Have you ever had a friend that turned into your enemy? I have, more than once. I bet most if not all have had a friend turn into their enemy. With one discordance, one disagreement they turn into your ultimate enemy. It hurts your pride, your ego, your confidence in yourself when your supposed friend brings up the possibility of your fallibility. Because after all, if you are wrong about your perspective, your choices, your thoughts, than what else could you be wrong about. So, of course, you are going to vehemently reject your friend or your now instant enemy. You will lash out. You will never talk to them again. You will completely shut them out. You will trash talk them when they are not around. You will find other people who also want to trash talk them. And then years later you will realize you should have heard them out. Instead of pushing them out, your better and wiser decision should have been to keep them ever the more closer to you.
Anytime, your friends challenges your thoughts, keep them. Keep them close. Your ape brain will automatically run for fear of your stupidity unveiled. Remove the deliverance of their message because it may come out in brashness and hurt, but it is a gift. A gift that gives you a perspective that you havn’t ever thought of or too blind and naïve to ever see. Remove the emotional hurt it gives you and learn to look at this different perspective as a widening lens of your blind spots. You and I know that you have so many blind spots that we have lost count. Hear them out fully and wholly. Without anger. Accept what they have bravely gifted you with. The gift of their own perspective, experience. Look at the resource. Do they have more experience in the subject? If so, what stupidity are you to ignore this. If anything, you deserve the outcome for your rejection and utter stubbornness to believe you have a blind spot. Even so, you will probably not believe them. Not because their reasoning is logical and evidence based, but you will want to see what you want.
Have you ever watched the reality tv show, the Bachelor? How many times do we see the contestants tell the protagonist to stay away from a certain person because they are lying about a major part of their life? Well, >90% of the time the protagonist will ignore them and go with their feeling of love or lust and continue to get physical with this person. Only to find out later what other people were saying was correct. They get super hurt and ask the liar why they could do such a thing. There is the possibility that the other contestants or your friends just want you to be single or alone and searching because they love to see you unhappy. Yes, that is a possibility. But if you think about it. They are your friend. They are putting your relationship with them on the line. Your friend is risking a harmonious relationship with you. No one wants to do that unless they see that it would be more hurtful to see their friend get hurt than for them to lose your friendship. They would rather lose the relationship than to see you get hurt, lied to, tricked.
So the next time your friend takes the time, energy, and effort to tell you a disagreeing perspective, hear them out. Respect what they have brought to you at their own risk. Even after hearing them out, if you still do not believe them and want to follow your feelings then why not just table the decision. Halt all progress. Table it completely. It is more than likely that your life will have no significant change. Although listening to their opinion/reasoning could drastically steer you away from trouble, pain, and suffering. Time is a great test. In time you will know which perspective, belief, opinion is correct. Time will tell you what type of person people are. No one can fake it for too long. Wait and be patient. Focus on yourself and move on. And thank your friend for being so brave to tell you something they know would hurt you. Thank them from the bottom of your heart and keep them!