When I was in my early twenties, I had an army of friends. Our common ground consisted of shared interests like clubbing, gossip and being overly dramatic about our romantic problems. I surrounded myself with people who were good-looking, stylish and popular, because subconsciously, that validated me.
As I grew older and reached a different stage in my life, my interests started to change. I became a lot clearer of the type of human I wanted to be and the values that I stood for. Slowly, I grew apart from some of my old friends, got closer to others, and made room to welcome new, like-minded people into my life.
The quote “The five people you associate with the most, you become, “ strongly resonates with me. Today, when accessing my friendships, I ask myself how I feel after I spend time with them. If I feel constantly depleted, it’s an indication I need to reassess.
I’ve finally learned what really matters when choosing your tribe. In replacement of the superficial qualities I used to look for in friends, today I prize loyalty, consistency, reliability, honesty, consideration, and generosity above everything else. That being said, sometimes it’s hard to spot if a friend is toxic in your life. Here are a few types of friends you might want to avoid:
1. The Energy Vampire
After spending time with this person, you feel drained. The conversation usually revolves around their problems and complaints. They will provide an emotional “dump” on you in order to release and feel better. Problem is, that energy ends up making a withdrawal from your energy reserve, and you have nothing left to give after. If you are consistently exhausted after spending time with someone, know that the consequence is that you will have nothing left to give yourself and the people you love.
2. The Calculator
This friend is always keeping score and if your tally is not adding up, then they resent you for it. This is the one who deep down is afraid of getting shorted, so they have created coping mechanisms to make sure nobody gets more than what they give. The problem with this type of friend is that their acts of giving do not come from a genuine place. When dealing with calculative energy, you may end up adjusting your generosity too, as it creates a dynamic where you feel like you have to constantly keep score.
3. The Disappearing Act
This person is your BFF when they are single and needs you to be the wing person in order to fill their social calendar. But as soon as they enter a relationship, you drop abruptly to zero priority. Then, the minute they go through a breakup, you’re the person they call to weep and vent to, only for the same cycle of MIA to repeat once they meet their next beau. While it’s normal for friends to have less time and availability when they have a new relationship and other priorities in their life come up, it’s not okay for them to completely disappear only to reappear when in need.
4. The Taker
According to author of Give and Take, by Adam Grant, there are three types of people: takers, givers and matchers. I think that your capacity to give is really determined at a young age, and it becomes a part of your DNA. There are some people, who just constantly take, and that is just their way of life. If you are someone who is always generous and giving, these people will know no bounds when taking from you. They likely don’t even recognize that they are taking as it’s their norm nor is reciprocity a part of their thought process.
5. The One Man Show
This person is the star of his or her own show. Therefor, everything from the conversations to the cast (this includes you) must revolve around them. This is the friend who will happily talk for hours about their problems, and when it comes to your turn to talk, they will interrupt and maneuver the conversation to go back to them. This person may be well intentioned, but they cannot help but center everything around “me, me, me”.
6. The Drama Queen
This person’s storyline never seems to move past the conflict stage. There is always something that is making them unhappy and there is typically someone to blame. This person chooses drama as an attitude and consequently attracts it and revels in it. They fret over the petty and trivial things and have a way of turning everything into a big deal.
7. The Child That Never Grows Up
This person has not learned how to handle his or her emotions and unfortunately, everyone else has to pay the price. This friend lashes out, resorts to passive aggression, or other detrimental coping mechanisms to deal with conflict and disappointment. Sure, nobody is perfect and getting a handle on the tricky range of human emotions is no easy task. But there comes a point where one needs to be responsible and accountable for their behavior, and constantly reverting to child-like reactions at the expense of others should not be tolerated.
8. The Flake
There are so many great people who value your time and who are excited to commit to making plans with you, why waste your energy on chasing people who don’t follow through? Sometimes people are going through life stuff that causes them to be unavailable – that is totally understandable. But those who constantly flake due to their own inability to manage their time? That gets old, fast. The friend who always says they have no time to see you? Not true. They just don’t want to prioritize their time on you.
9. The Guilt Tripper
This person has expectations of you and if they are not met, they will make sure you feel the wrath for it. These expectations revolve around them, their phase of life and their wants. Their demands come from a selfish place, and they are so blind sighted with “me” that your interests are put second. When we are kids, our friends and social circle is our number one priority in life. As we get older and have more responsibilities, things change, along with priorities. Life happens. Careers flourish. Families are created. People get sick… Friends need to be accommodating and supportive of the different changes that will take place and not use peer pressure or guilt in order to get their way.
10. The Friend Who Secretly Hates You
This friend cheers you on, exclamation points and happy face emoticons included. But in reality, they secretly just don’t like you nor want the best for. Be careful; because these people may want to appear like your friend due to strategic and calculative reasons and will likely mask their true feelings with eagerness and compliments. Your intuition always knows.
Have any to add to the list? Add to the list in the comments.
To learn more about how to change old relationship patterns, and how to create healthy ones, join my 2-hour Live Workshop on Sunday, April 25 where I’ll guide you step by step on how to become more secure in your attachment, manage emotions and our reactions to pain and create healthy relationships. Get your ticket here.
Why You Need To Care About Your Personal Brand
What about the clingy friend who seems to have no sense of space? They may have many general good qualities but through different phases of my life I seem to run into one of these clingy types. Back in school, I was more tolerant, naive and hopeful despite having an intense aversion for people constantly treading into my personal space and who also seem to have little sense of consideration. It’s a huge turn-off for people like me who value a lot of alone-time and solitary activities. Nowadays, at the first signs of clinginess I get wary and feel very uncomfortable. I definitely do not mean friends who might want to depend on you a bit, that’s fine. Clingy people can also turn out to be somewhat of an energy-vampire coz they form expectations that you want to do everything with them and they seem to think they are privy to all the details of your life. Once you unconsciously give them this ‘green-sign’ that you like spending time with them (coz of their other good qualities) they will text you non-stop, try out things you like doing and follow you around.
