#fall 2000s

manifesting a dark 2000s fall 🍂

She's the unicorn to my mermaid

Craving a fall like this

Friendships: Who to keep, who to drop, and what you should look for.

Friendships, a bond we make with one person, or multiple people. They can be the best thing you'll ever have, or they can be the worst thing you can ever experience. But don't worry, I'll tell you all about it

Today's post, I'm going to talk about....

What makes someone a bad friend

"what make's someone a bad friend?"

A bad friend is someone who is against you, someone who wants you to fail. Someone, who clearly doesn't like you. But could be friends with you for horrible reasons or for their own benefit. This, of course, is not good for you at all.

So, things that can make someone a bad friend can be unreliability, dishonesty, lacking empathy, draining behaviors, and disrespect. Depending on your morals and priorities in others, all of these traits or acts absolutely violate them. Which, when it comes to friends, is something we do not want---I promise you. I don't care how delicious the drama is, how cool drama sounds. In the end, they're winning and you're getting hurt.

Now, if you're reading this and wondering--"huh, is [so and so] a bad friend?" I want you to think about it with these explanations and scenario examples of the traits I mentioned earlier.

Unreliability

Unreliability means to be someone who isn't trusted. Someone who's inconsistent or undependable. Which, in simple terms, you can't have them know anything or say anything with the promise of things going smoothly.

for example...

telling other people a secret they "promised" not to tell anyone

reaching out when it will benefit them

Dismissing your needs

expecting for YOU to be there even if they're never there for you

Canceling plans w/o a valid reason

Canceling plans last minute

Not showing up to made plans w/o a valid reason

vague in communication

Not committed

Dishonesty

Dishonesty is the act of lacking honesty or integrity. Whether this is in with the thing you say or do.

for example...

lying about themselves

gossiping about you

shit talking about you

telling people the secrets you told them not to tell anyone

Refusing responsibility when they're responsible for something bad

Insincere apologies

Use of you for personal gain

Lacking Empathy

This the act of lacking care or understanding of someone else's situation, perspectives, or feelings.

for example...

disregarding your struggles

saying things like "you're being dramatic"/"stop overreacting"/ "you're doing too much"/"You're being stupid."/ "you're being ridiculous." etc

belittling your struggles

Impatience (rolling eyes, frustration, leaving when you're beginning to sob)

Lacking that shared joy when it comes to an achievement

Sharing their struggles and deeming them as worse than yours (everyone has their struggles, and they all matter--nobody's struggles are superior to another's.)

Draining Behaviors

Draining behaviors are behaviors that can emotionally, physically, and mentally affect other by their communication patterns or action patterns.

for example,

oversharing/trauma dumping

I feel as if I need to elaborate on this one, so I will. When I say over sharing or trauma dumping, I am not saying that you cannot talk about harsh or sad things that are happening in your life. In fact, you should absolutely be able to talk about those things to a degree with your friends.

However, what I mean is oversharing/trauma dumping with the expectation of the other party to be able to accommodate and assist you like a professional w/o feeling drained or overwhelmed. But not replicating the same for them.

Expecting for your friend to be as comforting as a professional is absolutely not something that should be an expectation. Especially, if a pairing of friends is relatively young. I commonly saw this in middle school, and my recent year of high school, and I feel as if that isn't right to do. Understand, not everyone is a medical professional, so you absolutely should not put your friend at the level of a professional psychiatrist who has been in that realm of work for years. That's unfair and unrealistic.

Same with not replicating the comforting behavior your friend gives when you need to dump. Again, that's unfair and not right at all. Doing so can create this feeling of exhaustion and distrust within the friendship.

Drama or Gossip

Such as bringing in chaos/starting drama

pushing established boundaries

focusing on only the negative/complaining and only ever complaining regardless of the situation.

trying to make a conversation only about them.

Disrespect

the act of being intentionally harmful either verbally or physically to another person.

for example,

Joking about a serious event/problem that you may have to jab at you to be mean

attitudes towards you are always a mean or unwelcoming

unsupportive behavior

pushing your limits

jealousy

competition

being disloyal

I hope that this helped you identify different red flags in your friendship!! until next time my darlings.