You might feel like your friend is kind and charming toward you, and they make you feel like the most important person in their life. Your friendship, can’t possibly be toxic? Well, the chances are you might not even know it is toxic until the friendship is over and you’ve had some emotional distance from them! It’s also even harder to detect that the friendship is one-sided and you don’t tend to realise it until later on after you have removed yourself away from the relationship.
Here’s a few red flags to look our for, that your friendship might be toxic…
- They only want to be there for the good times – They prefer to hang out for entertaining things like; shopping, going to the cinema, catching up on gossip or going t parties. But when you are having a bad day and need them for emotional support, you suddenly find them unavailable. You can expect them to bai, as soon as the fun stops.
- You can never relax around them – The more time you spend with them, the clearer it may become that they only like you a certain way, which will leave you feeling in a state of stressed-out limbo to where you won’t feel like you can fully be yourself.
- Your the only one who puts in all the effort – Do you find that your alway the only who calls and suggests to meetup? Do you feel like they didn’t even initiate with your? You never hear from them? Then there’s a chance that your friendship might be unbalanced.
- They want to change you – Whilst you are socialising with them, you never quite feel good enough to hangout with them. By the way that they make you feel inadequate and need to tweak your personaility. Plus the seems to feel like bar keeps getting higher and higher, in order to gain they’re appproval. You may find that you don’t acting your natural self, instead it seems like your changing to be more like them.
- You’re expected to do everything that she wants – All the plans are alway on they’re terms, regardless if your okay with them or not. Whether thats withholding an invitation to a party or talking about you to other friends.
- They keep scores – They have a constantly tally running through her head of the time you’ve let her down, and doesn’t hesitate to mention it at times she doesn’t like something you’ve done. Like; if you want to bail little early on a party and they aren’t ready to leave, then expect a passive-aggressive guilt trip or even spread threats about finding other friends.
- They never like to share the spotlight – They also like to being centre stage and hates to share the attention – getting pouty and agitated when someone focus drifts away from them or when something is no longer about them, especially when it something that they want.
- They become hot and cold very quickly – You can never tell what version of them you are going to get – one minute you could be showered in compliments and there attention, and the next you could be the recipient of snarky comments or the cold shoulder, because something didn’t go there way.
What defines being a good friend?
Of course, being a good friend will differ depending on the person and the time of year. At times you’ll have to accept the fact that we all go through phases where being a ‘good friend’ isn’t on the top of the priority list. Our mental health or work might need to come first sometimes and that is okay. Remember, we are all allowed to have different priorities and it can be shifted and changed according to the circumstances. In my opinion, being a good friend is to have a good listening ear, show up when it count, people who love and care about you and also demonstrate it throught their own behaviour.
At what point is it appropriate to walk away from a toxic friendship?
If your boundaries continues to be disrespected then that’s when i would question to msyelf, whether or not the other person deserves my time as they don’t seem to respect yours. Everyone has a dealbreaker.
Check out this throwback blog post ‘Why There Is Nothing In The World More Powerful Than Female Friendships’. Click here for the link.
