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anyways, it was so deep the drama here..
when come to situation like how you are facing..
I would space myself out from everyone when it comes to HIM.
I will stay neutral and when I do.. I mean it..
Friends are there and you can't expect friends to be perfectionist. Neither are we right? The only thing to change him is to find out the root to all his selfishness and ignorance. People tend to behave strangely beyond normal because they "might" be in a situation where they want/have to behave like that..
I wouldn't want to boycott him totally but on certain occasion.
Just to pull him apart a lil bit and let him think why people are boycotting him.
Just like, you can't change a drug addict by telling them "Don't take drugs" when you barely them. It takes a lot of LOVE and TRUST between two parties to have that word to take it's effect.
i guess in the end u just hv to know where to draw the line. there's loyalty and there's a limit. just go wif the flow lah.
PS i just realised i was rambling nonsensically. oh well. haha. take care su ann!!!
In Aaron's case, I don't think his liking Belinda shows any loyalty or lack of. For you, loyalty might be liking/disliking someone your friend likes/dislikes, but he might not see it that way. (as for me, I'd wait to know someone before deciding whether to like/dislike them, even if all my friends like/hate them) As long as he remains loyal to you, there shouldn't be a problem. Of course, if he's giving your stuff to her while knowing full well that you wouldn't want him to, that would be completely disregarding your feelings and (I might be harsh) I'd say he's not worth your loyalty.
In the third case, I'd say go yell at him and tell him to stop taking advantage of you. And if he doesn't change, well, same thing, he's not worth your loyalty.
lol I sound like such an un-loyal person now :P
quite hard to gauge, pink since this is after all your affair, and maybe not all the pieces of the story are put together? Like for me as an external reader, I can't tell why do you loathe Belinda as much, or understand why you're friend Aaron behaves as such.
What i will say though, is that if you really are his friend, tell him that you have an issue with his behaviour. If everyone has been silent about it, maybe you can confront him personally on the matter.
Further more as his friend, maybe i don't know try to understand his situation. For all anyone knows, he really does care for Belinda it ways that are really tender and that is his business. Why shun him if he has strong liking towards a person you disagree with?
Then again, maybe he needs his space. I remember from somewhere that even as friends sometimes, we need to go our separate ways before the two can return as true friends again.... or something like that.
What I'm probably saying is boycotting him, may only push him further to the person you may not like, for when he has no one else to turn to because everyone else has boycotted him..... how then can you be friends with him again?
Just my two cents.
Take care and hopefully your situation will get resolved soon.
Initially, before you introduced Aaron in this picture, i was thinking that we should accept people's flaws because none of us are perfect. Like A always uses profanities and screams at your face or B always badmouth about people, yet we're still friends with them. That, sounded really okay.
But Aaron constantly covering things up and verbally protecting Belinda? That part sounded really wrong somewhere. Loyalty doesn't sound like the right noun (or is it an adjective) to use. Because if he is infatuated with her, loyalty is a totally different issue. When you really like a person, you'll do anything to protect him or her. And if you really hate a person, we will complain every single mistake he or she did and laugh about it. And even the tiniest mistake like breaking your pencil into half is taken account to.
My take is: Favouritism overcomes the word loyalty
Oh well, this is just an opinion. If I've offenced, I apologize beforehand. =D
anyway loyalty isnt really that neccesary all the time especially when it comes to friend based situations =S shit happens.
ur not onlinee!!
come come.. come online wtf
i want to ask u something wtf
I would go with the boycott.
opps. i'm one too.
i learnt this once in my university subject "Chinese philosophy and culture" (ok, completely not related to my major).
Chinese tends to forms circles among circles, like the most inner one, family, then close friends then etc etc. The circles dictates ur behaviour and attitutude towards them. (JUST AN EXAMPLE)
Eg: Ur brother raped a girl, u forgive him
Ur close friend raped a girl, u never see him again.
A stranger raped a girl, u condemn and spit at him.
Ok, if some bad guy sell drugs and kills ppl, but super good to his family, then consider not "too bad". But, if some super nice guy treats his family like shit, then....do he still the "nice guy" in ur heart? This has a whole lot to do with our perception to these relationships.....(not chinese only)
Back to loyalty. Loyalty is clearly biased and human.
