If a friendship is bothering you and you are not really sure whether this friend is loyal and honest with you, if you have the feeling that your friendship is not what it should be, it may be time to identify what this person really wants and whether this relationship is worth pursuing.
Far from being simple, friendly relationships are often very strong, because the bond formed is intimate and deep. Familiarity, confidences make the investment in friendship is very important and sometimes conditions excessive or inadequate attitudes. Aggression, narcissism, jealousy, dependence…, we all know the behaviors that we may one day be confronted with, but it is not always easy to explain how we could get there.
If you are experiencing unsatisfactory friendships, and although each friendship is unique, it is important to find avenues for reflection. By learning to discern a friendship that has become toxic, you will then be able to find the best strategies to reconnect with real people!
Recognizing a Toxic Person
We are all surrounded by people who are toxic to our well-being, the key is to learn to recognize them, to be able to move away from them and simply run away from them.
A toxic person is in fact a perverse and manipulative personality who always operates by perverse injunctions. If this person calls herself “our friend,” her perversion is even stronger.
Toxic relationships are difficult to pin down. Generally, we start by feeling guilty in front of these friends
who swear they would do anything for us. They can always say it because they never will. Their reasoning is simple, only their own problems matter, yours simply don’t exist.
How to avoid this type of relationship?
We often see our friends or friendships negative things that annoy us. However, we may have already experienced this type of relationship with others before. So, before stopping everything, better worth investigating if there is repetition. If this is the case, the problem does not necessarily come from others, but may be from oneself, hence the interest in questioning oneself.
Better to take stock of each of these friendships and analyze your feelings. Did we feel betrayal? A certain invasion? Identifying our emotions allows us to study what we ourselves feed with the behaviors that annoy us and to readjust our relationships with others.
If you clearly spot a toxic friendship in your immediate environment, the emergency is to get rid of it slowly, by no longer playing its game and by showing it its perverse injunctions. Trapped in your new lucidity, it will leave on its own, to manipulate others besides you. And if you can’t demonstrate manipulation to one, for fear of hurting one or getting backlash, simply run away!
Three possible behaviors
- Decide if this friendship is worth it worth being prosecuted
If your friend is one of the types of bad friends above, regularly draining you of your energy, patience, and resources, you will probably be better off without this person in your circle of friends. Then decide if this person is worth remaining an acquaintance. This will depend on the context: if you need to continue working with this person or seeing them at family gatherings, then keeping the relationship distant but peaceful might be the best solution. On the other hand, if this person has no formal ties to your life, you might want to cut off all contact.
- Stop making contact
If you are always the one contacting your friend and you are tired of them not responding to you, stop contacting them. If the person is a real friend, they will come to you realizing that they no longer hear from you and it will only take them a few minutes to send you a text, email or call you. If one doesn’t, you’re better off letting it go and spending time with friends who are interested in you.
- Tell one that the relationship is over
Tell this person that your friendship is over when it seems appropriate. If you cannot distance yourself discreetly and refuse all invitations to go out with this friend, you will have to be direct in ending your friendship. The best way to end a friendship that isn’t working is to talk to the person face to face or on the phone and clearly tell them that you are unable to continue the friendship for a particular reason. Avoid blaming him. Although you shouldn’t say it’s not you, it’s me, you should make it clear that it’s about your feelings and your state of mind. Avoid insulting the other person’s character or blaming them for your feelings.
A question of will and choice
The problem only occurs when the friendship is one-sided and you feel like you are being used. If your Friends change for the worse (whether you mattered to them before, but now they completely ignore you), so distance yourself. Be prepared to have the courage to walk away from a toxic friendship. A friend who bullies you is not a friend. As for the opportunists, remember that they have become your friends to use you, before you throw it away as soon as they no longer need you. Get out of your toxic relationships is a real lesson in affirmation and choice. You came out necessarily relieved and grown.
Remember, however, that a friendship may change over the years. This is therefore not necessarily a sign that the friend in question has become toxic. Let your friendship evolve and change naturally. This flexible approach to friendship will allow you to appreciate each other even more.