"DETOXING "TOXIC" FRIENDS"

Periodically, I read posts about cutting “toxic” friends. I envision us all making lists of toxic friends and difficult people we need to avoid for our own mental wellbeing and I’m pretty sure we’ve all made it to some of those lists or at least, I know I have to be on a few “toxic friends and difficult people” lists because many days, I make my own mistakes, step on toes on purpose or without even knowing it because let’s face it: we can be really difficult sometimes.

Like, I really don’t fancy talking on the phone so I do almost anything via e-mails or SMSs and those messages are (more often than not) excessively long and include way more details, asides, and parentheticals than is conducive to conveying my meaning (like this one sentence, lol). Now, some find that annoying and sometimes passive-aggressive.

I’m also constantly optimistic that things will blow over without me needing to feel the discomfort of actual confrontation. I avoid conflict for so long that when I finally do say something, it’s like I’ve sprung the whole shebang on the unsuspecting person.

Another difficult thing about me is that I like having just one or two close friends, but I’m so socially inept that I end up clinging limpet-like to poor people who are just trying to be friendly. And because who knows when I’m going to move out of state again, I feel a need to make friends fast.  This sense of urgency just exacerbates this barnacling tendency.

Contrarily though, I’m suspicious of anyone who likes me too much. In the university, it was really bad. If someone expressed an interest in me—especially a romantic interest, but sometimes even just a close-friendship interest—I cut and run. I did my best to be invisible to that person hoping they would forget I existed. I’ve gotten better in the last four years, but that may be in part because it’s easier to be invisible when there’s no school or work to go to, or new people to meet. So I don’t have to work as hard to disappear as I did when I was an undergraduate.

And if someone does succeed in becoming my close friend, they get the reward of dealing with my fierce and inexplicable mood swings. I’ve tried to find a physical, emotional, or climatic cause for my days-long mood swings hoping to find a cure for them, but to no avail. I just sometimes, without warning, become a total jerk. I can see it happening, but I feel powerless to stop it.

And then there’s my flippant attitude about gifts. I know at least a couple of people have been hurt when they’ve given me a gift and then I stylishly or bluntly turn it down for whatever reason! I really can be a jerk, too bad.

Anyway, that’s me. I still think that everyone’s toxic sometimes. Seeing the ways in which I’m toxic gives me a fair amount of empathy for other people who might be considered toxic. There are still people I avoid; people who are particularly creepy, paranoid, consistently belligerent or holding grudges.

Unfortunately, there are some persons we always try to avoid - being around them is like being exposed to nuclear waste. Unlike with some other people, we try to control how much we’re affected by whatever vibes they’re radiating. We think, maybe they’re just having a bad day, maybe they’re feeling as awkward as we are and are overcompensating, maybe there’s something really big going on for them that they aren’t talking about but that is coming through anyway. If all else fails, we think of them as poor babies; that’s almost sure to inspire gentle feelings in us.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s difficult all the time. They might always be difficult for me, but there’s always someone who loves them and whom they love. Or maybe I just feel this way because it’s pragmatic. Most social interactions carry a much higher price than they do a pay-out for me, and although I need to find some way to not be a hermit, being on people’s toxic lists does help decrease the number of people with whom I need to interact - it saves me from making my own toxic list and speeds up my bloom.