While society thinks women grow up dreaming of a fairytale relationship and weddings, they’ve got it wrong. Our greatest goal as children is to have a group of supportive best friend. The Cheetah Girls, Steel Magnolias, Gossip Girl, Sex and the City, Bride Wars, Mean Girls—at their core, they show us not only the importance of friendship but also just how fun life is with a group of best friends by your side. So when a toxic friend comes along and causes a riff, it’s easy to overlook it in the grand scheme.
A toxic friend in your group can be a problem for your mental health as well as the rest of your group. What’s worse: You might not even recognize that what a friend is doing is toxic in the first place. These common traits are easy to hide in friendship groups and go unnoticed. They can make your relationship less supportive and safer.
If you’re hoping to make new friends this year, leave these toxic traits so you can open yourself up to new opportunities and relationships. You don’t have to be a toxic friend to show them. If your otherwise great friend starts presenting some of these characteristics, have a conversation with them about how you’re feeling and see what’s up. Likely, it’s more about them than it is about you. Talk to your therapist if you feel it in yourself. Focus on healing the patterns that may be causing you to react in this way to emotions.
1. Protecting your emotions
When you feel like you can’t open up or talk about struggles you’re experiencing in your life, it can be toxic from both angles. If your friends make you feel like you can’t open up or that they’ll judge you, they’re not creating a safe space for you to express yourself. Similarly, if you’re unable to get vulnerable while all of your friends come to you for advice constantly, they might worry that your friendship is one-sided.
Friends are supposed be there to support you without judgements. So when you feel like you have to put a brave face on and smile through issues you’re going through, you’re not experiencing your friendship to its full potential.
2. Toxic positivity
Toxic positivity is a very easy way to make someone feel like their concerns don’t matter. If you tell your friend that you’re having a bad day and their response is “Look on the bright side!” without acknowledging or validating your feelings, that’s toxic positivity. You can both validate and listen to the feelings of your friend while trying to improve their outlook. If your friend often has an oversimplified solution to an issue you’re going through, they’re showing that they want the conversation to go a certain way, when in actuality, you might just need to vent. If you feel like you can’t vent to your best friends, those relationships can feel fraught.
3. Unpredictable moods
Toxic friends are exhausting to be around because they are difficult to pin down. If your friend feels excited and happy one minute but is sucking the life out of the party the next, they’re likely bringing down the group too. When a group’s morale is dictated by one person’s emotions, hanging out can feel worrisome, constantly leaving you wondering when the flip will switch and you’ll stop having fun together.
4. They won’t take tough love
If your friend refuses to listen to constructive criticism and takes any negative feedback as an attack, it’s impossible for your friendship to grow. Surrounding yourself with “yes” people all the time isn’t a friendship; it makes your entire relationship feel one-sided, especially if your friend has no problem giving that same tough love to you.
5. Jealousy
It’s unrealistic to assume our only friends will be our very best friends; everyone has acquaintances, work wives, college friends, workout buddies—you name it. If your friend makes you feel bad for hanging out with other people, they’re likely feeling jealous and responding to it in a negative way.
It’s normal for your friends to feel a little FOMO when you’re out having the best time with your coworkers, but if they respond in a way that makes you feel bad for not inviting them to everything, that’s a recipe for feeling like you’re stuck.
6. Insecurity
If your friends prey on your insecurity and use it as a weakness, they’re likely making you feel worse. Friends should make you feel supported and lifted; they should also make you happy and excited to be around them. You shouldn’t feel like, for example, they know you feel self-conscious about your relationship with your partner but they just used it against you to make a joke around the dinner table. When a friend does this, it’s generally their own insecurity coming out, but instead of lifting you both up, they decide to bring you down to make themselves feel better.
These moments can feel awkward for everyone. If you all don’t have a vested interest in making your friends feel secure, your friendship will never feel like a source of positivity.
Source: The Every Girl
