Have you noticed that your friends are responding to less calls and messages lately? Have you been wondering what’s up?
Well, maybe they aren’t. it’s you. If you’re the one who regularly spreads gossip, competes with them, or even manipulates them, why would they hang out with you?
But let’s dig deeper and see exactly what are the signs that you are the toxic person in your friendship group.
1) Seek attention and check in constantly
Insecure people are constantly asking their friends for validation or seeking attention. They whine and whine and call and text… it simply never ends.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have friends you can talk to and share your everyday mishaps and funny things that happened, as well as your victories.
But imagine you have a WhatsApp group with your friends. If you’re the one sending messages 90% of the time, something might be wrong with your friendship group dynamics.
This behavior can be draining for your friends because they feel like they have to constantly boost you.
Especially if you ask them to reaffirm your looks, actions, relationships, and so on.
2) Dominate the conversations
The same goes for dominant conversations. It is never a good idea for one friend to dominate the group.
Others will get tired of you sooner or later when they start to feel like the side characters in the group.
Therefore, if you tend to dominate conversations and direct them towards your experiences and interests without giving others a chance to participate, this can make your friends feel unheard and left out.
It can also make you very toxic. This behavior can also follow.
3) Gossip and spreading rumours
Gossip is fun. But if you gossip about others, there is a high chance that they will gossip about you behind your back as well.
Gossip and spreading rumors leads to a toxic environment within your friendship group. It undermines trust and causes unnecessary conflicts between friends.
I describe gossip as eating hot peppers. It’s incredible on the way in but horrifying on the way out!
4) Frequent criticism and belittling
I’ve written about constant criticism in many of my articles and how it can be incredibly harmful to relationships. No relationships.
Constantly criticizing and belittling your friends is emotionally damaging and damaging to their self-esteem. It is also something that creates a negative and hostile atmosphere in the group.
So, if you’re the one doing it, your friendship group will get smaller and smaller. You’ll notice that a friend or two often miss your meetings because they can’t stand being around you anymore.
Until the end, you will not have anyone answering your text messages or calls anymore.
5) Compete constantly
Viewing everything as a competition creates fat comparison and rivalry within the group.
For example, when someone in the group shares a personal struggle or difficult experience, you respond by sharing a more extreme or tragic incident.
I can already see them rolling their eyes as this makes your friends feel unheard or diminished.
If you can’t understand that everyone is on their own journey and not everything is a competition, there is little hope for you.
6) Create drama to get attention
Drama queens. Those two words sent shivers down my spine. When you hear them, what associations do you make in your mind?
Instability? absence of security? Self-centered? High maintenance? attention seeking?
You are the toxic friend in your group if you deliberately create drama or exaggerated situations to get attention and sympathy from your friends.
Playing the victim, refusing to take responsibility for your actions and blaming others instead, public emotional outbursts or meltdowns – they all create drama.
So does this next toxic behavior.
7) Jealousy, resentment and envy
Feeling envious or resentful of your friends’ successes or happiness also creates a toxic dynamic and leads to competition rather than true support.
Just because some of your friends are smarter, happier, prettier, etc., doesn’t mean you have to be jealous of them.
