If you're feeling degraded or mistreated by your friend, you are in a negative relationship that can damage your self-esteem and mental health. If your friend speaks to you or calls you names with the intent to hurt your feelings, you are experiencing a bad friendship.
Good friends work hard. Bad friends do very little other than play and want others to do their work for them. Good friends push themselves to be better. Bad friends are happy doing the minimum required.
Notice who feels like a bad friend.
These types of friends are bad influences, because they don't respect your opinions and values. Instead, they try to pressure you and make you feel guilty if you don't agree with them. Look out for friends who: Boss you around.
Combative (like to start fights) Rude. Mean or degrading (make you feel bad) Prone to gossip.
Apologize if you need to.
Ask them what you can do differently next time, and then truly take it to heart. And remember that just because you did something hurtful, it doesn't make you a bad person or a bad friend.
One of the definite signs your friend doesn't care about you is if they mostly respond negatively to news about your success or accomplishments, or never seem excited for your growth. Real friendships are based on mutual admiration, support and encouragement.
“Toxic friendships happen when one person is being emotionally harmed or used by another, making the relationship more of a burden than support,” says Suzanne Degges-White, author of Toxic Friendships. A bad friendship can increase your blood pressure, lower your immunity, and affect your mental health.
A toxic friendship often feels exhausting, frustrating, and disappointing. It may seem as if the entire dynamic is one-sided. It may also seem like whatever you give just isn't good enough. Toxic friends may be pessimistic, hurtful, or manipulative within the relationship.
They Don't Respect Your Boundaries
It is important to have healthy boundaries in any type of relationship, and if your friend constantly disrespects yours, it may be time to break things off. This is a clear sign that they do not value your needs or wants.
You can also look for signs that your friend does not respect you, like rudeness, a sense of insecurity, controlling behavior, and persistent hurtful comments that make you feel bad about yourself. If you value the friendship a lot, give them a chance by communicating your boundaries and calling them out personally.
Florence Isaacs, author of Toxic Friends/True Friends, explains to WebMD that a toxic friendship is unsupportive, draining, unrewarding, stifling, unsatisfying, and often unequal. Isaacs goes on to say that toxic friends stress you out, use you, are unreliable, are overly demanding, and don't give anything back.
Certain signs that someone may not value you or your relationship are easy to spot. A common one is not asking you about your feelings, life, or what's important to you. This can look different depending on the relationship. They may not check in to hear your ideas on certain projects at work, for example.
Talk about the fun times or the things you've learned from them. Then, explain why you've come to the difficult decision to end the friendship. Lombardo suggests using “I” statements to take ownership of how you feel because “you” statements can lead the other person to become defensive.
If your friend is making your life difficult, then it's time you end this friendship for good. Yes, we agree you might have grown up together, shared many memories, and it might be really hard for you to let go of the friendship. But there's really no point holding on to it, if it has become toxic.
They're disrespectful. "Since a fake friend is not invested in your well-being, they are more likely to be hurtful, for example, by disrespecting your boundaries," Leeds says. Whether they are simply nasty to you or show blatant disrespect for your boundaries and needs, this shows they don't really care about you.
Set up the trolling test.
If your classmate or coworker can't record the response, be the one to observe your friend while the unflattering scene unfolds. If your friend defends you, that's a great sign of loyalty but if they agree and start dissing you back, then you know this person isn't being a true friend.
As she explained to me in an email: “The loss of a friendship — especially a deep friendship — can trigger intense feelings of grief. … Part of the healing often involves moving through the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.”
The silent treatment is a form of control, and often, someone who uses it will feed on you looking hurt or down, or you trying to contact them repeatedly. If you don't let the silent treatment bother you, then your friend can't feed on those negative feelings.