How do you change your top friends?

How do I "change friends"?

• I know this sounds mean, and maybe a little cruel but I'm in a bit of a sticky situation so please bear with me... So last year I used to hang out with this gang of friends: totally normal, high average in school, sporty yet intellectual. The thing is, I'm a little shy and I wouldn't talk much. We were a big group of friends and among us I would only talk to like two other girls. Throughout the years I was hanging out with these girls and eventually I got I think "frenemies", so like these girls would just completely ignore me, when I talked they would interrupt or just look at me as if I was an alien. After a while of this c**p I decided enough is enough. Eventually we switched from 1st to 2nd semester and got totally different classes. I took that opportunity to completely stop talking to them and hung out with this nice girl I met in my new art class. I met up with her at lunch and introduced me to her friends, who are now my current friends. We get along very well, I'm not shy at all around them and I don't feel uncomfortable. The thing is, my new friends are a bit like, well, lazy nerds. I mean none of them listen in class and two of them are already scheduled for summer school. Being with my friends has affected my grades and I've even become lazier than before. I'm also the type who doesn't like to swear and say dirty things, but by hanging out with these people I've caught myself swearing, etc. So you remember the two girls I mentioned from my previous gang of friends? Well they were very nice and I got along with them very well. Then thing is that by cutting off all contact I had with the rest of the gang I had to let them go two. (there's another thing I should mention: I also stopped talking to them because I love Asia and wouldn't shut up about it at the time. I noticed they would avoid me sometimes, and I think that was the cause because and it was getting on their nerves >///<) So I wanna be friends with them again because I kinda miss them and because my new friends are becoming a bad influence... I know this is long, but bear with me, if you just skipped the whole thing to get it over with just please read it because my situation is pretty hard to get out of T_T Thanks in advance!!

• Answer:

  So you want to ditch the friends you feel comfortable with to go back to hanging out with your real friends and your "frenemies", who you've already cut off contact with... That doesn't sound cold, that just doesn't sound like a good idea. Yes, this new group is something of a bad influence. But you have self control, don't you? In highschool, I was the biggest bad influence in that particular group of friends. Aced my tests, did one homework assignment a semester, and spent pretty much every evening in detention. Because I choose to. I didn't enjoy homework, and I loved p!ssing teachers off. Pretty simple to me anyway. However, my friend Leigha was drastically different. She studied near constantly, I don't even think she knew that our school held a detention hall, and would have panic attacks when she had unfinished assignments, even the extra credit. She was basically my polar opposite. But we made her happy and she made us happy so she stuck around and did her own valedictorian thing regardless. Why can't you? Friends like that, if they're anything like me and mine were, are the type that will stick by you through everything and have your back even when you're not there. Frenemies? The name is kinda indicative really... And if your two real friends in that lot were willing to drop you because you wouldn't deal with the frenemies, I hate breaking it to you and I'm sorry, but they've prolly been talking about you just to keep from getting outed from that crowd themselves. It's not their fault, it's just the way things go with that lot in my experience. All that said, if you still want them back, reach out and try to talk to them. Simple as that. Catch up, invite them to a movie, whatever you guys used to do. It's not too complicated.