When you treat yourself with love and respect, you
           choose your friends very carefully. For instance, you
           don’t allow your friends to be abusive towards you. Nor
           do you allow your friends to put you down or to
           manipulate you in any way.
          
           However, when you don’t have a sufficient amount of
           self-love and self-respect for yourselves, you tend to put
           up with a lot of abusive behaviour. This can damage your
           self-esteem even more, and this is especially the case if
           you put up with abuse for along time.
          
           Friends who aren’t kind to you aren’t really your
           friends, are they? Friends care about you and they want
           the best for you. However, they don’t want you to suffer
           or to feel out of place or put down. They want you to
           excel, and be happy and content with who you are and
           what you are.
          
           True friends celebrate your good news and are sorry
           when you have bad things happen to you. They love
           everything about you and celebrate you. True friends love
           to see you happy. This is when they excel.
                                
           Fake friends, on the other hand, hate when good
           things happen to you. In fact, they celebrate when bad
           things happen to you. Such friends are resentful about
           everything that you are. Fake friends hate to see you
           happy and love to see you upset. This is when they excel.
          
           So, if you love yourself, you will make sure that you
           choose friends that will grace your life. Because fake
           friends don’t grace your life, but can destroy it over
           time.

            ~ Irene