toxic friends

Cutting people out of my life does not mean I hate them, it simply means I respect me.

I saw this quote posted the other day and it really struck a cord with me. Over the past few years I have cut a few very close friends out of my life. I call them my toxic friends and the decision to part ways with them wasn't easy. In fact, it still haunts me sometimes. However, I know it was the right choice. These were my toxic friends and I had an 'a ha' moment with each of them that made me realize that I was not being respected as a friend.

I am fiercely loyal when it comes to friendship. I am fortunate enough to have two best friends in my life. One of them I've been friends with since kindergarten and the other since middle school. They are awesome women and we've shared many good memories. I have never once doubted their friendship. I use them as my guide for how friends should make you feel.

And then there are toxic friends. I seem to have a knack for picking these people up along the way. The thing that really sucks about it is that I always have a great time with these people. We've shared many adventures and big life moments. They aren't bad people, they just weren't always the best friends. I don't think friends should make you feel left out or disrespected. For some of these people there was just one thing that set me off and for others it was just years of build up. I admit, I'm not the best about confronting people and when I do it's usually a gigantic blow up of pent up feelings. However, I feel that even if I had addressed some of these issues in a different way I still would have ended up taking these toxic friends out of my life.

So let's start with Toxic Friend #1. She was someone I became friends with in middle school and stayed close with all through high school. This friend did have some mental instability, but she was a good person and fun to be around. I stayed loyal to her through college. When I graduated and eventually moved to the city things got tougher. I was always the one reaching out to her, visiting her, calling her. She never made an effort to reach out to me. It was all about her. My a-ha moment with her was when I found out she had come up to the city to get a tattoo and was literally a few blocks from my apartment. She never bothered to visit me. I had been living in the city for months and she would never make the effort to see me even after numerous invitations. This one gesture really clicked with me and from that point on I cut off contact from her. What really hurts about all of this is she did not fight for me. She never once called or e-mailed asking what had happened. She didn't care. She just let me slip away. What kind of friend does that?

Toxic Friend #2 was probably the toughest to let go of. She was also the one who probably did the most damage. I knew her in middle school and high school, but we didn't really become good friends until college and that's when she became my partner in crime. I had so much fun hanging out with her and we had so many adventures. She even studied abroad in England with me. The issue I had with her is that she always had to be the center of attention and at that point I was way to much of a wall flower to do anything about it. It was always about her, her stories, what she wanted to do and I just let it happen. I had a few nasty blow out fights with her that always left me feeling like the bad guy. She never owned up to how I was feeling. I stayed friends with her until after college. We lived in different cities so being friends with her got easier.

My a-ha moment with her was when I called her one day to let her know I had gotten promoted to a store manager position. This was a big moment in my life and I wanted to share it with her. I left her a message letting her know I had some really exciting news. She never returned my call. We went for months without speaking. I did not really feel like talking to someone who had not put any effort into our friendship and couldn't be bothered to ever call me and see what was going on in my life. A few months later she resurfaced because a mutual friend was visiting from England. We had a nice time out and we started talking again. She was having some issues with her husband and it became clear to me that she was becoming part of my life again because she needed my friendship, but where was she when I needed her? We stayed distant friends and then I found out she was going to be moving to Chicago.

I panicked because I did not want to fall back to the way things were. I had changed a lot. I was the quiet introvert who would just follow her around and let her take center stage. I knew I had to do something. I consulted my two besties and decided to let her know that I did not want to continue being her friend. This was one of the toughest things I've ever had to do and it wasn't about hating her, it was about respecting me and not allowing myself to enter into a toxic friendship.

So toxic friend number three only involved one thing, but it was enough to really hurt my feelings. This was one of my newer friends that I made when I moved to the city. We got along well and I really enjoyed her company. She even came on a cruise with me and my family. Her birthday was approaching and we had made plans to celebrate it together. We were out at dinner one night (with the next toxic friend I'm going to talk about) and she made the comment that two of her other friends wanted to hang out with her and she was thinking of doing something with them instead. Just the way she put it really stung, but it didn't hit me until later that night that she had actually just told me that she would rather hang out with these other people than commit to the plans we had. I would have been all for including the other friends (it was her birthday), but just the way that it was presented really hurt my feelings. I felt it was a low blow. I let it sit until after her birthday. We didn't see or talk to each other for a few weeks and then I sent her an e-mail letting her know that she had hurt my feelings. I was just looking for an acknowledgement of what had happened and then maybe some sort of commitment that she wouldn't do it again. Instead she sent me a message back saying she did not want to discuss this over an e-mail and the way she put it actually made me feel worse. Why was I wasting my time with someone who could so easily do something that would hurt my feelings and then not simply say she was sorry?

My final toxic friend is a doozy. He's actually my ex-gay boyfriend and we had a blow out fight during last year’s Pride parade when he drank way too much and got very evil. We got kicked out a restaurant and the he proceeded to harass me, call me names and act like a pretty evil motherfucker. I had him following me up the street yelling at me telling me what a horrible person I was. He brought me to tears and made me feel like an abused woman. That day was the last I ever saw of him.

So there you have it. These are the toxic ghosts hiding in my closet. They are by no means bad people, but they have been bad friends. Cutting them loose was more about respecting me. I realize that now and it make me feel good about the choices I made. I deserve to have friends that are going to complicate my life or make me feel bad about myself.