Intentionally or not, some people make your life more difficult. If you’re spiritual, their presence in your life might be a sign from the Universe, a lesson to learn; if you’re not, you might think of them as merely a work-in-progress or just pure evil. In my last article, I wrote about how all fights are worth fighting, but I should clarify: while it’s always the right choice to stand up for yourself against misogynists, racists, sexists or people who treat you abhorrently, fights with people who you don’t want to keep in your life, toxic friends and what have you, aren’t always worth having.
The fights that aren’t always worth fighting are those with friends we deem “toxic.” Typically, toxic friendships are those wherein the parties are fundamentally incompatible, and I’ve had my fair share of them (I swear I’m not the problem, I just have really bad luck). I usually hate referring to people as “toxic,” but call me Britney Spears for the rest of this article because it’s going to keep happening.
I used to think that humans were inherently bad, which was an awfully dismal way to view the world. In doing so, I learned that losing trust in people is a lot easier to do when you’re predisposed to constantly believing that they will betray you. I don’t think that anymore — I think people are people and there isn’t necessarily malice behind everyone’s actions. Everyone can fall victim to the same urges, and we owe ourselves and everyone around us more credit.
That being said, the innate kindness that society demands of you can lead you to ignore the signs of a toxic friendship until they punch you in the stomach and knock the wind right out of you. There are so many rationales that explain why red flags can appear beige when you’re being vulnerable with someone: fear of loneliness, the I-can-fix-them or cut-them-some-slack phenomena, low self-worth, etc. For these reasons and so many others, a friendship break-up is one of the hardest things that a person can go through.
Through a series of personal trials and tribulations, I’ve learned that some friendships are not worth saving. It doesn’t mean that your friend is an awful person or that you are. Poor friendships are, more often than not, a product of unfortunate circumstances. There are some steadfast ways to save yourself from heartbreak, and while there are countless websites with their “10 reasons you’re in a toxic friendship,” the one that’s always worked for me is simply asking yourself, “Do they make your life harder?”
Of course, friends fight, and I’m not necessarily arguing that every time that happens you should stop being their friend. There’s a difference between understanding when someone has made a genuine mistake or a careless one. I’ve gotten into argument after argument with the people closest to me, but I’m not going to up and stop talking to them unless I realize that our personalities are simply incompatible. There is no shame in wanting to avoid the heartbreak that inevitably comes when you go a separate path from a person you’ve grown close to. But, you can love people and also understand that some mistakes are too difficult to get over and that they demarcate fundamental differences between people.
Life just isn’t supposed to be hard, and there’s nothing wrong with cutting people off who make it that way. Taking the path of least resistance isn’t the same thing as not fighting for a relationship. Take a step back, reevaluate your friendships and try to think about whether or not they’ve caused you more pain than joy. If every day feels like you’re fighting through traffic during rush hour, take the next exit.
