playing without steam

I have borderlands 2 among others. I would like to know if there is a way to play it without going through steam, just play from the disc or my hard drive

I think you just answered your own question at the end of your post.

If you have a media (disc or DVD) I would assume its just a matter of installing to your hard drive of course, perhaps going online to activate it for a moment and then play at your heart's content... has that not worked for you?

I have the disc but when I put it in it goes right to steam to install. I have played it before on steam but it is such a pain in the neck. I would like to know if and how I could install to my hard drive, if possible.

Wait wait why does it go directly to steam? That's stupid, you should be able to directly install it to your hard drive already. I don't know how to help with that because I don't use Steam.

NOTE: I have a friend who told me that Steam has been like that for years. I don't know how to fix this issue.

Yeah, ditto most everyone else. No, there is no way to play the game without Steam. There aren't many new PC games that you can play anymore on PC without connecting to someone, be it Steam, Origin, or Uplay.

Having a disk just cuts down the install time as you don't need to download it. That's the only real advantage it gives over a digital download anymore.

There are a few notable exceptions, such as the Witcher, but for the most part DRM is controlled by an online service of some kind and you can't run games without at least an initial first time contact online somehow or another and whatever service it is running in the background to boot up the game to play it, even if it's in an offline mode to do it.