Toxic Friend

[MusicNerd]

Hi there! I need help dealing with my feelings around this situation I'm currently dealing with-- oh, and please let me know if anything's confusing or something (there's different details going on in this ramble).

So, as you can probably tell from the title, I've had a toxic friend in my life, but I no longer consider her a friend now. Basically, after studying abroad this past semester and having a long time away from her, I realized just how screwed up our "friendship" became, and just how poorly I was treated (mostly without even knowing until I'd find out things later through others). I've recently unfriended her on facebook, and I've basically ignored her for the past 7 or so months-- don't worry, I've tried talking with her before last fall. I talked with her last semester the first time she lied and did something super not-cool, so she knows fully well how I felt and she said she was "sorry and i'll never do it again"; but then she continued to do similar things and continue lying about it, and that's when I realized it's pointless to keep talking to her.

And she's doing this thing now where she's trying to get my attention, because I stopped talking to her, and it's really annoying-- like, last semester she tried to make me jealous of her friendship with someone I know (but I made it clear I didn't wanna be her friend, so she found out that didn't work). And she sent me a text when I returned home from abroad pretending she was so excited to see me and that she wanted us to hang out with some friends (even though I hadn't talked to her for 6 months), or she'll pretend to be really happy to see me and purposefully say my name to get my attention just to be fake-cheery and say "hey". like.... it's immature bullshit, to put it plainly.

She also has a tendency to lie in order to be liked by folks, and she's done that with a few mutual acquaintances of ours by spreading rumors about me (what exactly, I have no idea). It's one of those situations, where it's very obvious to see that she's been saying crap about me (ex. walk into a room with them together and they instantly stop talking while said-acquaintance awkwardly ignores you and from that point forward acts cold to you whenever you say "hi"). And instead of the mutual folks getting to know me better and using their own judgment, they just assume that the shitty things she says are true and stop talking to me. *sigh* So, while I don't really care that the people I don't talk to much think poorly of me because of what she says, I'm not gonna pretend like I don't care if she spread rumors to my closer friends who we both know (like my best friend who has leukemia that I've mentioned in another thread).

I logically know that like if my friends hear what she says and they believe her instead of what they know about me, then they won't actually be people I need in my life... but it still is a bit anxiety-inducing and upsetting to think that it could possibly come to that. idk, this whole situation just makes me feel crummy, and I wish I had seen some signs that she was like this sooner

[Mo]

MusicNerd, I'm really sorry to hear that. I've definitely had to cut someone out of my life when I realized my friendship with her was toxic, and while she hasn't made any attempts to sabotage friendships I've had to deflect some recent attempts to re-connect and it's upsetting and anxiety-inducing every time it happens. So you definitely have my sympathy.

In terms of interacting with her, I think the best thing to do is just keep on ignoring her. If you want you could even block her number & social media accounts so not only are you not following/contacting her, you can make sure you don't see any communication attempts from her at all. It sounds like she's someone you can't avoid entirely in person but adopting a cool politeness is probably the best approach when you're forced to interact with her.

If people are taking things she's saying about you at face value there isn't much you can do about it, sadly. I think it may be worth reaching out to some of those people to see if that was only a temporary awkwardness; even the act of reaching out and being your normal rad self around them may be enough to shake some of those negative comments loose. It may be, sadly, that you lose some friends over this, but I think close friends are likely people you speak to more openly about the situation, and it might just be casual friends or acquaintances you lose touch with. That's still a bummer, certainly.

But as you said - even if it's a bummer this might be a process of weeding out folks who aren't as committed to supporting you. I don't want to minimize the impact of that, but sometimes there can be a benefit to it as well; you can focus on those friendships that are really working, or spend some time to try and cultivate new ones or explore a new social space. I hope you can find a way to stay away from your former friend as much as possible so her comments and actions can, over time, have only a tiny impact on your daily life.

Also I'd encourage you not to beat yourself up too much about not noticing things earlier. It can be really easy to accept small behaviors and not notice their implications until you're enmeshed in a really toxic situation!

[MusicNerd]

Hey Mo! I'm so sorry to hear that you've dealt with something similar-- it's awful

You know, I actually totally forgot about being able to block callers on my phone lol so I blocked her so that she can't call, text, etc. and it feels great! I already unfriended her on facebook earlier yesterday, but I blocked the people she's spread rumors to (at least the ones that I'm aware of) so that they can't see my posts.

Yeah, I've basically just been a civil ice-queen the few times I've run into her. haha I mean, 'cause like I know she just wants to get a reaction out of me, and I'm not gonna give her that.

I'll try not to beat myself up, but I'm just upset because I thought my judgment was better than that.

[Sam W]

Hi Musicnerd,

High five on the blocking, that's a big step! I feel you on the being upset that you weren't able to spot this coming. I think something that helps to remember is that toxic people don't usually show their toxic side right away, and they often have qualities that makes us willing to overlook the alarm bells we might be getting. So these realizations often come as unpleasant surprise.

[MusicNerd]

Hey Sam! mm, yeah I guess I see what you mean there. I will say, she was definitely very charismatic, so I guess I couldn't see how disingenuous she was until it was too late :/

[Mo]

Yes, charisma is often a common characteristic of folks like this! I didn't mention it in my comment above but my toxic friend was charismatic and was, in many ways, a supportive and positive person in my life. I do think those positive attributes made it a lot harder to see the negative ones.

I'm glad you've decided to block her and other people you feel may not be supportive of you after she's talked with them, and I'm *very* glad that doing so has helped you feel a little better already.

[MusicNerd]

Hey Mo! Yeah, it definitely helped me feel better (and I've unfriended another toxic person who was on my friends' list, so I feel happy about that too!). Thanks so much for your advice

[Mo]

You're so welcome, I'm glad you're feeling a little better.