Note Taking and Gap Filling
Everyone likes having friends to lean on, but a friendship expert says that pals who tend to criticize us, dump their problems in our laps, or otherwise mess with our emotions might be harmful to our health.
Recent scientific studies have shown that people with friends endure less stress, recover from heart attacks faster and live longer than the friendless. Plus, with divorce rates at 50 percent, and the average marriage age edging upwards, lifelong friends are in some cases replacing the ideal of having a lifelong spouse.
But newer research is also taking a look at the impact of the friends that drain you, the "toxic friends" that some of us have in our lives. When do you pull the plug on the pals who zing veiled insults, barrage us with constant demands, or bring whining to our worlds?
In her book, When Friendship Hurts, Jan Yager, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut in Stamford, says that negative, destructive friendships can wreak havoc on our lives and can even cause us serious harm.
"There are incidents of friends actually causing their friends' deaths, from forcing friends in fraternity settings to drink and die, to a current lawsuit, where two friends went to a concert, and got high on drugs," Yager said. One of the friends died, and the father of the other is suing.
The most famous example of a toxic friendship is that of the two Columbine High School students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, whose friendship helped lead to a horrific massacre that left 12 students and a teacher dead on April 20, 1999. Similarly, gangs are friendships with negative motives, Yager said.
Friends Who Hurt Us Emotionally
But there are also friends who can be bad for us in emotion, and sometimes subtler ways with sly insults, and competitive one-upmanship.
"The negative impact can be as devastating as poor self-esteem, stress, or career sabotage and the scary part is sometimes negative friends have influence over friends who aren't even aware of it," Yager said.
She says there are some 21 types of potentially negative friends.
Among the villains: the faultfinder, the one-upper, the abusive friend, the double-crosser, and the person who engages in petty or criminal behavior.
One woman had gotten drunk at a business party, and drove her friends home. No one was hurt, but her co-workers ostracized her afterward. The woman was willing to admit to her colleagues that what she did was wrong, which smoothed things over.
Other varieties of negative friends include liars, overly dependent friends, and those who do not listen.
Dara Tyson and Michele Comen, both 41, have been best friends since high school, and grew up around the block from each other in Brooklyn, N.Y. Now, they are both married with children, and live about 20 minutes apart.
They have been through marriage, kids and divorce with each other and communicate in that shorthand that longtime friends have. But they have also had a whole lot of ups and downs, and sometimes wonder if their friendship is worth it. Comen says Tyson can be flip and dismissive, and that she pigeonholes people, sizing up situations too quickly.
It irritates Comen, who is more analytical and likes to explain how she forms an opinion. Tyson, meanwhile, says that Comen is not empathetic at times, and that sometimes one or the other just doesn't "get it" when they're communicating.
They sometimes think it would be easier to cut loose the friendship, but they have such deep ties, that it is difficult to do so.
Yager says there are times to abandon a friendship, and times to stick it out. It's time to cut bait when the time spent with a friend is not rewarding.
"It's when you have an interaction, it can be e-mail, a phone call, or a get-together, and you don't feel a sense of feeling good about the friend," Yager said. "Since friendships are voluntary, it has to be someone to add to your life."
Though it is hard for both genders to end a friendship, women are more likely to feel like they need to discuss and understand it, while men are more likely to just walk away, and let it ride. In business, the male method of blowing off a friendship works more smoothly, and women are now realizing that what works at home, doesn't necessarily help them advance in the office, Yager said.
When you decide to end a friendship, she suggests doing so in a gradual way.
"The best thing is to wind it down, rather than stopping cold turkey, because in process of winding down or pulling away, most friends will get the hint," Yager said. "In getting the hint, the person is now increasing his or her friendships with other people, so the sense of loss is minimized."
If the person senses that you are pulling away and asks what is happening, you should not fault them, but blame it on the interaction.
"Say it's not you, it's not me, it's you and me together that is not the best interaction right now," Yager said. That leaves room for resuming the friendship later on.
Yager suggests that when possible, friendships that only sometimes verge on toxic should be repaired.
"It takes two people to start a friendship, but only one to end it," Yager said. "Because friendship is so precious and pivotal, it's important it only be ended with good reason, and the feeling that you tried to fix it."
If you want to stick it out and make a toxic friendship work, Jan Yager, a sociologist, offers these five steps to help you figure out how to salvage a friendship.
