Signs That You Might Have a Toxic Best Friend

If you are here, most likely you’re curious. Don’t worry. It’s not an uncommon thing to have a toxic person enter your life. Don’t be ashamed if you never realized it before — sometimes it could take years for a person to catch on to what's really going on with who they thought was their best friend.

Three years ago, I cut off a toxic best friend from my life after spending three whole years thinking that they cared about me just as much as I cared about them.. and I didn’t even realize how toxic the person was — my mom did! It wasn’t even my first toxic relationship, yet I still never even saw a single red flag throughout the entire course of our friendship. But, although it did take a couple months for me to be able to say “It wasn’t my fault”, the day I finally realized that I did what was best was a day for the history book that is my life.

Ending my last friendship due to toxicity hurt. It really did. I won’t hide that fact. I won’t deny it. I felt a sort of betrayal, not by the other person, but by myself. As someone who has been in many different forms of “toxic relationships” in my past, I couldn’t help but beat myself up for allowing a whole friendship to go on for what was almost four years where I wasn’t getting the whole package deal. It hurt even more just thinking about how my mother was the one who saw it first instead of me. I was so blinded by the idea of someone actually wanting to be my friend, that I kept shoving every single doubt I had towards the friendship just so that I wouldn't have to lose them. Growing up, I was the child who barely had any friends. Not only was I severely bullied by majority of my peers, but I was also the quiet kid.

So not only was I not the type of kid who could go up to just about anyone and make instant friends, but I was the type of kid that every other kid would only want to be around to treat as a pet, as if I wasn't a human with human emotions.

After ending the toxic relationship is usually when you start to realize that the red flags had began to show long ago. It’s so weird how humans want something so bad, or love having someone in our lives so much, that we could just block out every terrible thing a person had done to us just to make everything about a relationship, or friendship, look amazing and supportive.

Now, if you still have a relationship with a person who you aren’t quite sure is or isn’t toxic — here are some possible signs that I’ve noticed from my experience with toxic people:

They don’t care about anyone else besides themselves.

Yes. Including you.

You could plan to spend every day with this person, create a bond with this person that seems to be two-sided, only for them to want just that. They want YOU to plan your time to spend time with them. They want YOU to make the bond between the two of you stronger. They want YOU to basically do everything while they just allow it all to happen.

They want you to plan out ways to hang out with them, no matter the damage it does to you physically or mentally, because how you feel doesn't actually affect themselves. But if it was the other way around — they’ll come up with every excuse in the book NOT to do the same.

They seem way too perfect.

No matter what they do or say, they just seem like they are the most put-together type of person. Nobody is like that. Ever. Everyone has at least one insecurity or one flaw that they see in themselves. Everyone has at least one thing in their life that didn’t go exactly how they wanted it to, or didn’t happen the way they would have chosen it to happen.

They lie. A lot.

In all the toxicity I’ve gone through in the past, this is always a big one. This person somehow has it believed that you will believe anything they will say — no matter how crazy or messed up it is.

The secret to finding out if your friend does this is try and figure out if every, or almost every, story they've told you does not match up to a story they’ve already told you in the past.

They will use your insecurities against you.

And usually it’s just because they wanted to be the “hot” one of the ‘squad’.

Have you ever hung out with your friend and had them completely talk horrible about your outfit or the way you act as a way to express how they really feel? Have you ever been out with your friend when they insulted you as they watched you try on clothes or order from a restaurant/fast food place? This is never the “norm”. This was never the “norm”. This person just wants you to think that this sort of behavior was a normal type of behavior as a way of controlling and manipulating you to do what they want you to do or feel the way they want you to feel, or even look the way they want you to look.

They don’t care about your true feelings at all

Don’t try to vent to them about anything because they most likely will just shut you out until you stop.

Whether you’re telling them about the bad day you just had or about how crappy your week has gone, they won’t care. Sometimes they won’t listen to anything you say, but other times they’ll just try and bring the conversation and attention back onto them instead of focusing on your feelings. Or they’ll just try to make your day feel horrible after you’ve had a great day just because they had a terrible day themselves.

If you have a friend who fit under any of these, don’t be too hard on yourself. These types of things happen for a reason, and we all learn to grow stronger from it.

If you do happen to have a friend who fit under these descriptions, don’t be afraid to talk to someone about it — maybe not that friend in general, but possibly another friend or maybe your parent, etc. If it wasn’t for my mom, I would probably still be trapped in a toxic friendship being completely blindsided by the other person.

Don’t be afraid to get help.