My parents typically said “show me your friends, plus I will show you your future.” It was a pretty powerful statement in my mind.
I actually recognize that that statement kept me from making more than 2 wrong choices when it came to picking friends.
I am so thankful that I have never had a buddy that lead me down the wrong path. Although I did not have any bad friends, I did have more than 2 deranged friends in my childhood. I have to admit that some of them were quite odd. I had one buddy who had a unusual phobia of not having the air conditioner on in her room. If she did not have the air conditioner on, she would stat having a panic attack, she kept the a/c on 24/7, year round. My fine friend and I lived way up north, so most of the year was not boiling enough to even need to use an a/c. She did not care though. She never turned her a/c off, plus her siblings knew how much she could not kneel sleeping without air conditioner. They would sneak in her room at evening plus turn off the a/c. It was actually a unquestionably unkind thing to do, but somehow, she lived through it. I can remember countless evenings sleeping over her house plus frosty all evening long. I typically brought extra blankets, but it was still so frosty in her room that it was hard to sleep. My family ended up moving, plus we lost contact with that precious buddy of mine. I wonder if she still has to sleep with air conditioner some twenty-five years later.