While it’s easy to find friends to party with, things get pretty hard when you are at the bottom. The majority of people you called “friends” will leave you. Practically, you don’t need as many friends as you think. You just need to find those who care and are willing to stick with you for a long time.
To find the real ones, you need to filter out all of your friendships once in a while. Meaning you have to let go of the unnecessary pressure that you have to please everyone. It also means you can’t keep everyone because not all of them are good for you.
For the past two years, I’ve been working on narrowing down my circle and spending less time on the wrong people (those who are toxic and only stay to suck the life out of me). At first, I felt guilty. Am I a bad person for not talking to them anymore? But then, when I think about it again, I noticed their presence drained my energy, and I ended up being such a negative person.
Here is the type of friend that is mostly considered toxic. While you shouldn’t cut contact right away, it’s essential to reevaluate the relationships you have with them.
They Make Your Insecurity Goes Up
A good friend is the one who hypes you up. Instead of putting you down, they acknowledge your insecurity and accept you for who you are. They don’t make your insecurity worse by telling you that you aren’t this or that.
You can see whether someone cares about you or just tries to force their idea on you when you feel down. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but a good friend will listen to your stories and how you really feel.
Let’s say you come to them with your relationship problem, and you think you aren’t good enough for your boyfriend. Instead of comforting you, a toxic friend will point out all of your other flaws, which as a result, will make you feel even more insecure.
This happens because they don’t care about making you feel better or simply just trying to be there for you in tough times. If this keeps happening, you’ll end up having low-self esteem whenever you are with them.
They Are Always Ready to Judge Your Life Decision
I’ve had a friend who never agreed with whatever I do with my life. Not only that, but she also told me things that I should have done instead.
Once I decided to stay longer in one company because I wanted to take my time to learn the skills, yet she came to me saying it’d be a waste of time and the skills wouldn’t be useful anyway.
I never felt good every time I hung out with that person, but it took me some time to realize that she’s not the friend that I wanted to keep.
Life is hard, and the last thing you want to have is someone who can’t accept you for who you are and the reality you live in. People like this will tell you that your life will be better if you follow their recommendations. They think they know what you want and need in life.
And if you refuse, whatever you decide, they’ll be ready with their judgment. This behavior, of course, will eventually make you feel bad and doubt your own decisions.
They Take You for Granted
It’s no surprise that in adult-friendships we are expected to help each other. But that doesn’t mean you can let them just take, take and take without giving anything in return.
You’ll be left feeling mentally and emotionally (or even financially) exhausted. It’s the worst feeling to be taken for granted by people who we genuinely care about. It hurts but keeping them in your life will hurt you even more.
So acknowledge the dynamic of your friendships and see if they are all balanced. When you notice you are the one who keeps giving, yet you can’t find them when you need them the most, then it’s a warning sign you shouldn’t keep them any longer.
They Don’t Help You Grow
When all you do every time you hang out with them is gossiping about that one co-worker, then it’s better for you to find a more positive and open-minded friend.
While I’m not saying you can’t gossip at all with your friends, it’s really dangerous when you have nothing else to do other than gossiping together. Trust me. That activity alone won’t bring you anywhere.
As someone who’s goal-oriented, I need friends who I can talk to about my ambition in life. The healthiest friendships I’ve currently had are the ones where we can share each other goals, both career, and relationship-wise.
They Aren’t Genuinely Supportive of Your Goals
Have you spotted fake friends? Yes, those who say they care but never truly do.
This happens all the time on social media. They could be commenting how good your outfit is, but when you meet them in real life they don’t even bother asking how you are doing.
If you happen to surround yourself with this type of people, I highly suggest you reduce the amount of time you spend time together with them. Be it online or offline.
The truth is you don’t need them. You need friends who genuinely care about your life beyond the Instagram stories you posted. It’s not easy, but I can assure you those people exist.
I’ve found them, and it feels much better to have only a couple of people like that rather than having 50+, but none of them gives a damn about you.
The Conclusion
There are certain things you can do to have better healthy friendships:
- Become more aware of your surroundings and remove yourself as soon as possible when you feel like the friendship brings more negative impacts than positive ones.
- Find people who have the same interest as you. This later will make it easy to support each other and eventually grow together.
- Before expecting other people to listen to you, make sure to practice how to be a good listener yourself.
- When you find new friends that aren’t aligned with your vision, try not to change them. If you think you can’t “vibe” with them for the long term, then consider moving on from the friendship.
After all, making friends as an adult is hard. But having friends who are toxic can surely make your life harder. So save yourself some time and energy.
There will always good, positive, and supportive friends for a lifetime if you take the time to find them.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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