Teens March 30, 2020 Issue

From “She’s a bad person” to “She’s my friend”

Amanda Jennings

She’s a bad person. That’s what I found myself thinking about one girl in my grade partway into my sophomore year of high school.

This girl was someone I’d sort of been friends with in the past, but we never really got close. At first, I just disliked her because of her condescending attitude and the way she made me feel bad about myself whenever we talked. Then one of my friends mentioned disliking her because she was patronizing toward others, and that’s where things really went wrong. As I started to think of her as a bad person—instead of as someone whose behavior I didn’t like—I began finding more and more about her to criticize. I even became critical of little things she did.

As the year progressed, the hatred I felt toward this girl began to affect other things, like my overall attitude and my self-confidence. I became more negative all round, found myself thinking bad thoughts about other people, too, and even started to feel terrible about myself. But not once did I recognize the hatred as the source of all my unhappiness.

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