your most treacherous enemies because they have easier access to you, they know your weaknesses and vulnerabilities, they are more prone to being jealous of you and the surrounding culture may judge you if you shun them.