A few years ago I was in a position where I was seeing two shitty, manipulative people taking advantage of three of my friends in three different situations. My three friends had all been warned about the manipulators but still felt the need to be nice, diplomatic and caring towards them anyways.

I ended up spending a lot of time talking with my friends, pointing out bad behaviour and encouraging my friends to put their own interests first. I never blamed my friends for their behaviour and instead tried to give them the tools for identifying and dealing with their manipulators.

Eventually they all came to realize of just how awful those manipulators were and I made myself available for my friends to vent when the time came. It sucked having to watch my friends go through all those emotions in the end. They all were really hurt.

I do think I did the right thing. They felt hurt but they did more than just get over it. They all learned from those experiences. We don’t talk as much as we used to but when we do talk, I’m always happy to hear that they are still putting themselves first and not giving any manipulators their time.

I also got to learn from all of that because too had been dealing several manipulative people in my own life at that time. Teaching my friends helped reinforce what I had learned and the results made me feel more confident in my own life choices that I had made in the recent past.