What can i say is. Try to be rational first, if can't,
just let ur feelings decide it.
even if u boycott, will this fella eventually comes to his senses?
anyway, back to your problem. i think u should let him know how everyone feels. i mean he prolly already knows u guys arent happy with what he's doing, but until one of u actually talks to him about it, he may think that he hasnt reached the end of your patience yet and may continue to take advantage of your loyalty. err... get what i mean?
i think dt is loyal.
however to me i think loyalty is a must in every sorts of relationship, but there must be a limit.
there are good and bad friends around us, it is very bad to judge a person like this, but sometimes ppl tend to use your loyalty against you.
thats why everytime v must be loyal, kind but smart at the same time.
lets take a look at loyalty here. imo, loyalty does not necessarily mean being enemies with your friends enemies and friends with your friends friends, but rather just being there and sticking up for your friend, no matter what, purely based on your personal relationship with that person in question.
The world we live in is indeed a tangled web, and i have found it quite unreasonable to align ourselves with our friends every single time. doing so will only result in weird situations when you have friends who have varying opinions on a certain third party.
I try not to bother about the people my friends align myself with unless it becomes a problem that hurts our relationship. Thats a problem between you and your friend then, not with the people he befriends. If he really is a true friend, things will work out in the end.
although the contents is still as yummy as always~
Loyalty is good. Blind loyalty, not so. Poor Chuck.
I don't think I'll write a lot here, seeing that so many people have already written essay length comments about it.
at least have a proper reason besides "cuz i'm loyal to him/her" when asked why you stick by one person and not another.
dolphyn : i really like your story :) i think many of us have come across friends or teammates like the one you just described. true, there always has to be a limit. but what happens when that limit has been breached? did you guys ever tell off that friend of yours?
WP : a few really close and loyal friends that can be counted on one hand is not a bad thing :) you know what they say about quality over quantity! as for the aaron/belinda case, yes, he has been taking stuff from us to give to her. in reality, it's not what it sounds like (i'm sure you're imagining him taking things from our homes and giving them to her as gifts), but that's about as much detail as i can give right now. the thing is, we actually dont like what he's doing (this giving her things) and we tell him, but he still keeps doing it at our expense. so yes, i do think it's a big disregard of my and our feelings. this girl has badmouthed and been rude to a lot of us, but he can still find it in himself to close one eye to these things. as for the third case, this guy has been yelled at.. but no change :P
aronil : yes a lot of pieces are missing. i have talked to aaron about this, and so have many of us but it is apparently quite ineffective. i guess he just likes to make his own decisions instead of letting many dissenting voices affect his opinion. but the thing is, are we not his friends? do our honest opinions not matter? his relationship with belinda isnt very difficult to understand because it's not complex. he doesnt have feelings for her or anything, but he just wants to maintain some sort of neutrality. but because there are so many people who dont like her, it's almost like he feels compelled to negate all this bad energy, so he goes over the top with the good energy. and that annoys us (and for some of us, hurts our feelings very badly) greatly because it's done at our expense. the boycott thing is a separate case and for a different friend :) thank you linora for your wisdom :) it's always so good to hear other people's perspectives.
michelle : you have no idea how hard you just hit the nail on the head :)
gin : he doesnt like her romantically. yalar but thats the thing we dont want to see him 'fall'. and the situation is such that if he 'falls', it affects a lot of people and not just him.
wenqi : ok im online already wtf
skyler : why are you not online!
michael : rationale.. something i need lots and lots of :) i'm way too emotional sometimes.
reallybites : i dont know! talking to him doesnt seem to work. so i suppose temporary isolation may shake him up a bit. he depends on us for certain things, so if we take the supply away maybe he will realize the gravity of the situation. hahaha i give you snail you dowan!
amy : hi amy :D it was good meeting you even though we didnt get to talk very much. we have talked to this friend of ours actually, scolded him even, but it didnt change anything. :\
grace : wise words :) i hope your friend's boyfriend is good to her and deserving of her strong loyalty.
kevin : it's actually more complicated than it sounds. if you must know, yes, his friendship with belinda hurts our relationship as well as his relationship with other people. we dont ask that he not befriend her, but we ask that he stop doing things for her at our expense. for all his talk about neutrality, that sure doesnt look very neutral to us. also, she's implied that she thinks that he shouldnt be friends with us if he is friends with her.. you see what i mean when i say she's toxic? yes i feel somewhat betrayed that he's nice to her while fully knowing that she's a real bitch to us and that she's got material intentions on her mind 24/7, but i'm also angry that he scolds some of us when we try to tell him what she's doing, and that he takes things from us to give to her, that he distances himself from us just to maintain this 'neutrality' thing. it hurts my feelings that he cant see who the better and more sincere friends are.
michael : hahahaha i didnt actually decorate my booth. i only came back to KL on the morning of the exhibition, so my friend Yat (who had the booth next to mine) helped me randomly stick some pink stickers here and there :P
k0k : actually, i've just found out that belinda is telling aaron not to be friends with all of us :) who's the petty one in this situation? that's why i dont like her. and dont say Poor Chuck.. he deserves it. loyalty is blind :) it's the choosing who to be loyal to that isnt blind.
