One thing that was a surprise to me was learning how much people overlook assholes and bad behavior because they want to keep having fun and keep the group intact.
Incidents where ‘friends’ in the group side with someone who harmed you lets you know who is a friend and who is an acquaintance. I didn’t really understand that, I had a binary approach to people: friend/not friend. And people will call you a friend when really you’re just friendly acquaintances.
So when a ‘friend’ doesn’t treat you like a friend, it’s like “AH, okay, this is just someone who is friend-shaped because we have fun together in a group.” The group is the relationship.
I’ve always loved this from u/smcf33:
“The things about groups of all kinds is that their primary goal is usually continuing their own existence.”