I think clingy people can appear to be less problematic for more extroverted people with big circles. In contrast, people who tend to be more by themselves and have smaller circles can have to deal with them a lot.
This is a great writing-and I have met all these types of friends. I am at my 30 now and I have ignored all these kind of friends. Now I am basically left with one very close friend and rest I really do not want to get too close with. I am afraid that she doesn’t turn out to be like on of them in the lists in future. What I scare the most about friendship is that most people in adulthood always tend to compare their life with their friend all the time. My personal observation is that I cannot get along with most people because the moment I start to talk about my life, my situations, it always become a comparison game. Like they become very judgmental on the face. It’s a great turn off. Have anyone of you had similar experiences? Also another kind to avoid is the DOUBLE STANDARD face. This person will suck the blood out of you. This kind will be absolutely nice on your face and is the perfect friend individually but when the same person stays in the group they will act differently with you. Their conflicting personality is embarrassing.
thank you so much for this and i really should not be friends with people like it will be hard but i know i can do it, i know to many people like that and should move on and focus on my education.
I think Friends or bestfriends who controls you too much should be avoided.
I had a bestfriend like this before. Her name is Fumina (just telling to not let ya’ll confuse) .
She’s demanding and controls everything I did. She didn’t want me to have a new bestfriend, but the thing is, she has a lot of new bestfriends without me knowing until I found out myself. Doesn’t that sounds like she’s a hypocrite? Well its not like I hate it, I’m happy for her and continue to support her and I still want to stay by her side, just like other normal bestfriends do.
Not long after, I have a new bestfriend. Her name is Deejay. But when Fumina found out about this, she’s gone mad and said “Why are you so close to her? You’re a traitor!” , and I was like “whatt? What did I do wrong?” I was a bit clueless and stupid back then while letting her scold at me. Since then, its been days we’ve never spoke to each other just because the “new bestfriend” issue.
I mean, is it wrong for me to get a new bestfriend? If she can get a new bestfriend, so why can’t I? Having a new bestfriend doesn’t mean I’m leaving her. I still considered her as my bestfriend. In my thoughts, if me, Deejay & Fumina are join together, it would be more nice. But it turns out, its not something that I expected to happen.
Why the hell is she being too jealous and envy? It sounded like I’m dating her. EWw no! I’m not lesbian tho.
To be honest, sometimes I feel like having a bestfriend like her makes my life more complicated than having a boyfriend. SERIOUSLYYY. I’m sooo done with her.
So, to all people who read this: What do y’all call her with this kind of behaviour?
I will add one, The Social Climber, the person who know’s way too many people, They will try to get to know you, but to use you to get to other people, and once when they found someone with a higher value, they will cast you aside when the time comes.
The liar…..I had a friend who ticked all the boxes on this list, and she was also a liar.
She could not do anything for herself, was scared of using her credit card online, doesn’t own a computer, etc. A really helpless person….
The last straw came when she wanted me to buy a ticket to an event where her crush would be playing (he is a rock musician – she’s his biggest fan and she thinks he is in love with her…but he’s just another ego on legs like she is. Anyway, that’s another story..)
The tickets could only be purchased online, so, knowing I was about to exit the relationship fairly soon, I insisted she buy them using her credit card, but that I would do the transaction. She read out her card details, told me her date of birth, several times, but the transaction would not go through no matter how much I tried. It was weird. So, of course I was tasked with buying the tickets using MY account.
It dawned on me later that she had been lying to me about her age! Even though, when I’d helped her with her CV a few months earlier, she had shown me her drivers’ licence…..in other words,it was okay to use me, but not okay to tell me her age.
I distanced myself. Bought her ONE ticket (she can go stalk that guy with all her friends….i.e. on her own.)
I know I had one friend that got into a serious relationship he stopped making time to hang out with me I’ve now got no respect for serious relationships anymore after that I’m also not friends with him anymore because I simply have no time for that kind of friendship now I make sure all my friends aren’t in a relationship I look for signs and if I see it I cut them off right away I’m not interested in a group hangout or anything
Yeah I know the disappearing act I’ve had a friend that I never saw or hung out with when he was in a relationship especially a serious relationship so I ended the friendship it’s not a good idea to have friends be at the bottom of your priority list anyone who does that will end up with no friends at all and as sad as it is I think that’s the best possible thing that could happen to someone like that they might learn their lesson that way just like Dominic will learn his lesson probably the hard way but guys usually have to learn the hard way
What do you do if everyone is all of these. You’ve been their faithful friend for years, but you miss out on one show (Theatre World) and they are suddenly hanging out with everyone else.
What about people who you’ve introduced yourself to hundreds of times, but they still don’t remember your name?
What about people who pretend to be nice (and everyone thinks they are), but inside you know they truly are someone else.
Or a boy who is having problems and you want to help, but you know that it might be weird or they might think you have a crush on them (Which you don’t)
I know that was a lot, but can you answer me on some of them. Thanks!
The Toxic Friendships: the one who claims to know abt various types of toxic relationships & yet, hangs out with the variety of everyone of them & leaks out information to everyone, while claiming innocence & is a two faced lair. Worse yet her 1st language is Spanish & 2nd is English & convienantly claims not to understand something for further denial of the actual facts, or as a way to get you to repeat yourself, more then once & then you give up because you find the lack of understanding between you two be too much, besides the toxic relationships she’s associated with to be rubbing off on her. No matter how much I wanted to be this persons friend, I just find it’s not beneficial for me.
While you might have one thing in common with the person, you find the lack of communication too much to bear,