10 Toxic Friends You Need To Immediately Remove From Your Life
Sometimes you have to break up with your friends just like any toxic relationship.
No friendship is perfect and you’re going to have ups and downs. But if you find that certain people seem to bring on unpleasant behavior consistently — and take it out on you more and more often — you might be dealing with a toxic friend.
Here are 10 'toxic' friends you need to immediately remove from your life:
1. The victim
This friend is emotionally draining because everything is surrounded by the drama that she creates. When you try to be supportive and help her, you find she’s more interested in sympathy instead of suggestions.
2. The judge
Instead of being supportive of things you do, she casts a curtain of judgment. From condescending comments about your workout routine or haircut to disapproving looks at the guy that you date, nothing ever lives up to her high expectations.
3. The wishy-washer
What do you want to do? I don’t care, what do you want to do? She’s indecisive about everything from what you should do for Girl’s Night to bigger decisions in her life, looking to others for validation and advice on what she should do.
4. The interrupter
You can never finish a story because she will interrupt, add her opinion, and then somehow steer the conversation towards her. Most of the time it feels like she’s looking more for an audience than a friend.
5. The one-upper
It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, she’s already done it and probably done it better than you — at least in her own mind. She will be supportive if it’s something she’s not interested in, but otherwise, she will downplay your achievements as less than her own.
6. The bad girl
You can go out and have fun once in a while, but she always tried to get you to do things you’re uncomfortable doing and you wouldn’t trust her around your significant other.
7. Miss popularity
She’s superficially popular in that people think her sarcasm and jokes can be funny, but at times she also veers into being mean. It makes you wonder what she says about you, especially because she only contacts you when she needs something because her ego is bigger than her bond to you.
8. The people pleaser
Instead of giving you an honest opinion and offering helpful and constructive advice and support, instead, she'll say anything you want to hear for fear she’ll upset you in some way.
9. The scorekeeper
Friendship should be a give-and-take, but she always reminds you of every favor she’s ever done for you in addition to every time you weren’t able to drop everything and tend to whatever she needs.
10. The friend you've known forever
This is the friend that you’ve known since the days of Lisa Frank's planners and prom, and she continues to live in the past. You treasure the memories that you have, but you’ve outgrown each other and don’t have much in common anymore, justifying the relationship with, “But we’ve known each other forever.”
But there's a moment where you have to ask yourself if your age-old relationship has become toxic and whether it's holding you back more than moving you forward.
Abby Heugel is a freelance writer, editor, and award-winning blogger whose work has been featured in The Huffington Post, Bustle, In the Powder Room, and Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, among others.