Some friends might be disturbing your peace. Others can be downright toxic! Do you want to know about the signs of toxic friendship? This article will help you out the signs of toxic friendship.
Everyone goes with good and bad days. If it’s a bad day, it’s hard to come with courtesy, even with the loved ones. So, is there any way you can differentiate between a toxic friend and one who’s just not having a good day?
Your relation with your friends can protect you, nurture you, or even can uplift you. But if a friend has the reverse impact, you may want to reconsider that person’s role in your life. May be you don’t need to end the friendship wholly, you still can see them for social gatherings—but now you should not turn to them for emotional support.
Such friendships can take different forms, more frequently; they drain you emotionally and have a way to worn you out mentally rather than building you up. The backlash of a toxic friendship can go far beyond your friendship itself. It can leave a persistent sad impact on your personality, mood, confidence, self-esteem, and your relationship with others.
What Is a Toxic Friend?
A friend, who always tends to make you feel energetically exhausted. Might be possible your friend is an emotional vampire who seems to drain the force of life out of you no matter how much you both are emotionally connected with each other.
In a toxic friendship, you are never respected or supported. He/she seeks to be rude and pathetic with you most of the time. You will feel such a person as selfish, challenging, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and dismissive. This kind of a toxic relation often makes you feel exhausting and disappointing. At the same time, he/she might not be aware of mean attitude showing towards you, adding further complications. You may seem as if the entire bond is one-sided. It can also look like whatever you have given it, just isn’t good enough.
5 Signs of Toxic Friends
Are you wondering how to recognize such toxic friends? Not sure how to avoid them or how that relation might affect you? There are quite a few signs of recognizing toxic friends that cause harm to your happiness. Now, you can look out whether your friendship is healthy or not. Some of them are obvious, but some can be more subtle.
1. They don’t actually listen to you
What’s the rarest form of love other than attention? It might strike if you’ve ever been hanged out with a friend who’s constantly using a phone. Well, how it can feel when you’re talking with someone who’s not present at all. They don’t really care about what you have to tell. Much more than this, it’s usually that friend who can never listen to you but expects you to listen to them.
A protective friend will never make you feel like this. We all know that great and happy conversations belong to friends getting involved in one another’s feelings, thoughts, and experiences. But toxic friends do not ask questions or bounce to ideas back and forth along with you. Why so rude? Whenever you find your friend not listening you, it’s better to stop talking and leave them in an awkward silence. This might make them feel either to get involve in conversation or simply leave right now.
2. They gossip about other people
How your friends talks about other people behind their back? Do they gossip a lot and justify it saying they only do this because they care about them? Sick mentality!
You told something to your friend in confidence, and after few days, your entire social circle knows it. This is a sign your friendship is perhaps moving down a toxic path. Or, probably, they don’t gossip but are overly critical whenever they’re talking about people or they look jealous, or conniving.
Toxic friends always seem to enjoy leaking secrets around, even when you request them to keep the personal information private. They consistently break your trust perhaps don’t care much about your emotions.
3. They always use you
It feels worst when you are being used in any relationship. Usually, indications of toxic friends start showing when you observe they are taking more rather than giving. But, you know, we may don’t want to accept it to ourselves. You might note that they are ready to hang out only when they feel convenient. Such friends who only want to use your company when they want or when it suits them, are extremely toxic.
You’ll see selfish friends always looking for access to your social circle. So they can meet your friends, maybe for potential personal or romantic interests, or finding a way for career connections. If these signs are present in them, it’s time to accept that they were never interested in being your friend. Your love and efforts should be humbly received by a true friend who genuinely cares about you.
4. They Make you feel nervous
Do the reactions of your toxic friend cause harm or do you feel it abusive? If yes, you must zone your friend out right now. Those feelings, unpredictability, alone may not necessarily indicate they are toxic, but it’s wise to go with more caution.
Such kind of toxic friends are entirely predictable, but it’s natural to hope from someone you trust a lot or you can mostly express their emotions in safe, healthy ways. They might get extremely frustrated and yell at you over small things. For example, you forgot to bring hot chocolates for them or not returning a leather shoes they lent you. That’s pathetic, isn’t it? And after that, the next minute, they act like if nothing happened.
If you never understand how they used to react, you may get a hard time feeling comfortable around them.
5. They Don’t Respect Your Boundaries
Mutual respect is significant for a healthy friendship. Sometimes friends try to take it a sign of mutual bonding to disrespect your boundaries. But actually they want to use you. You might notice that your friend keeps forcing pressure on you to go out when you’re just want to relax or rest. Also, they always seem to be borrowing your clothes and jewelry without your permission.
It may look like those toxic friends never feel embarrassed to get close to you to access your time and things. At the end of the day, they leave you feeling disrespected, uncared, and unheard.
Any of your friends matches the above 5 signs? It might be a time to re-consider your friendship. Maybe it’s your childhood friend or your colleague you’ve grown close to who often does and says things that makes you upset. You should know that it is quite normal to love someone but not to be friends with them. Avoid them as they frequently cause tension amongst your other friends, but it may not be easy to tell if such people just want everyone to be a bit more forgiving or if they’re toxic.