Friends leading you astray

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Describe a friend who tried to lead you astray, and how.

I had many instances in the past, but perhaps the most striking one was as follows. I was about 15/16 and I had a friend who had befriended me basically because I had no true friends (other than treacherous friends). While academically bright, he was leading me into acts of antisocial behaviour including under age street drinking, which I'd never have got involved in of my own accord. Inevitably I was 'found out' on this friendship by our school. I was at the house of a mutual friend whose mother returned home to catch him in the act of smoking and drinking in the living room, and told the school about me ironically as someone suspected to be leading him astray. In fact I was a follower rather than a leader in this whole dynamic, but it does exemplify the dangers of making friends who lead you astray.

Why did you participate in those activities although you knew it was wrong? Unless you're a child or mentally disabled, you are fully responsible for your own deeds and can't blame others.

I think astray is pretty much my default setting, so I probably can't be led there. I have had people try to use me before and get me to do stupid things though.

In 1977 when my grandmother died after a long battle with cancer, I became quite popular with a subset of my school. She had been taken care of at home until the last week or so, so there was a lot off pantapon, dilaudid, wygesic, dalmane, valium, elavil, etc still there at the house. Guys who had heard that we had all those leftover heavy duty meds at the house and who tried to talk me out of them. I was not swayed and did not give them to them. They went back to being asses almost immediately.

In 1981 I got a Mustang GT. Back then the thing to do in my neighborhood was to ride around in semi fast cars. Mine was, and it was actuall really fast later on when I got HESCO to build it, but that's neither here nor there. It was a 1979 and I had the best car of all the kids in school except for J****, and everybody suddenly wanted to be in my little group. No. Sorry. Jackass before I got a car meant jackass after but pretending not to be. I only let a few people go riding around with us. I also refused to give rides to many, many people, and there was only one or two boys that I would ever let drive it.

In 1980 I became friends with one of the hottest and most popular boys in school. He did not like me romantically at all but he did like my "oddness" because he thought that I was being "odd" in spite of how the other kids acted to be nonconformist. He was very wrong, but became a good friend. Never dated, but I still see him and his family every few years to this day. Anyway, he was very sought after as a love interest with most of the girls. I had a crush on him for a couple of months then that died out. So many girls who excluded me from things before then started suddenly including me. Parties, trips to places, phone calls, sitting by me at lunch, etc. My few real friends explained to me that the girls were trying to use me to get to him. That hurt a bit but they were right and I stopped going out with the popular girls.

After my Mustang got built and I would run it up at he quarter, there were lots of hot guys who wanted to go out with me because of my car. I went out with a few, but as before, my friends explained why they were asking me out (all car specific dates with them driving and basically ignoring me) and so I stopped going out with them.

I've had friends recently try to get me to buy Sudafed for them, but that's not exactly leading me astray because I wouldn't be doing anything with it afterwards and I could care less what they do with it, but my oldest daughter has to take it on a fairly regular basis an I need to use my available amounts for that, even though I don't come close to buying that amount, I just don't want to be used that way.

Experimenting with drugs/alcohol from 14-18 is normal for anyone who breathes. Maybe ur deflecting a sense of betrayal or regret? Obviously I don't personally know you or ur circumstances, don't take offense.

No, I don't feel betrayal, at least not from the guy in question who was more just misguided himself. Any regret was felt more at the time, but certainly not now given it was 20 years ago. I just thought friends leading you astray might be a common situation for Aspies. At least for me it was due to naivety and gullibility. Maybe for others it might be the lack of companionship, which was an element for me too. I have had a lifelong struggle against gullibility and even today I struggle because of literal interpretations more than most. It was even worse then, not the best defence against peer pressure which everyone would have had at that age, but I had a particularly weak defence against it. In particular people were very often sending me messages that I would be a more acceptable person if I did things like illegal underage drinking, and acted more of a daredevil. While the way I naturally was, was unacceptable and too "boring" and made me an outcast. So I think these are basically the reasons.

Way too generally put. I'd limit it to stupid dimwits who feel led to do even the most obvious idiocy because their fellow sheeples are into it. Furthermore, i consider it dangerous to trivialize criminal offenses by saying "everyone does it." This statement implies that one can simply ignore regulations and laws.

1) Experimenting and even regular use of drugs/alcohol has no effect on intelligence
2) Laws and Regulations are mostly aimed at the dimwits and sheeples

My friend used to steal from stores whenever we went shopping. One time we got caught and my mum found out. She's also asked people for booze when we were underage and gotten into trouble with the police where I had to help her get out of the situation. She's always on the prowl for drugs as well.

I guess it was easier to blame it on her when I was younger but really, I'm responsible for my own actions. I knew what was going on. I knew what was wrong and what was right.

Friends

I'm far too stubborn to be able to be led to do anything that I didn't want to do anyway.

I don't see what is so idiotic about experimenting with drugs...and most people have at least once. If I remember right my reason was mostly curiosity it had nothing to do with being 'led' by anyone I am sure I am not the only one that was more curious than pressured.

Also I don't agree with drug use being a criminal offense, I mean drug abuse can certainly be an issue but I think that should be considered a health issue not a legal issue. There are worse regulations and laws one could break......I mean what's worse committing murder or sitting at home and smoking a bowl?

One of my housemates was looking depressed so I went out of my way to talk with her. She asked me what I thought of the other people living here saying she didn't like X or Y because of how they treated her.
So I backed up those I thought were kind and criticised those who I thought were mean, just as I thought, asking her to keep my opinions to herself.

Then she went round tellling everyone "Z said this about you...." stirring the pot and setting them against me.
It doesn't stop her accusing me of "betraying" her when I refuse to join in her criticisms of X and Y now.

I know this isn't directed as me in any way but I must answer this. I didn't do anything TOO serious but anything bad I did was because I was convinced it was OK. For example, some older boys in elementary school were throwing wet paper towel onto the ceiling and making it stick. They asked me to join in and when I objected, they explained that the principal didn't mind because the teachers enjoyed it. Even though that's obviously absurd I believed they were telling the truth and thought "If Mr. XXXX thinks its okay, then great!"

Of course, I ended up being the fall guy and couldn't understand why what I did was wrong. After all, boys much older than me told me it was OK and why would they lie? Yes, I was THAT naive at that age I couldn't perceive the fact that anyone would intentionally lie to my face.