At the ripe old age of 26, I can say with honesty that the female relationships in my life are the soundest they’ve ever been. What I’d like to discuss is how arduous my pilgrimage to the land of sane, healthy female friendships has been. Ladies, I think we can all agree that there’s nothing like a best friend. She’s there when you’ve had too much wine and insist on cursing out every human being with a penis, or when you need assurance for that asinine retail therapy purchase you made, or when you want to try that new cycle class but you definitely can’t go alone for the first time. The problem is our generation seems to value quantity over quality, especially for young women trying to navigate girl world. “Best friends” seem to multiply in high school and into your early twenties. They become a commodity. Like trophies collecting dust, they lack meaning and substance as time passes.
Toxic friendships remind me a lot of dusty trophies. You hold onto it because it meant so much to you at one point in your life. It was exciting, special and, most importantly, it made you feel worthy. The only problem with dusty trophies is that they can trap you in the past instead of launching you forward to chase other dreams, other explorations and depths within yourself not yet explored. I’m not implying that every friendship is doomed to become a dusty trophy. Rather, it’s important to evaluate which ones deserve to be cared for, polished and presented to the world versus those better left in storage as a distant memory in a particular period of your life.
What I learned from my early twenties is how to identify toxic female friendships and truly walk away from them, no matter how much it hurts. I say that with almost a romantic implication because in a deeper sense, our friendships with these women are relationships that hold the power to hurt us just as deeply as a romantic one. After all, our girlfriends have the privilege of knowing some of the most intimate details of our lives. We share our insecurities, secrets, desires, fears and sins. I always remembered feeling my friendship had reached a level of comfort and trust when we stopped changing in the bathrooms and felt free enough to just let the girls hangout.
So, how do you know if a friendship is toxic? Well, as simple as it sounds, a healthy friendship should be a two way street. Sure there might be traffic, the road gets congested, but it disperses, and life goes on. I had a friend once, someone I considered myself closer to than most, who gradually let go when things in my life became difficult. It was painful to see a relationship deteriorate and I wasn’t ready to let it go. I was sure that it was just a difficult time, that everything would work out just like it always did. It took me a few months to come to the conclusion that just because you have a history with someone, that doesn’t guarantee a future. I think the hardest part about these types of friends is that you have the memories and experiences of when they treated you with respect and thoughtfulness. You remembered feeling like equal partners and struggle to understand when things disintegrated and why. This lowers your feelings of self-worth and confidence, leaving you vulnerable to their mistreatment. The best thing you can do is walk away. Know your value. Chances are this person will eventually realize they lost something irreplaceable. If it’s anything like my experience, they will try to weasel their way back into your life. There’s nothing wrong with being cordial and wanting the best for them, but never allow someone to take advantage of you, especially twice.
When it comes to what I like to call “all or nothing friends,” choose the latter. These individuals are hot and cold, driven by their own interests. We’ve all had a friend who comes into our lives and we immediately become intoxicated with their energy. It seems like the dinner dates, long conversation over bottles of wine, and the tears and stomach pains from laughing too hard will never end. They get you. You have weird inside jokes, leave each other voicemails in weird accents and tell each other everything. You have long nights out that turn into even longer mornings with coffee and bagels, reliving every glorious moment in minute detail. And then, as fast as they came into your life, they’re gone. It’s almost like you’re coming down from a high. These individuals have no problem cutting you out of your life. Often they don’t even explain why; they just gently disappear, and then they vanish. They may come back to you, like an ebbing tide, but they’ll be gone again. I had a girlfriend like this in my life for about six years and I finally let them go after being hurt for the last time. I just couldn’t understand why she behaved the way she did, each time thinking it would be different - that she’d “matured.” The truth is, I was the one who matured and realized I needed to collect my memories and move on. To answer T-Swift, the high wasn’t worth the pain.
Toxic friendships can have negative effects on the human body. They can be the stepping-stones for depression, anxiety and other issues pertaining to the physical, emotional and mental well-being of a person. By choosing to remove a toxic person from your life, you're choosing to love yourself, to make yourself a priority. That is how you will overcome the pain of a toxic friendship. That is how you'll learn from it and find solace in a healthy friendship. That is how you evolve and become stronger. So, silently thank your toxic friends because, in retrospect, they only contributed to your overall growth and success.
I’m happy to say I feel a sense of peace that the women I surround myself with care about me as much as I care about them. They treat me with respect and love me without character scrutiny. I no longer need heavy introspection when it comes to my female relationships. Purging the toxic friends out of my life was like a prescribed burning of a forest; while it’s difficult to see the death of something that was once beautiful, it allows for stronger, healthier and even more beautiful new life to grow.
