Talk on the street is that you ghosted your friends when it came to splitting the bills. Probably, you were trying to put it off for next month, or you had no clue that the drinks were not on the house. Either way, you have earned yourself the money-pincher title. Your friends now have a separate text chain to plan weekend getaways with people who PAY.
A bad reputation amongst friends, with our partners or at work is an absolute horror. People start acting aloof and build their versions of you in their heads. The work folks may stop trusting you on deadlines, or your partner will deep talk someplace else because you have a record of being emotionally unavailable. The stereotype can be a real bummer – it tanks your self-confidence, and the spiral of self-doubts run infinitely.
Whether you earned it or were trapped into it – a bad reputation needs fixing. Here are some ways to go about it:
Assess your situation
Dialling down the chaos and assessing your situation could be the first step. You would want to know where the rumour mill is getting its grain from. Have you been procrastinating at work, or are dear colleagues passing off your paperwork as their own?
Next could be patrolling how far the fire has spread. Has everyone made an opinion of you? Have they blown matters out of proportion and are treating you inappropriately? One should also check in with themselves in icky times like these. It gets worse when you hold a bad reputation for yourself. Self-evaluation is a tough pill to swallow but heals every cell of you.
Taking feedback from trusted friends
Friends who constructively criticize are God-send. Turn to them to give you the unfiltered truth. Ashima Saraswat, an MBA graduate shares, “My friends would leave me out of plans, and I would only get to know about the cafe-hopping from their IG stories. Maybe sometimes I couldn’t go, but they could ask, right? I turned to a close friend from the group, and she told me that everyone thought I was high-maintenance. She gave me instances to back up the claim. I was devastated then but did work on not being too picky and pushy.”
Trusted friends will also be honest if the gossip about you has no solid ground. There’s not much to put your head to then. You haven’t been * wrong*, people need watercooler talk, and you happen to be their fodder for the day.
It’s damage control time
Now that you have established the truth, it’s time to take out the hose pipe and water down the flames. If your bad rep is because you are genuinely a party pooper who bails out at the last moment, it might be apology time. You could drop in simple text apologizing for your record of dropping out of trips and promise to be more considerate in the future.
This will drown out your evil deeds of the past and help you start clean. You could also go a little extra to compensate for the damage you have caused – help a colleague in their worst times to show you value deadlines or loan your friend money to rip off the miser badge you rightfully earned. However, if a gossipmonger is leading whispering campaigns behind your back, you should take it up with them before they make matters worse.
Megha Paliwal, a 25-year-old shares “A catty relative told everyone in my family that I was fired from my job because I was caught stealing office resources for personal reasons. This rumour caught on and robbed my mother of any sleep and peace. I went up to my relatives’ place and casually mentioned the pay raise because I called it quits. I slipped in the idea that I knew they had been loud mouthing around the town, and it’s time they
zip up now.”
If the matters have worsened and your bad reputation is costing you
professional and personal losses; you could also come clean to people you think deserve to know the real deal.