Alternate title: 8 ways to ensure you'll be spending weekend nights alone with a pint of ice cream and your cat (who also thinks you're too sensitive).
If you have a friend who uses any of these 8 toxic phrases, it may be time to ‘move on': Psychologist
My favorite thing about this title, aside from the unintended self-serious hilarity that you know will ensue, is the pedigree they append to it so as to signal their credential-obsessed readership that they are in store for some serious well-researched sciencey insight and not just a puff piece written by an unpaid intern:
"Psychologist."
Specifically, author Dr. Maria G. Franco, "one of the world's leading experts in human connections." What exactly are "human connections"?
Floor coverings?
Yeah, I probably should have dug into Google a little deeper, but I'm sure "human connections" is a burgeoning field of study that may or may not involve creating a more welcoming foyer using a delightful interplay of texture and color.
Her Ph.D. is in "Counseling Psychology," so you know you are in for some heavy quantum-physics levels of rigor.
She wrote the book, "Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make--and Keep--Friends," a thoroughly bloodless approach to friendship, dismissing the "myth" of "friendships happening organically" (you know, the way it's been done for millennia) and turning the process into a series of lists and action items like some corporate exercise in maximizing synergistic paradigms.
As she explains it,
... to make and keep friends you must understand your attachment style —
I've never made a friend understanding my attachment style in large part because I don't know what an attachment style is.
... using specific, research-based ways to improve the number and quality of your connections ...
This is starting to sound like a pitch for LinkedIn, which should not be surprising as it's largely a platform intended to further transactional-based professional networking.
... using the insights of attachment theory and the latest scientific research on friendship using a clear and actionable blueprint.
That's how I want a potential friend to approach me. With a blueprint.
Forget LinkedIn, this is starting to sound like one of those old-timey books along the lines of "how to catch a man."
What kind of soulless automaton would create a such a process for winning friends?
The same kind that would create a process for losing them.
From the article:
Friends are the cornerstone of a fulfilling and happy life. But some friendships can veer into toxicity, leaving emotional scars that make us want to withdraw altogether.
That took a dark turn halfway through.
As a psychologist and expert in human connection, belonging and friendship, ...
Here we go!
I help people recognize the signs of toxic relationships. But as my fellow friendship expert Danielle Bayard-Jackson argues, the most toxic friends often use crafty and underhanded forms of aggression.
Here are eight phrases that will help you spot even subtle signs of a toxic friendship:
Let's go hunting for reasons to be offended!
Which brings us to our first of eight "toxic phrases" you should lose a friend over.
1. ‘You're too sensitive.'
When friends say "you're too sensitive," they imply that your feelings aren't valid and that there's something wrong with you for having them.
Yes, they are.
That's why they're saying it.
This is the natural outcome of "gender affirming care" infecting everything. We are not supposed to have honest opinions anymore, we're just supposed to affirm whatever whim anyone has at any given moment, like a permissive parent would a child.
But expressing your emotions is a healthy part of any friendship, and being told you're too sensitive may indicate your friend lacks empathy.
Or, it may indicate you're too sensitive.
Note the focus here. It's not on maybe learning something about yourself from a valued friend who has your best interests in heart. No, for Franco friendships are purely transactional. Do you make me feel good about myself? Great, you can be my friend. You don't make me feel good about myself, you can't.
Like a child.
2. ‘I was just joking. Can't you take a joke?'
Good friends are responsive and try to meet your needs.
Again, with the me me me approach to friendship.
It's not all about you, Doctor.
When you tell a friend you're hurt, responsiveness looks like them trying to understand why and adjusting their behavior
They must adjust their behavior to accommodate yours.
We all have friends who say things we'd prefer they wouldn't or go overboard, but they're having a good time and we put up with it up to a point.
Friendships are a balance, and friends are people you enjoy as much as tolerate. They are not there as your personal playthings.
3. ‘You're lucky to have me as a friend.'
Healthy friendships are built on equality.
Pretty hilarious coming from Franco.
If you constantly hear your friend asserting their superiority or suggesting you should be grateful for their presence, it may be a sign of an imbalanced relationship in which you're not valued.
Or it's a sign that your friend is insecure. Maybe help them with that rather than jettisoning them.
4. ‘I miss the old you.'
Friends should allow you to be who you are, whether or not it fits their personal values, and encourage you to change and grow
More with the whim-affirming care.
This is one that will sort itself out. If you really have changed in a way that no longer works for your friend, they will move along on their own, you don't need to hasten it.
Or, use it as an opportunity to assess why you changed. Maybe you used to be fun-loving and now stress at work has made you a hag.
A good friend will tell you that. Keep those friends.
5. ‘You owe me.'
While reciprocity is important, if a friend expects you to repay everything they offer, it may mean they see the relationship as transactional.
Again, this is hilarious coming from Franco, given her whole approach to friendship is transactional.
And reciprocity is important up to a point. Most friendships are unbalanced to some extent, and that can be okay. Some people are just more needy, some less so.
6. ‘I wonder why they gave you that promotion.'
Having a friend who downplays your accomplishments or tries to one-up your success (e.g., "Well I just got a big raise") undercuts your confidence and joy.
Oh my, can't have anyone undercutting your confidence and joy! What are friends for other than to be an endless source of affirmation and pleasure?
A friend very well might be momentarily jealous. They're your friend, you forgive them.
Or, they might genuinely be interested in that they may want to emulate you.
Either or, probably not someone you should ghost on the spot.
7. ‘I'm sorry you feel that way.'
True reconciliation requires each party to recognize the harm they caused.
No, it doesn't.
Maybe you were just wrong.
When a friend apologizes because you feel a certain way, they imply that the problem is your feelings rather than their behavior.
It never occurs to Franco, that maybe the problem is your feelings.
Not every passing emotion needs to be affirmed.
8. ‘...' (as in nothing, they just ghost you)
Losing a friendship often triggers something called "disenfranchised grief, ..."
We didn't need a name for that. Really, we didn't. Just because you create a fancy phrase for something doesn't mean you need to over-define it in an effort to ... okay, she's going to do it anyway.
... an experience that occurs because society trivializes friendship and doesn't legitimize the gravity of the loss. That grief is compounded when you don't even know why a friend is pulling away.
This is such an unnecessary entry. Either she considers the number seven unlucky and needed another entry, or she wanted to throw in "ghost" to show she's hip with the kids.
But regardless, yeah, a friend disappears on you, it's probably over.
And guess what, you don't even have to "move on" from the friendship.
They already did.
Franco ends the piece noting that you can't just use a phrase or two as a basis for ending a friendship but should consider the relationship as a whole by asking yourself questions like these:
- Do they show up when I'm in need?
- Do they want the best for me?
- Is there a balance where each of our needs are met?
Me. Me. And you but mostly me.
I understand all too well that it can be difficult making friends as an adult in part because we are all so busy, and it takes some work to maintain a friendship.
But friendships are like romantic relationships in that you pretty much know within the first few minutes of meeting someone if they could be a friend, or remain an acquaintance. Not always, some people take time to get to know, and it's worthwhile to explore that, but friendship is not subject to scientific exploration. There is no magic formula, no set of rules.
There are people I know with whom I get along perfectly well and whose company I enjoy. But they'll never be a "friend" in the sense of anything more.
And there are other people where we just "click" in a way and on a level I can't even describe or explain.
Finding those people is a matter of exposing yourself to people through work, school, church, clubs, athletic pursuits, whatever.
You don't need Franco to tell you how, and you certainly don't need her sabotaging your existing ones with an article like this.
Now go call a friend you haven't talked to in a while.
You don't want them thinking you ghosted them!
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