LIFE SHARING 101: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT TOXIC FRIENDSHIP
By Geraldy Kianta
Note: this article is purely based on the writer’s experience, thus the usefulness and the implementation following this article are given back to the readers.
She never stops complaining about everything. It’s annoying to be honest.
He always asks for my thought only to argue a lot then. Does he really want my opinion?
He can’t even do a simple task. I must always help him anytime anywhere. I’m tired.
As suggested by the examples above, the world of friendship is not always as cheerful as how Disney songs describe it. Friendship is like a dance or a choir team where everyone balances each other. If someone tries to overstep or be fully dependent on the others, the harmony of the friendship will be broken. This kind of situation will then only make your friendship feels torturous and miserable. In short sentence, it is a toxic friendship.
As you can guess from the name, toxic friendship is a kind of unhealthy relationship. It is the leech that sucks out your blood, the ‘mass times gravitational field strength’ (W = m x g, W= weight) of your life, or the North Korea to you who is South Korea. There are hundreds of words that you can use to describe a toxic friendship. But then, the two most important things to be known – instead of words to sketch this sickening relationship – are how to detect toxic friends and how to deal with them.
Know the signs
It’s not an easy job to tell whether a friend is toxic or not. Sometimes the border between the signs of toxic friends gets blurred with traits that we show during temporary fights with our friends. Well, you can’t just tell your best friend turns out to be a toxic one just because you’ve got into a squabble for once and you feel being mistreated, right?
Most of the time toxic friends are revealed through continuous discomfort. These friends usually cause stress, sadness, anxiety, and even doubt on oneself. Here are some malaises that might suggest that you have engaged yourself in a toxic friendship:
• No trust
Friendship, as of other kind of relationships, is built on trust. If you can’t trust your friends, then they might not be really your friends at all. What is the point of having friends if you can’t rely on them? But then again, wisely separate this no trust sign with you being secretive with your friends regarding one or two personal issues.
• You don’t enjoy your time with them
Nothing is as joyful as spending time with friends. For example, the writer of this article enjoys weekly weekend night meeting through Google Meet with his friends that can spend like almost 4-5 hours (thankfully I have WiFi). If you can’t even bear half an hour talking or doing whatever you do with your ‘toxic friend suspect’ then you might wanna erase the suspect word from the title.
• They make you ‘famous’
One night you make one terrible and idiotic mistake for once. Your friend seems to forgive you and you think, “Everything it’s fine then. Thanks God”. Suddenly, the next week, the whole school know about that mistake and they gossiping you all day all night, in a group chat or verbally in class. It is highly recommended that you rethink your friendship status with that friend of yours.
• Life is competition
Competing with your friend is not a sin. Friendly competition can boost your spirit in doing the thing that is being competed. However, when the competition starts to go sour and jealousy takes over the wind, it can be toxic – believe me! #personalexperience
• You are being used
Manipulation is one clear sign of a toxic friendship. If your friend’s hobby is to make agreement that seems fair to both of you in the surface but not really in the end, prepare to remove him/her from your friends list. Another example of this sign is when your friend treats you as you are below him/her. Just imagine a school gang with lots of hierarchy system and you happen to be not in the top of hierarchy – it’s seriously toxic, just believe me again! #anotherpersonalexperience
• Due to limitation in article’s length we can’t describe every signs of toxic friendship (there’s too many). Just note it down that all the signs are basically same in one way: you feel discomfort over a continuous period of time.
What to do??
You’re already positive that you are currently in a toxic friendship? And you have little to no idea about how to handle it? Sorry to say, but toxic friendship is rarely cured. The only way that you can do is preparing to ‘abandon ship’. How?
• Gentle back off
The writer used this solution once during junior high school. Just pretend that you haven’t realized about the toxicity between you and your toxic friend and back off gently. Reduce chatting, start making creative excuses to make the ‘illusion’ as of you are too busy to hang out with the said friend, etc. Basically, start cutting off everything that connects you both as friends one by one slowly – don’t start by blocking your friend’s social media, it’s too obvious! Hopefully your toxic friendship problem is gone by one or two months.
• Aggressive confrontation
You are in a hurry to say good bye to your toxic friend? Well, the most effective and quickest way of solving your problem is to say directly to your friend’s face: Stop messing with my life you cr**p. I am tired of your f*cking lies. Some of my friends prefer to use this method and they often succeed. However, please take note to not use it against a Drama Queen type of friend. And also, it might not hurt to consider using the ‘gentle back off’ option first before trying this one. #peaceout