When we were kids, it was easy for us to make friends. And we got along with nearly anyone who didn’t have a criminal record. However, as we grew older, making friends became tougher as the years passed by and we couldn’t help but nurture resentment towards each other as we grew.

Adulthood has made misanthropes out of all of us, and if you think you’re one of the only ones, fear not, you are not alone. There’s a reason you have slowly started hating people, and it’s totally normal that you do.

When we made friends as children, we thought we would stick around forever but most of our friendships faded away as time took its natural course over the years.

An experience we gather over the course of time is that more often than not, friendship is not permanent and we slowly grow wary of others’ intentions of deserting us mid-way as we would do to them. We start developing trust issues and slowly train ourselves to be detached.

As kids we expect people to be kind by default and assume they want what’s best for us. However, as we grow older, we slowly get rid of our rose-tinted glasses and start seeing people for what they really are. We also start caring less about what others think about us and put on less of a facade for the outside world.

Another side effect of adulthood, although a good one, is the increased amount of self-love one starts to experience. We start caring more about ourselves, and other’s needs come secondary to that of ours. We no longer feel the need to put on our best face and please everyone around us. This is a put-off for most people who only keep us in their lives for a certain value we offer to them. However, when we refuse to compromise ourselves in order to gratify them, they tend to slowly phase out of our lives.

As we mature, we slowly learn that friends and acquaintances come and go. They aren’t always there for us and are most likely to leave. But we’ll always be there for ourselves and thus we are the most important person in our own lives.

We don’t necessarily hate others as we grow older. We only prioritize ourselves over them a little more.