. Friendship turns into competition
Sharing your accomplishments and celebrating each other’s successes is fine. But traditional Friday night get-togethers shouldn’t turn into a vanity fair. If you’re preparing a short list of your accomplishments for your next meeting, something may have gone wrong. In the event of failure, a friend should support you, not assert themselves at your expense. Otherwise, it will negatively affect your self-esteem and worldview, and is that what you want?
2. Your friend is jealous of you
The position “Either me or him” looks more or less adequate in the middle group of a kindergarten. When school years are long gone, such ultimatums, jealousy and attempts to control look at least strange. You have the right to enter into love and friendly relationships on the side, and if your friend does not understand this, it is safer to stop communicating.
3. All your parties end with a hangover
Perhaps you have a friend with whom you can have a good time, raid the bars, have a drink. But if every meeting of yours is accompanied by alcoholic libations, and in the morning you feel bad from drinking the night before and are ashamed to remember the previous evening, this is an alarm bell.
Friends should have common interests, but alcohol cannot be the only catalyst for a relationship. Here we are talking about other addictions. In addition, communication should charge you with energy, and not put you to bed for a day with a headache and a wet towel on your forehead.
4. You are forced to play the silent game
Friendly and loving relationships are good and productive when they are a full-fledged partnership. In this case, you give and receive in approximately equal shares, and we are not only talking about material things. If in all conversations the interlocutor almost always talks about what interests him, and you only nod and do not have time to get a word in, this is normal only in one case: there is a sign on your door that says “psychologist” and the interlocutor is not your friend, but a client.
5. You only share bad news.
Friendship, like marriage, is meant to be together through thick and thin. When you start dumping only negativity on each other, saving the good news for someone else, the relationship isn’t working quite right. You may be afraid to share happy moments because it will be followed by criticism , devaluation, and competition. And that’s a pretty clear sign that it’s time to end the friendship.
6. Your friend gossips a lot.
There is a huge gap between discussing mutual acquaintances and judging them. If a friend likes to gossip about someone, tell about unpleasant secrets, find non-existent flaws, you should think about whether you can trust him. There is a high risk that your secrets will spread around town, and in a distorted form.
7. The anticipation of the meeting is frightening, not joyful
You no longer include get-togethers with your friend in your plans, and the thought of a chance meeting scares you more than it pleases you. And this is not just an alarm bell, but a warning siren that notifies you of the need to evacuate this friendship. The fact that you are no longer connected by anything is also hinted at by your unwillingness to spend time together: you always invite a third or fourth person to a party so that they can act as a buffer between you and fill awkward pauses in the conversation.
8. A friend demands that you do something that is detrimental to you.
Folklore consists of thousands of proverbs and songs about true friendship and especially help, which is the basis for determining the truth of a relationship. It is normal to help out a friend in a difficult moment, but there are markers that will help you determine that a person is turning from a friend into a parasite who is only interested in your services.
For example, if a person asks you to get up early to help him jump-start his car, that’s fine. If he asks you to do the same when you have an important meeting at work, and then gets upset that you didn’t help, you should think twice.
9. A friend always pushes his position
You probably have not only common interests, but also different ones. For example, you love Mexican cuisine, your friend loves Japanese. But instead of alternating restaurants, you eat sushi and rolls over and over again with longing, while your friend flatly refuses to even look at guacamole. During get-togethers, you listen only to jazz, although you yourself love rock, watch Inarritu’s masterpieces, although you would gladly re-watch Scary Movie. The one-sided game should stop; friendship works on the principles of reciprocity.
10. You’re afraid to be vulnerable around a friend.
You have been communicating for a long time, you know a lot about each other, you have been in funny and embarrassing situations together, but now you feel uncomfortable sharing with your friend. Especially if it is about something important. Perhaps he did not support you once, was sarcastic or rude. In any case, even if your friend behaved impeccably, but you do not want to share your secrets with him, this is a hint that your paths are beginning to diverge.
11. After meeting with a friend, you feel not inspired, but empty.
Relationships can be anything, but in general they should motivate and support you. If friendship has become an overcoming and you are holding on to it only because of nostalgic feelings, it is time to end it.