We all have those friends. The ones who give you constant love and affection and want to see you succeed in everything you put your mind to. There are also those friends that give the harshest criticism that they can and disguise it as love.

Many people who are in a friend group are just like roses on a rose bush, one rose doesn’t want to be the most beautiful flower on the bush, instead they take comfort in helping the rose bush be the most beautiful that the bush can be. Others, however, are the thorns that reside on the rose bush. They take pride in making the group think about all of their bad parts, and push down the confidence of those around them.

Now, I’m not saying that I have friends who are the “thorns” to my group of friends. Instead, I would say that we like to say that we have a playful teasing that goes around. Yet, we always know when we go too far and apologize immediately.

Sometimes, however, some groups of friends think that they are just “teasing” a friend. But in reality, they are pushing down the self confidence of the one they think that they are just joking around with. It leads to a person feeling worthless and as if they should be more like the person that is pestering them.

In the end, the teasing makes a person stronger and less affected by the words that people are saying about them, but it still hurts while it is happening. So, be nice to your friends and, while joking around is fun, continually pestering a friend and picking at all their insecurities isn’t all that fun for the person you are picking on.