I Broke Up with My Best Friend Because of Internet Articles About Toxic Traits

The Part Where I Met My Friend

Back in high school, I did not have a lot of friends.

I struggled with intimacy. While I talked to a lot of people and mingled with a variety of groups, I could never open up to anyone about my personal struggles.

All my friendships stayed at a superficial level.

Until I met her.

Anna (name has been changed) was a chirpy, social butterfly. She was in the same school and we interacted quite often. I admired her confidence in herself.

She was someone who would not think twice before going to other people and cracking a really lame joke.

Anna was the person who could meet you one day and in a week, you would know all about her life.

As luck would have it, due to class reshuffling, she and I ended up sharing a bench. She promptly took the window side while I occupied the other end of the seat.

After a month, we were best of friends.

Her comfort with herself really encouraged me to come out of my shell. I found myself sharing my life stories with her with no fear of judgment.

I revealed some really painful past experiences to her that she took well.

Anna was the perfect friend until the internet told me that she was not.

The Part Where Internet Articles Entered The Picture

At that time, I had gotten my first personal mobile phone.

I used to spend countless hours on social media sites.

I would scroll through lifestyle blogs that talked about “6 things you need in your wardrobe to the look polished” or “4 ways to dress your pear-shaped body” through attractive photos and short paragraphs of texts.

During one of my explorations, I came across a new buzz term, ‘Toxic people’ that was trending on the internet.

That fascinated me because I had only heard the adjective in the context of inanimate objects before that.

I started reading more stories about toxic relationships and friendships.

The common traits in those articles were flashy, eye-grabbing titles with the word toxic in them. I remember a headline that screamed “ARE YOU TOXIC TO OTHERS? READ TO FIND OUT.”

These poorly crafted essays provided generic descriptions of traits that most people had as “toxic”.

They asserted that a toxic person was the worst thing possible that could happen to you.

After hours' worth of reading, I concluded that my friend Anna was toxic.

These articles mentioned that toxic friends talked over you, took all the spotlight, and gossiped behind others’ backs. These points were written as the gospel truth.

Anna met all the criteria.

The Breakup

While my teenage brain was smart enough to understand the lack of validity of those articles, I could not stop it from getting into my head.

I found myself emotionally distancing from Anna.

Unfortunately, we also had to change classes soon afterward. This brought physical distance as well.

After that, our friendship frizzled away.

Final Thoughts

It has been years since that incident.

As an adult, I can empathize with my younger self who was deeply influenced by these click-bait articles on the internet. I was too naive to comprehend the generalization that these money-hungry publications were making.

The truth is that no article can tell you if anyone is a negative influence in your life.

People are too complex to be put into a bullet point list and categorized as “toxic”.

That is what makes us humans.