Friends: when to vote them off your island

Time is a precious commodity so choose your friends carefully

How do you choose your friends? The older you get the more you think about this and its not as simple as it sounds. There are various reasons you might choose a friend …

1. Those who you enjoy being around. You might choose a friend simply because you enjoy being around them. They might be funny or share common interests or hobbies.

2. Those who can help you. You might choose a friend because they can help you in your career, your fitness, or your life goals. Maybe they are really good at helping you indirectly by being supportive of your goals. They might just be very accomplished and helpful just because they provide a role model.

3. Those who need your help. You might choose a friend simply because they are having a rough time and need help, mentoring, or a role model.

4. Those who you can’t avoid. People like co-workers, classmates, or family that you are forced to be with regardless of how much you like or dislike them. These may or may not be friends, in fact, they might be very toxic.

The interesting thing is the progression. Kids always go with #1, those who you find fun to be around. As people get into high school they start choosing friends based on #2, those who can help them. The help might be as superficial as improving social status or it might be academic/career help. As one passes mid-life, many choose some friends who are in need of help or mentoring (#3).

Toxic “friends”

Lets start with toxic people, those are the easiest to kick off your island. If they are not fun to be around, are not supportive of your goals, or make you feel bad about yourself then its time to press their eject button. You can’t eject co-workers or family but you can hold them at arms length. Be civil and professional, but that’s it, you don’t need to waste your social time or pretend to be chummy with them.

Which friends do you vote off your island?

Really tough question and one that I am personally grappling with right now. I have lots of goals left in life and so the time I have to spend with friends is very limited. Which friends do I choose? Its easy to say, limit friends to #2, those who can help you, but if everyone did that then the world would be a pretty sucky place. I think back to our friend Helen who we helped every day for the 20 years before she died at age 99. Looking back on it, its she who helped us and I think we benefited more than she did. Its a good argument for choosing friends because you want to help them because sometimes, you might actually be the one benefiting the most.

Certainly friends in group #1 are really important too, those you just like being around. I have my flying friends, my fitness friends, and my neighbor friends. There is a lot of overlap too as people that I enjoy being around are often supportive too.

For me, I think I need a balance of friends in all the groups … except for the toxic group.

Why are you analyzing this?

Most people reading this are probably scratching their heads asking why I am taking something as simple as choosing friends and making it so complicated. I guess the answer is that I am an engineer and we engineers love analyzing shit. The second reason is that I might be a tad on the spectrum. The third reason is that its New Years and I am planning my goals and how to spend my time in 2025.

This whole introspective commentary is because I have a friend who I used to really enjoy spending time with but in the last decade they have become a train wreck. Every time after I spend time with them I need to take an hour and get all the pillow screams out of my system. The problem is that they make really bad decisions. To reduce the cognitive dissonance that would destroy their sanity, they come up with these stories to convince themselves that their horrible decisions were actually brilliant. Its like they are hoping that if they repeat the stories enough times, they will become the truth. They never leave allow any space for comment before rushing on to the next subject. After an hour with them, my head is spinning and only repeated pillow screams make me feel better.

I had hit the friend-eject button on them as 'toxic’ but now I am reminded that they really need help. I have a number of people I am mentoring thru my fitness channel and social media, but I have decided that I certainly have time to spend an hour with this person every once in awhile. They will never again be a category 1 (fun be around) or category 2 (helpful to my goals) friend ever again but thats fine. If they need someone to listen to their stories so that they can convince themselves its true and reduce their cognitive dissonance to maintain their sanity then I guess I can do that now and then. By the way, for those about to suggest strategies I could use to help them, they are in therapy and I’m not a therapist. I view my goal as helping to keep them sane until the therapist can get them back on track.

Which friends are you keeping on your island?

I’m an introvert who loves solo activities. I love taking 3 week bike rides alone. I love working alone on my homebuilt airplane in the shop for 8hrs a day. I’m very fortunate to have a scintillating husband who is also an excellent judge of character. He pulls me into social settings with quality people which is great because otherwise I might be a hermit. I’m also very fortunate that my introverted nature drew me to making videos because I have met some great fitness friends thru that - funny how things turn out. Please give some thought to who you will spend your time with in 2025.