I have spent most of my life engaging with friends, family members, neighbors, classmates, coworkers and acquaintances. Some of these were people I would not have chosen to spend time with. However, like most of us, I didn’t always have a choice in the matter.
Generally, I got along with most people. If it became clear to me that someone was particularly abusive, volatile, or unlikeable, I’d avoid them or make myself invisible. Even though I preferred my small group of close knit friends, there were many occasions where I’d interact with people who were OK.
It was these OK people that I am writing about now.
Some of them seemed fine when we interacted 1-on-1, but when we were around their friends, things would go awry. The OK person might start bullying people. Or he’d act out and do stupid things like vandalism, stealing or fighting. He’d get high or blackout drunk. He’d cut school. He’d pour sugar into someone’s gas tank, break windows or paint graffiti on someone’s garage.
For a long time, I thought, “This person is so much nicer when he’s not with the wrong crowd.”
Apparently, I’m not the only one who thought that way.
- I knew families that moved to get their kid away from the “wrong crowd”. (We tried this with my wife’s son – it didn’t work.).
- Some put their kids in boarding school, military school or Catholic school.
- Some tried to fill their kid’s day with extracurricular activities, sports and supervision to keep them out of trouble.
- Some forbade their kids to be friends with “the wrong crowd”.
Most of these attempts failed. The kids I knew always found the “wrong crowd” in any environment.
As I got older, I realized that people don’t just fall in with the wrong crowd – they seek them out.
Trouble attracts trouble. People who cannot control themselves seek other people who cannot control themselves. They gravitate toward one another.
I cannot think of a single person I have known who was mentally/socially/emotionally unstable who surrounded himself with stable people. Not one.
And what were the results I observed?
- Violence
- Drug and Alcohol Addiction
- Overdoses
- Arrests
- Broken Homes
- Estrangement from Family
- Death
- Financial Problems
I grew up with many of the same challenges of the OK people I knew whose lives turned out much worse than mine. A few had to endure much more difficult circumstances than I did. Others grew up with what I consider a life of privilege (2 parents, a stable home, no poverty, loving family, good schools, guidance etc.).
I think now believe that it wasn’t an accident of fate that they fell in with the wrong crowd and screwed up their lives. They were the wrong crowd.
