Don’t trust people who are going to use you to impress someone else

If you’re in any way interesting high-profile person, even a high school popular kid or an Instagram model, there are going to be people who want to be your friend in order to impress someone else. You can tell if you pay a little attention to it, but you might not notice when you’re not looking. This means your secrets are not safe with them. To be fair, you’re most likely friends with them because you want them to make you look good, too – charitable and/or inclusive – but nonetheless, your benefit might not be worth the negatives.

People like this feel proud when you trust them with a secret… So proud in fact, they’ll tell your secret to someone. Maybe they won’t announce it off the rooftops, but they’ll tell a best friend. If you’re high-profile enough, the best friend will tell someone else, until it’s in the hands of someone you really have an issue with.

They may also force you to include more of their friends into your circles, and basically start “selling tickets” to your private life and circle of friends – putting you on the spot of doing favors to people who you barely know.

It all starts with one person you thought you owe a kind word to.

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