Are You Man Enough to Distance Yourself From Toxic Friends?

Never has it been easier to socially distance yourself from friends, even ones you sorely miss. But now is an important time to decide which toxic friends you need to distance yourself from, even after things return to normal (whatever that is).

There’s a saying that good friendship is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.

The older we get, the more things change. And the more things change, the crazier the world seems to get. While in your own lockdown, social media might keep you well-aware of just how much negativity is out there, but without the right friends to steer you back to center, things can get hairy.

If push comes to shove, are you man enough to distance yourself from a life-long friendship? Because your long-term happiness and self-respect may depend on you answering correctly.

Why Is Sincerity Lost Among Men in Groups Bigger Than Two?

Every push has its pull. Oftentimes, when we find ourselves in a flow state — that natural goodness of feeling like exactly who we are while doing exactly what we’ve been put on this planet to do — we also feel something (or someone) pulling us back, even down.

Toxic friendships are tough, mostly because they probably weren’t always that way so you feel a need to hold onto them. When you’re young, friendship is easy. Most of who you spent time with was based on the street you grew up on or your love of baseball, girls and causing trouble. But the world is very different now, especially for young people. The older we get, the more friendships are challenged. And while some might be linked to your fondest memories, not everything gold can stay. So as your circle of friends moves into new territory — marriage, kids, grown-up stuff — you see one another making decisions that you might not agree with, which is OK, but when it creates a negative or hostile environment, it’s time to raise the red flag.

[Sidebar: If your friends are still creating a racist or sexist environment, it’s your responsibility to hold them accountable.]

We’ve recently established that sincerity is lost among men in groups bigger than two. Whether it’s a single toxic friend or several doesn’t matter; it only takes one rotten sheep to infect the whole flock.

If you’re heading in a new direction (a healthy direction) but feel held down by old friends — common symptoms may include: group judgment, name-calling, only showing up in times of crisis or with a good meme, belittling your achievements in order to keep you at their level, never bothering to call you in four months stuck home with nothing to do — now is the time to put a different kind of social distance — toxic distancing –between friends, a property line built to maintain the friendship but keep out toxic intruders.

You create healthy boundaries, lest that toxicity bleeds into our areas of your life.

Creating Boundaries

No one solution is the end-all for fixing relationships, which means you have to take a moment to look at what’s wrong. In short, the best thing you can do for a close, yet somewhat toxic friend, is to be there for them when they need you, and not much more than that until things change. A conversation, thoughtful and calm, might best relay some of the ideas, but not many friends want to confront one another.

But it’s 2020 and you’re feeling a little bolder every day, right?

Karamo Brown on Relationships: You Have to Start With Yourself First

If you have long-time friends you’ve known since grade school, high school or college who just don’t jive with the direction you’re heading now, it’s a simple as keeping to important events like their birthdays and group-specific events like engagements, weddings and the occasional get-together, where you can celebrate, have a laugh and leave when you’re ready.

There just isn’t room for toxic people every day of your life if you’re trying to find some peace at the end of each day.

One-on-one hangs are always a good way to go. Grow strong, sincere relationships by grabbing lunch with an old buddy, drinks with another, and have the older, fuddy-duddies over for game night before it’s time to put the kids to bed. Just don’t gossip and judge others when you do. Be fully present (no phone) and supportive in that short time you have with them. Even quick catch-ups on the phone (or video chats, especially now) are warranted.

When it’s just the two of you, they’re more likely to notice you’re not the same person you were in 1995 or 2010, and neither are they, hopefully. It’s OK if the 2020-versions of you don’t match up. They’re more likely to see why you’ve pulled away from the herd the deeper the conversation goes so maybe talk about more than the weather and quarantine.

You’ll start to see space opening up around you, which allows you to focus on moving forward with the right use of time with the right people. There’s no need to cut out friends or publicly shame (that’s what makes you into a toxic friend). It’d be easy to tell them to screw off, but that’s not the move here. The move is to be supportive as much as you can without sacrificing your happiness, or theirs. Stay in the pocket and move forward with grace.

Lastly, keep the days that are important to you for people who jive with your current direction. If they’re the right people, you’ll find yourself in that flow state more and more as you go. Life is good when you surround yourself with good people, and it’s always easier to get by with a little help from your friends.

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Creativity Can Be a Catapult That Gets You From Depression to Self-Worth

Depression may be there for you, but so is creativity. Let it take you places.

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3 Generations: Black Activist Curtis Hayes Stands in the Middle to ‘Find a Better Way’

For the past week, it’s been hard to get Curtis Hayes on phone. A father, concerned citizen, and Black man has become a heavily sought-after voice of reason since the nation broke out in protests following the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minnesota Police. A June gloom hovers over the morning, but there’s a crisp taste of optimism, too.

Hayes, a North Carolina resident, has spent the entire week speaking with media outlets across the world about his viral moment (below) as a spokesperson of sorts for the Black community, a man who stepped forward to lead in a moment of crisis. As crowds took the Charlotte streets following Floyd’s death, Hayes, 31, found himself in an unfortunately familiar position, except this time he was stuck between two generations of Black men. His task in the moment was clear: Find a better way.

“At the time I inserted myself between these two men on the bridge, I thought about how many generations before our three generations had fought for change and equality, doing the exact same thing we’re fighting for, and it filled my heart with confusion and anger. But I was more upset to see a 16-year-old Black man out there having to fight for change when he should be worried about which college he’s going to or the girl he likes,” Hayes told Man Enough.

