Mike Domitrz argues that real friends respect your choices instead of pushing you to change. He stayed sober through parties in 1980s theater school, never drank, and eventually people stopped asking because they got it. True friendship means accepting someone's boundaries, not pressuring them to conform.
If I have a friend named Aaron and they're going to stop being my friend because I don't have a beer, I don't vape, or I don't do whatever they're doing, I don't jump in the pool, this was not my friend. Agree that's true? Say that's true. No friend. And here's how I'll prove it to you. People like to look at speakers like this and go, well, that's easy to say, you're on stage, you're not in middle school. Well, I was in middle school, I was in high school, and I was in college. And in college, I was a theater major. I was an actor. That's what I was back then. And the acting world in the '80s Had a lot of drugs and alcohol present. I don't mean a little, had a lot. I have never had a sip of alcohol, but I closed every party. I was the last one to leave most parties. If you haven't figured out, I'm hyper. I was hyper then, I'm hyper, right? It's who I am. So I can go to a party, have a good time, and they'd be like, hey, Dom, should we have a drink? No. You know what it'd be like? Okay. By the second or third party, they never asked me for a drink. They knew he doesn't drink. Why are we bothering asking? So they just give up on you is what happens as far as trying to apply pressure. That's what good friends do. They don't try to change your answer. They respect the answer.
