Think of all the fake men and women you have met in your lives and tell me if they fit into any of these descriptions.
1. They are obsessed with what people think of them.
People who portray an image of themselves that does not reflect their true persona have difficulties coming to terms with their flaws. Their acts of kindness towards people are rarely out of concern, instead they are aimed at self gratification.
Fake people are traders: they sell love and affection in return for your devotion.
2. They rarely confront you.
Confrontation doesn't mean dislike or hatred. It doesn't mean a fight or the first step towards a violent attack. It simply means a situation where you are put face to face with your actions and asked for an explanation. Certain confrontations are for the best.
But your fake friend will hardly confront you or warn you against your bad actions and decisions. They simply let you do your thing and watch you as you destroy yourself. Your devotion towards them is more important than being a good friend to you.
3. Anybody who confronts them hates them.
If they do not like confronting people, they like being confronted even less.
Ever tried to point out a misconduct to a fake person? Did you criticize anything about him or her? What was his or her reaction? I bet they called you a hater and a jealous friend.
When a person has invested so much in creating a perfect image, at least that is what it looks like to them, the last thing they want to hear is that they are doing something wrong. They are never wrong. For you to think that there could be anything wrong about them, you must on a mission to sabotage them.
4. They always want to be the good one.
No matter what the situation is or how fucked up their actions are, they will always want to appear as the best person around.
A sensible person knows that when two friends are fighting, you do not take sides.
This simply means that you do not join one friend to fight the other, instead you create a middle ground where both of them can meet. The best way to go about a situation in which two friends are fighting is to invite them over and hear them out. Talking to them individually is often a bad idea because if they really knew who was wrong and who was right, they wouldn't get to a point where you'd have to intervene in the first place.
What a fake person does is to take advantage of the situation to tighten their grip over their friends. They will never call for an open dialogue, instead they will privately support both friends and also tell them the nasty things that one friend might have said or not said about the other friend.
The impression they give is that they are being loyal to you whereas they are not. They just want to further reinforce the image of that good person who is always there for you and whom you can't do without because they got your back.
Also they never defend you in public because they would rather be on those people's good side than have then think that they support a behaviour that they condemn.
5. They are quick to apologise and play the victim.
Fake people hate confrontation and they also hate anything that might taint their image of the perfect person so they apologise quickly and rather unnecessarily. The moment they see that you are about to reveal an information about them that might harm their reputation, they anticipate you by apologising or by being the first person to tell everybody about your fight, just so that they can play the victim.
Their apologies are never sincere. They just want people to see and know that they have aplogised. Also if people see them as the victim, no matter what you say later, you will always come across as a liar.
6. They judge you in public for the same things that they do in private
"People do not have to know". A fake person will condemn you for engaging in activities or behaviours in which they have secretly taken part. To avoid this same judgements, fake people do not reveal personal details about themselves, even though they insist on knowing everything about you. After all that's what friendship is all about. A lot of people get easily comfortable when they are in the presence of a trusted friend, so they spill and spill without restraint. When you are used to doing the talking and you are comfortable doing so, you won't care much that your friend has never told you anything about his or herself.
7. They store your secrets as an emotional insurance.
One thing that you shouldn't be scared of is ending a friendship because your friend has hurt you and you no longer want them in your life.
Fake people do not agree with this. There is no reason why you should not want to be friends with them. They are perfect.
For that reason, if after apologising, you do not welcome them back into your life, they start spilling your secrets little by little. And they will spill these secrets to the same people that you had both agreed were not good.
Their intention is to prove a point: "I have the power to destroy you".
The only way to stop them is to accept their apologies and become friends with them again. At least that is what they think.
8. They won't let go until you let go.
If you were strong enough to have overcome the emotional torture your once fake friend put your though, then congratulations: you are indeed a strong person. But don't be too quick to celebrate because your ex friend is not done with you yet.
Time heals all wounds and time erodes memories. Fake people confide in the power of time to mitigate their offences and in the saying that "change is the only constant thing in life".
So don't be surprised if, after several years, you receive a message from a person that you are more than happy to have forgotten, asking you to reconnect. They will also apologise and go on and on about how they have changed and are now better people.
Do not fall for it.
9. They believe that they are smarter than you.
You certainly need a dose of smartness to be able to lie and manipulate people, but theirs is not really smartness, rather it is cunningness and cunningness is a cheap flaw.
You are not a fool if you have fallen victim of a fake person because most of the time human beings act more on their emotions rather than on their intellect.
Unless we are in school or at work, we don't always go for the smartest decisions that will bring us a long term benefits, instead we opt for solutions that will offer us immediate relief.
For example, we are quick to confide in a friend when we are down because doing so makes us feel instantly better.
We are also quick to trust a friend especially when we do not have the courage to face our demons, with the responsibility of speaking to someone or sorting out a task on our behalf.
Fake people prey on these moments of weakness and vulnerability to gain control over us and to strengthen their presence in our lives.
You are not stupid for making a mistake, everybody does, but that fake friend you no longer want in your life might gloat that there was a time that they had you on the palm of their hands.
Do not let it bother you. Don't just make the same mistake again.
10. They are quick to replace you but still won't give up on you.
As we grow older, our circle of friends will become smaller. Factors such as maturity, common goals, distance and fights will do their bits in selecting the few friends that will there to share our most special and intimate moments in life.
It always hurts to lose a friend and sometimes we do not bother to find a replacement because there is no way you could ever have that special bond with someone again.
Fake people don't care. They do not bond with people which is why, when they lose a friend, they immediately replace them with someone else. Since they care more about the quantity of people in their circle than the quality, they also find it hard to let go.
Besides the difficulty in dealing with and accepting rejection, they mostly enjoy the thrill of being able to gain access into people's lives.
And that brings us to the conclusion of this post: when you ignore that message in your inbox, your ex fake friend understands that you do not need their kindness to be happy.
By the way that is not kindness: instead it is benevolence.
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