Mr. I-now-have-lesser-reading-material-thanks-to-loyalty: hahahahaha who are you! i never said that! haha aww dont cut down on your reading material.. let me forward you to some excellent blogs!
kiasu andrew : WHY DO YOU SAY THAT!! DID YOU READ MY ESSAY WTF!!!!!!!
li shun : of course we all have our reasons to be blindly loyal :) i think loyalty is blind. otherwise it wouldnt be called loyalty.
That happened to me at uni. -_-
I am also so anti-fur that I now create anti-fur groups worldwide. Check the page "online groups" of my web www.antifursociety.org
Warm regards!
: -)
those stickers kinda...erm...
u know la, less is more ma.
maybe no decoration = best "decoration"
lolololololol
Screw counting sheep.
as for A,B and C issue, if i know that A is a good guy, i might trust that he will have his personal reasons for sticking by B. however, if B is really evil and A just can't/refuse to see it, then no matter how much you want him to see the truth, no one can force him unless he is willing to open his eyes. sometimes, you just have to let go and let others learn their mistakes, because no matter how much you sakit hati on their behalf, they can never fully appreciate it.
and for the friend who keeps abusing your loyalty, i would probably let the friendship die a slow death, seeing that he isn't willing to change. i won't go out of my way to ignore him, but i wouldn't make the first move either. good friendships can be difficult to let go, especially when you think of the good old times everyone shared together. but sometimes it's flogging a dead horse just to keep the friendship alive based on nostalgia.
but anyways..
Give a mild approach and see how things goes. I've friend who are so annoying that we abandon him for some time and when we started calling him out, he asked "why so long never go out ah?". The truth is told in his face and we started seeing change. It works on different people.. maybe it would on HIM.
so now everyone's happy again and coursework season is over and we r going to shop til we drop cuz its winter sales in UK. wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
happy ending after all! :)
i think things will alwiz work themselves out sumhow. hope they work out for u as well!!
but i still love u *insert big wet shining eyes emoticon*
1) aaron - you should listen to your friends when they need an ear. but don't let it sway your judgement. be open and let yourself make a judgement about chuck if the time ever comes. my friends and i do not dump each other simply because another doesn't hate someone we hate. we respect each other's right to choose a friend. it should not be anyone else's call and quite unfair to believe "if you are a friend of ___, you are no friend of mine." ultimatums never work the way we think they should. it develops even more conflict.
overall, your loyalty, even if slightly blind, is fine. it's acceptable. not all your friends will have your values. it's okay to love them even if some values go against yours.
2) Belinda - it may not be fair for him to put her above everyone else's loyalty. if everyone were to leave him, her loyalty wouldn't do him much good because if it's true that she gives less than she takes, then she will disappear eventually, too - when he has nothing else to give. But if you want to keep aaron as a friend, you can only stand by and let him put you all aside, and see where it goes. just watch your stuff carefully. she's victimizing him and he's allowing her to. it doesn't mean you should allow her to victimize you through him. watch your stuff. don't let him take anymore. as a friend, you want to steer them in the right direction, but there's not much you can do if they do not feel the need or want your help. you can only hope they realize the error of their ways and stand by their side until you can't take it anymore.
3) the friend that takes advantage - you can also apply the same thing to this friend as to aaron. what i would do, though, is take a step back from the friendship. not cut them off completely, but lay off the friendship for a bit and cool it down. it might help you see things in a better perspective and spend a little less time with them. if you mattered to this person enough, they will notice the difference in your attitude towards them and maybe talk about it with you. if not, it's also a good time to assess whether or not you need to be friends with someone who doesn't notice you're lack of presence in their life. as far as the boycott, it may or may not work. most likely the boycott may just make him hostile towards everyone else. there's no sense in creating conflict. possibly the best thing is just to move on from friendships that hurt.
so much for making that short. either way, your friends are all grown up and you can't parent each other. these people will grow their own way regardless. i wish you luck.
rosa close : that's fantastic work you have there :) kudos!
michael : haha no lah i thought the stickers were damn funny. it's so like a guy's kinda decoration :P
ky : KY dont be mean! i didnt say your hit-and-run incident was boring!
