By Donna Shea & Nadine Briggs
There are three ways that we fail at friendship. We may or may not be aware of the fact that we are engaging in, or are a victim of, one or more friendship dealbreakers.
- Flip Flop Friends are people who come in and out of the friendship relationship as it pleases them. For kids, it may be the friend who wants to spend time together on the weekend, but ignore you on the bus. For adults, it could be a friend who calls you every day when they need an ear or someone to listen, but then you don’t hear from them for long periods when things are going well. Flip Flop Friends can also be “users” of the friendship. Maybe you see a lot of them in the summer if you have a pool, but not so much in the winter. For kids, maybe it’s because the flip-flop friend wants to come over to play the latest and greatest video game that you just got but never invites you back. Dealing with a flip-flopper is best done by calling the friend out on the behavior. You don’t have to confront your friend in a mean way. Something to the effect of, “Jen, we need to have a bit of uncomfortable conversation. I notice that our friendship frequently goes on and off. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that I only hear from you when you need me for something. I’m not mad, just wanted to let you what’s been on my mind.” Flip Flop Friends can still be real friends as long as you are okay with how they are interacting with you.
- Frenemies are people in your life that you believe are your friends but aren’t really. They are good at giving the appearance of friendship and caring about you. But instead, that “caring” is in actuality, criticism, designed to make the friend feel better about his or herself by making you feel worse about yourself. Frenemies are toxic and can cause you lots of angst and inner turmoil. They might cause you to question yourself, and you might find yourself working hard to please them to keep the friendship or to meet their expectations. We guarantee that if you have a frenemy in your life, he or she is saying nasty things behind your back. Think about it. This person is probably also saying mean things about other people to you. If he or she does it to someone else, they are doing it to everyone, including you. Frenemies are bullies in disguise. Once you identify a frenemy in your life, it’s best to work towards ending the relationship. If you don’t want to do that suddenly, winding down a friendship includes being unavailable when the friend wants to get together, having less time to spare for that friend, cutting back on calls and texts, and possibly finding a new hobby or activity that you can tell this person you are busy learning or doing.
- Friends by Force or Fear are not friends. These are bullies. If you have given up the power in a relationship with a friend where you are afraid of what he or she thinks about you, or if you feel you need to do what this person tells you to do, (especially if it is something you are uncomfortable doing or will try to keep this relationship at any cost), then this is an unhealthy relationship. If you are verbally or physically threatened or hurt by this person (or in other cases, a boyfriend or girlfriend), this is an abusive relationship. Ending a bullying relationship can be difficult and may require you to access a therapist or outside counseling to do so.
If you see yourself, or someone you call a friend, in one of these descriptions, you are not alone. It is important to understand that as a person, you deserve to be treated respectfully. If we all lived by the Golden Rule, treat others the way you want to be treated, both in person and online, our relationships would flourish healthily. We could all earn an “A” for achievement in being the best friends that we can be to each other.