While there have been a number of American protests over the last century for Black equality, something about this feels different. It could have something to do with three months of social distancing that’s forced us to go inward and take some much-needed self-inventory (once we’d binged the hell out of Netflix, of course). Everyone became completely dependant on their cell phones, more so than usual, for immediate information and constant connection during a quickly-spreading pandemic, and just as the veil of quarantine was being lifted, Amy Cooper’s white privilege popped out of the bushes and was plastered across social media. Coupled with Ahmaud Arbery’s murder coming to light, social media became a bulletin board for unspeakable injustices. But the public execution of George Floyd, neither tried nor convicted, feels like more than just a pop quiz. It’s the final exam after a semester of education, a test for the human spirit.

“I think the difference is that the emotion and conviction behind all these messages is resonating with people who maybe didn’t really see what we’ve been seeing for so many years,” Hayes said. “I do see a lot more officers engaging with protesters, and I see a lot more dialogue than I’ve ever seen. We have all 50 states protesting for change so we’ve made progress on awareness. With this dialogue from people who are no longer uncomfortable to speak, we can now put pressure on leaders of the nation.”

The movement has already spurred a number of immediate wins, namely the arrests of the other three accomplices in Floyd’s death, as well as upping Derek Chauvin’s charges from third to second-degree murder. Meanwhile, social media continues to blast awareness of real-time police brutality amidst peaceful protests, countless other unprosecuted police murders with Black victims like Breonna Taylor, and an ongoing conversation about the many injustices of our criminal justice system. But there’s still much to be done.

“We must understand the laws, how they have affected us and how to come up with a solution to close the gap that’s been left open for so long,” Hayes said. “But we must also continue to check our peers and our colleagues. Hold them accountable, especially our leaders. We are becoming unified as a people, and it’s time they step their game up and lead the country to make the changes we need to make.”

If the last two weeks have shown us anything, it’s the egregious amount of corruption and inequality going on in America. And while progress may move slowly on a national level at first, there’s so much we can do on a local and personal level. Hayes explained that while not everything we learn at a young age plays a positive role when we become adults, the most important thing we can do personally is to figure out which of those things are helpful and positive, and which learned thoughts and behaviors are negative.

“We all have the right to make decisions for ourselves. We learn things from our parents, but as we get older, we start to educate our own minds. We have the choice to follow what we grew up in, or we can make a choice to grow out of it and make the world better.”

Los Angeles has already seen a $150 million budget reduction for its police force that is meant to be reinvested in community outreach, and although that might feel like nickel and diming a massive problem, it’s a start. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis City Council is set on “dismantling the city’s police department” and starting up a community-led safety force. People might be looking to the federal government for big policy changes, but the reality is we can do a lot more from our own backyards, at least until November.

“Get involved in your communities. States are starting community meetings where citizens can speak with law enforcement that starts a dialogue so they can understand one another. And if you don’t have one, start one. Get out and speak to your people and your neighbors. Always show love, just like you show your friends love,” Hayes said.

Not for nothing, COVID times gave us the opportunity to look inward, but now it’s time to step outside ourselves to educate, advocate and donate our time and energy to sustaining this effort so that we can continue to move forward, instead of reverting back in ways that past movements have allowed us to.

“People wrote 2020 off, but I think it’s a year of reflection for everyone as a whole. It’s a blessing in disguise, opening our minds and hearts to so many things we never took the time to think about. Yes, things have been bad economically, but at the end of the day, the human race will have gained so much more.”

In other words, find a better way.

 

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Are You Man Enough to Own Your Biggest Embarrassments This Week? 

This month — OK, year — has been an embarrassment of humanity, but that should not stop us from focusing on improving ourselves. In fact, it seems like the best parts of 2020 are yet to come, and it starts with you. Most of us aren’t great at being “man enough” to show our flaws, admit our wrongs or surrender our opinions. No, we’d much rather cram them down deep, let them fester and manifest into toxic little balls we can regurgitate and spit in each other’s faces. But it’d be much better, although not as easy, to own our embarrassments, especially in light of everything happening now.

If perception is reality, then the flaws, flops and failures are what we hide in pursuit of perfection. But the reality therein is a fake, which is why we encourage you to embrace the bad with the good, be comfortable in your faults and use all parts of the buffalo by showing off that you’re man enough to look like an idiot every once in a strawberry full moon wolf eclipse.

Maybe you cross-dressed as Cruella DeVille one Halloween and made your cocker spaniel into a Dalmatian and you’ve spent every moment since then shredding the evidence. But maybe hiding isn’t the answer. Maybe we need to take a good look at our ridiculous attempts to wear fake eyelashes, appreciate what women do in service of their bodies, then have a good laugh at our regrettable decisions, shake it off and move forward.

Our Man Enough challenge to you this week is to own your biggest embarrassments. It doesn’t have to be the biggest skeleton in your walk-in closet of personal horrors, but it should be something outside of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to go deep, as long as it’s not too offensive or destructive to anyone but yourself (or anything that’ll get you fired or your dog surrendered).

Just be man enough to say, “Hey, this is me when I screwed the pooch. I’m better now.”

The more of us who are willing to come forward in this sharing circle and blow off some steam is not only going to make us feel better about ourselves, we’ll lift each other up and stop sweating the small stuff that weighs us down.

If we are to move forward together as a community, we’re going to have to get our hands dirty by digging up our past. And while we support our women in our collective march for equality both in race and gender, we have to remember that condemning one another will not be a lasting forgiveness. We have to let it go, learn from it and grow together, and there is no better place to start than with DIY haircuts, uncomfortable short jean shorts and that time at the water park when you didn’t realize you had on see-through shorts.

Let the purge of embarrassing riches ensue, we’re right there next to you.

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