When thinking about relationships, friendships are equally if not more important than our romantic relationships without all that between the sheets business.  They’re the people we confide pretty much everything in (yep, even the most embarrassing of stories) and expect to have our backs, so why are we happy to put up with more than we’d be willing to from a boyfriend or girlfriend?

We’re more than happy to have the “its not me, it’s you” conversation with a shit significant other and work our way out of a toxic relationship, but what about when it comes to a less than perfect friendship?  If you feel like your friend is taking advantage of you, isn’t supportive or is emotionally abusing you, it could be that you’ve found yourself in a toxic friendship.

If you feel like your friend is taking advantage of you, isn’t supportive or is emotionally abusing you, it could be that you’ve found yourself in a toxic friendship.

Toxic friendships can be completely draining, damaging to your self worth, can leave you feeling isolated and are ultimately a waste of your precious time, so its important that you learn to identify the signs and fix, if not say bye bye to those polluting your life.

Identifying a toxic friend.

Are they fanning your flames or pissing on your bonfire?

You can usually tell a toxic friend by how they react when you’re bossing life.  If you’re celebrating your successes, be that scoring a bargain holiday, having an amazing first date or getting a promotion at work and they’re not the first ones doing back flips for you or filling up your glass o’fizz, then why?  It can be a case of jealously which can be normal, I’ve been jealous of countless friends success’, but allowing that jealously to manifest to a point where you actively try to derail their success?  That’s not jealously, it’s bitterness and an unhealthy sign of friendship. 

They get jealous of your other friendships.

This sort of control in a friendship is as unhealthy as it is in a romantic relationship.  Often it can mean that they’re insecure in themselves and don’t fancy losing you to the someone else, but becoming obsessive and wanting to keep you to themselves or being butt hurt for not being included in every aspect of your life is controlling. 

One upping you is their favourite game

They flake on you, constantly

Realistically, you can’t be available for each other 24/7 because that thing called life can get in the way.  Sometimes, even the most in advance plans needed to be cancelled for way more important than trying out the latest place in town to serve avocado on toast.  But if you find they flake more often than you actually see each other and you find yourself calling bullshit on their unimaginative excuses, it may be time to stop making plans with them.  Especially when, thanks to the power of social media and the fact that people share there every bloody move on Instastories, you can see when they’re ditched your for somebody else.

if you find they flake more often than you actually see each other and you find yourself calling bullshit on their unimaginative excuses it may be time to stop making plans with them

You feel fucking exhausted when you do hang out with them

After a catch up with your buddy, do you leave feeling uplifted and motivated or like you need an hours soak in the bath with complete and utter silence?   Friendship should be a two way thing and you should never feel like you’re nothing more than a sounding board for your friends life dramas.  Positive relationships should leave you feeling motivated and like you can take on the world. It’s these polar opposite post brunch feels that have helped me separate the healthy from the unhealthy friendships.

They read into errthing.

Have you ever had a friendship where you’ve been called out for every little thing and they become demanding to the point of incessant?    I have and it drove. me. mad. (we’re no longer friends, surprisingly enough).  

“Why didn’t you invite me on this night out?” 

“Was that subtweet about me?”

“What do you say about me to such and such?” 

It’s not only time to hand your friend a large glass of chill the fuck out but also to ask yourself why they’re so paranoid.  Either your behaviour is making them doubt you as a friend or they’re shifting their shitty, shady behaviour onto you out of guilt because they’ve been gossiping about you behind your back.

Are you a toxic friend?

Look, its time to grow up, be an adult and admit when you’re not being the best version of yourself.  If you found yourself identifying with one or more of the above and are thinking” wait, am I the one being toxic?” it ain’t too late to change your friendship ways.  You may already be getting the hint because your phone stops pinging, your friendship group is out and captioning their ‘grams “my favourite people!” (sans you) and they’re too busy when you try to make plans.

We get what we put in after all and if the friendship you’re giving is toxic and quite frankly, shit, its the kinda behaviour you’re gonna attract.  

We get what we put in after all and if the friendship you’re giving is toxic and quite frankly, shit, its the kinda behaviour you’re gonna attract.  You know when you’re nearing the end of romantic relationship and you both end up treating each other a bit crap and both end up miserable (hence splitsville?)  That’s the way your friendship could be heading.

There’s no shame in taking a long hard look in the mirror and addressing why you’re acting the way you are and asking yourself whether you actually still want to be friends with this person or if it’s something you can work on.  Chances are your friend may be finding it difficult to talk about it too and a problem shared is a problem halved.  Or something cheesy like that.

How to break up with a toxic friend.

• If you’re not prepared to talk it out and bring up your issues in the hopes of de-toxifying your relationship, you’ll need to create distance in order to initiate the friendship split.  Meeting face to face may affect your ability to completely open with them so this kinda break up is probably the only time when sending a text message is okay.
• Don’t overly explain the who’s, whats, where’s or whens as this will likely end in you going round in circles. If you wanna go all Lauren Conrad and you’re willing to forgive but you wanna forget your friend, being to the point without being cold allows you to regain control over your own life.
• We all know from sex with your ex that unclean breakups can be messy and prolong the break up period in the long run.  Cutting all communication is key to allowing yourself a clean and that means the unfollow and block buttons.  Stop yourself from being three glasses deep into a bottle of red and actively snooping their social channels to see whether they’re better off without you or you made the right decision by covering all bases at the beginning.