Okay I'm just gonna rant about a toxic friend real quick because I've only ever talked about it to one person and 1/2 before and I just want to get this out
I admit, I was an annoying and persistent child in 3rd grade, but I'd also just moved schools and was probably just realizing that I hated "girly" stuff and I was 1/2 pretending to like it for the 4 people that were my friends and only 2 of them also transferred and only 1 of them was in my class, so of course I was trying to make friends. Cue this person, who I will refer to as "E". I tried to make friends with her, and it somewhat worked. She didn't like me much, but she didn't say anything, and it never occurred to me that she found me annoying. I was like 8 I didn't even know people actually hated each other. So I talked to E occasionally in 3rd grade, she was closer to another friend I had made, so it was more of that. Sometimes she seemed more annoyed with me than others, but I didn't realize she was annoyed at me, I just assumed it was somethimg I said.
By fourth grade, it was pretty much the same, I realized she was annoyed a little more, but she never actually said anything about it, she just seemed annoyed. I just kept thinking I said the wrong things around her.
In fifth grade, we got along better. I really wanted to impress E, and I wanted her to like me, because when E was in a good mood it was great, but if I said the wrong thing a second too early, she would be angry. It was like walking on eggshells, but everyone else seemed fine, so I still though my I just didn't fully understand her. I apologized more, whenever E got annoyed at me.
In 6th grade, I finally realized by the end of the year, that it was just me E didn't like for no reason. She got annoyed at everything I said, and talked about it to our other friends. It started to sink in when I overheard her say "She apologizes too much". I only overapologize because I always seem to say the wrong thing. And I only ever seem to say the wrong thing around E. It wasn't that my jokes never fell flat, or that I didn't make annoying comments around other people occasionally, but they never seemed to mind that much, but with E I couldn't talk to her for the rest of the day, at least, because me talking puts her in a bad mood.
Eventually I was at another friend's house, and we wound up talking about how it was the same experience, and we agreed the "friendship" with E was doing more harm than good, and that there was no way she would actually like us, there was no way we would suddenly not be walking on the eggshells around her.
A few weeks later I was talking to a different friend about how we decided that, just to make sure she knew, and to see if it was the eggshell feeling with her.
"She said she didn't like you much"
Okay, yeah. She was sensitive. And looking back on it, she didn't like me. But did she ever say anything? If she never laughed at my jokes, didn't invite me to birthday parties, and didn't get really exited when I gave her drawings, and didn't sit next to me on the bus on an overnight fieldtrip and we never have a ton of inside jokes, I'd almost say I should've realized sooner.
If she was only tolerating me, then none of that would've happened.
It hurt having another friend have to tell it to me to my face, like it had always been obvious, instead of her. E never said anything. She had never excluded me, like she had other people. Sometimes I said the wrong thing every other day, and she'd act like she hated me, but sometimes she was fun. Sometimes she liked me. Sometimes I'd feel like a friend. I'd still apologize at least three times if I'd said the wrong thing, but that was normal.
Moral of the story: If you constantly feel like you're walking on eggshells around someone, it's not supposed to be like that. Also, don't get annoyed when people apologize to you a lot because it's because they're not trying to be rude or annoying don't take it like that please.