On people not being who you thought they were

Life never, ever goes as you had planned. That is a universal law, and one everybody comes to realise at some point in their life. However, something that we never really expect to hit us is when people don’t go as planned. Sometimes in life, we have to deal with people not being who you thought they were, and, let me tell you, it’s difficult.

Generally speaking, this scenario involves someone you thought was great and wonderful being…not so great and wonderful. In fact, it turns out that this individual is basically everything they told you they weren’t, and everything they told you that they disliked in others. Unfortunately, this stuff happens, and like I said, it is difficult.

When people let you down in this way, navigating your way through the pain and disappointment it causes (especially if it means you’re not close to them anymore) is confusing. You’ve literally no idea where to go, because they were your friend (or potentially more) and now, they’re a complete stranger.

Some people’s gut instinct may be to stay and fight. Indeed, that was mine for a long time. You think that if you stay around and keep fighting the new person, the old one will eventually come back. You think that if you’re still there, showing them that it’s okay to be who they really are – the old ‘them’ – they’ll do it, and everything will go back to how it was.

Unfortunately, though, this technique never works. All you get from it is more pain and more tension and more stress. From this, you get to watch that person who meant a lot to you get further and further away. This, in the end, starts to rot you, the innoncent one in all of this, from the inside, which becomes a problem. Eventually, you will realise that you can’t fight it anymore because it’s starting to impact you more than them.

So, when people turn out not to be who you thought they were, your best course of action is to grieve the person you loved and take your next steps forward without them. In cases like these, people who turn out to be very different in the end have usually just revealed their true colours.

Accepting all of this is just as bad as heartbreak and it’s like you’ve lost someone. However, knowing that the person you were so close to is not the one standing in front of you anymore should make things easier. You don’t want to be around someone toxic, do you? No. So don’t be. You never needed them anyway.