entwined : the cheating thing!!! i so know what you mean. my girlfriends have done that too, and like you i always accept it and then start reassuring them. double standards indeed.. but that's what friends are for :P yeah i agree with you about having to let A learn from his own mistake with B. sigh. okay now i just have to teach myself to be patient until that actually happens. about the friend-who-takes-advantage, the slow death thing sounds scary :( i cant give up this friend.. we are really really close.
tom : the tallest guy's name is shaz and you are not shaz :P
ponderer : thank you :) you have reminded me of what is important.
dolphyn : i am happy that you had a happy ending :D your friend sounds very emo btw haha.
sieutheng : chung tau emoticon *EYES*!
alice : i love your comment - it was very eye-opening. the aaron belinda situation is slightly more complicated than it sounds; technically we cant watch our stuff and cannot do anything if aaron wants to take it from us to give to her. right now, she's already victimizing us through him, and that's what makes us all angry. i'm not even asking that he hate someone i hate (which i learnt is what she just told him to do, which annoys the hell out of me), but i just want him to stop feeding her greed and self-centeredness. what he does for her - instead of for us - isnt very fair despite his claims of neutrality. and it makes us feel so hurt and wretched when someone as terrible as her can take precedence in his life over us. le sigh. you're right, not much can be done until he sees what he's doing wrong. i just hope that time comes soon -__-
maybe aaron has feelings for belinda......that explains a lot! :) a guy would do the stupidest and silliest things on earth...just to impress the girl that he likes......its one of the silly things guys do... i'd done silly things for girls.....BUT NEVER BREACHING OF TRUST!
ps: i hope the belinda is NOT belinda chee.........coz belinda chee is sooo freaking hot!!!
but well.. shaz bigger size than me.. i shall withdraw my claim hahaha -_-
tom : hehehehe
gin : unavoidable, my dear :P haha no lah it's not happening.
sheon : i know i know i know i want to watch it too!!!!!
i guess next time just listen to our instincts when we doubt abt loyalty.
wtf am babbling.
ZOMG. ==
All of this must be hard for you. Even harder when someone begins to make assumptions. Well, we shouldn't assume too much. Makes an ass out of you and me.
hahahhahaha pinkpau i love you. please teach that annoying little whinger a lesson. for the good of all mankind.
Wait, that sounds really familiar!
Isn't that's what you guys did too? Asking Aaron not to be friends with her?
If she's truly so vile, you should let Aaron find out for himself. Having all of you emptying rounds into her is just going to make Aaron feel more like she's championing a poor, misunderstood damsel (and we all know how guys like feeling like a knight in shining WTF armour). And if he's already smitten with her, it would HAVE to run its full course.
Anyhow, I apologize in case I am having any erroneous impressions here but it's plenty hard to comment with the limited amount of info you give. At any rate, I AM truly neutral :)
i came and saw. =)
to me, loyalty is non-existence if its one way. sometimes, you just have to accept the true colors of humanity and move on. you can't dwell too much on insignificant individuals, if you do, it will just suck the life outha you !
btw, nice meeting you. ;)
michelle : haha that ass out of you and me thing cracks me up all the time!
ben : dowan lah ben. i'm so sick of all these petty little things.
k0k : you've misinterpreted the situation :) we never asked him not to be friends with her. anyway ya i think that knight in shining armour thing is what is at play, but you cant blame me for having no respect for that sort of machination. neutrality is something one should only employ after thinking long and hard about both sides of the story, instead of employing it because one is lazy or just afraid of responsibility.
lalita : yes! please lah right!! -_____-
doink : such wise words. i should so stop giving air time to insignificant people -___- sigh stress me out for nothing only.
As for Aaron, leave him be. Sometimes pple need to discover things for themselves, esp if this girl is as horrid as you make her out to be. Common sense will prevail.
love can be so silly sometimes.
this is what friends mean aint it. never ask for more, because he is still the same deep down when you guys are together.
I won't say much... but I'll comment on your last scenario...
You didn't do anything wrong in believing him. He was wrong to lie. You didn't do anything wrong to trust him. He was wrong to use it to his advantage.
On the other hand... if u are one of those who swore to be by their friends at times they need you most... do you not think that this is that time? Is this not the time where your friend is at most in need of being saved? It might not seem so now, but if you do manage to change him, one day he'll look back into his past and be damn right grateful for wat you have did. =p To have still stood by him when everyone else thinks all hope is lost. =p
I'm not suggesting you carry on being taken advantage of lah... You might hold back a lil', yes, but dun la sampai neglect all. I got a perfectly gooood example story exactly like this situation... will cerita to you when we go out lerz. =p
In the mean time... carefully consider your actions lar. I personally never neglect any of my friends... nobody wants to be lonely. =)
:P