Unspoken Rules
Unspoken rules, everyone has experienced them in one way or another. Whether it be enforcing them or finding out firsthand what “unspoken rule” they’ve broken. Every group of friends or any group in general has their own list of unspoken rules, and many of them being different which could be why they’re different groups to begin with, or why different people belong to different groups. I believe unspoken rules are a major part of belonging, different groups expect different things. Most people hangout or befriend someone with similar interests and chances are they dislike the same things as well. And with that the group would have their own set of unspoken rules. Not talked about or ever established, but if everyone in the group dislikes something then a person in the group went out and did it, their friends would be mad or look down upon them and in extreme cases stop being friends with them. There are countless unspoken rules, some could be considered “unspoken” like cheating on someone or stealing from a friend in the group or something like that, though I feel those happen so often that it’s not technically unspoken because you hear about it all the time, but you don’t necessarily talk about it with friends.
But that’s more of a common sense thing. Some groups could have the most unusual ones like you can’t wear yellow or you can’t listen to country music but everyone has their likes and dislikes and it’s really about who you choose to hang out with, and I feel as though it’s the unspoken rules that really decide which group you belong to. I feel like I know my group of friend’s unspoken rules very well; it’s usually nothing to crazy. More like pet peeves or common stuff like that but I guess it still counts, and it’s not like those couldn’t escalate to something worse! Some very common unspoken rules I’ve seen are like don’t hang out with someone your friend doesn’t like, don’t be annoying, don’t start rumors and don’t be a fake friend. I feel like unspoken rules are around to see how someone really is. You could lay out a whole list of rules and someone who does all the things you think are wrong and could fake it and you’d think they were the perfect friend. It’s like a test you could say, just looking to see if someone’s broken an unspoken rule of yours or hasn’t, and if they have, you most likely won’t become or stay friends with them. But if they don’t then you’ve probably found yourself a great friend! With all of that being said,
I truly do believe that unspoken rules are a huge part of belonging, it’s just which rules you would have in common with someone else really decides where you belong.
