Who is a toxic person?
A toxic person is someone who wears their emotions on their sleeves. They are not afraid to show how they feel and they express their feelings out loud. Toxic people are also often the ones to not take responsibility for their own actions. They instead will blame others for their problems. Toxic people are more likely to have mood swings. Their moods can go from good to bad and back within a matter of minutes. Toxic people are often jealous. They envy other people’s achievements and will act out because of their jealousy.
There are many ways that one can be toxic. For example, you can be toxic by speaking unkindly to your friends or being rude to waiters. You may also be toxic to your environment by refusing to recycle and by wasting resources. At the core, you are toxic when you indiscriminately offend others with your words or actions. Your core toxicity is based on your intent and the frequency that you offend others. When people are toxic, they feel a sense of superiority over others. They feel as if they can get away with being disrespectful. And while this is not true, toxic people often do not have the self-awareness to realize the harm they are doing to themselves and others.
Some people are toxic and others are not. Obviously there are different levels of toxicity. Some people are highly toxic, leaving everyone worse off with even brief meetings. Others cause harm over a longer period of time.
1. Your Relationships Don’t Last
There is a pattern in your entire relationship (platonic or not) and it is that they never seems to last. It seems that every friendship you create always have an expiration date. You’ve never had any long-term relationship, and it seems all your friendships are a ticking time bomb, waiting to end dramatically one way or another.
You might think it’s pretty exciting to have a revolving door where people come in and out of your life, but deep down you know it’s very exhausting and very draining as well. One day you’re be best friends with someone, and the next day you don’t talk at all. If you’re honest with yourself, you can’t really keep track of who your friends and enemies are, because the boundary is often too blurry.
When you talk to your friends, they seems to be in a hurry to be excused or don’t make as much time for you as they once did. In most cases, you’re the only one not invited to a party when all your friends get invited.
2. You’ve Been Told You Give off a Bad Vibe
Even with the best intentions in mind, you often notice that the people you meet react more or less the same way after talking to you. They normally have a slumped posture, lower their eyes and leave. Some may seem irritated and annoyed.
You don’t really know what their problem is; all you know is that you’ve expressed your opinion and given them something they need to hear. It’s not your fault they don’t get a fair beating from time to time.
If your thought process goes somewhere in that direction, take a step back and consider how your “honesty” can only come out as critical. Toxic people rarely notice how their words and actions affect others. You can make a friend cry, and all you can say is, “it’s not my faul.”
So ask yourself how people behave after talking to you.
Well, are they happy? Or do friends and family often interrupt conversations and keep it brief?
If this is a recurring trend, then there is a problem with how you interact with people.
It’s not easy to admit it, especially to yourself. If people are clearly changing their body language after spending time with you, and that happens consistently with the majority of people, it’s safe to assume you’re much less pleasurable than you think.
3. You Tend To Dominate Conversations
Humans are designed to be selfish and egotistical. We have the tendencies of making conversations center around us. We can’t help but talk about what we want and reflect our beliefs on other people.
But still, conversations should be a two-way street. If your conversations are always all about you and no one else, then chances of being a toxic person is very high.
When friends share their problems or achievements, do you actually listen to what they say, or do you end up puting yourself in the spotlight eventually?
Selfish people actually don’t care what others feel and talk blindly about themselves. When someone talks about their pain, you may feel you need to compare their pain to yours, or even talk about how important your pain is.
This need for endless competition and constant validation constantly puts you in a position where you see someone’s pain or success as an opportunity to talk more about yourself.
4. You’ve Been Called a Competitive Friend
Competitiveness is a quality most people are proud of. It pushes us forward and takes us out of our comfort zones. It’s natural to compete with others, to come out on top and be the best version of yourself.
But competitiveness is a double-edged sword and can be governed by more uncertainty than performance.The toxic person has a constant competitive race going on in thier mind. They must win and be the best among their friends at all times.
They are constantly looking for ways to make people feel they are ahead of them, even if no one matters other than themselves. Do you tend to count victories and failures? Do you tend to compare things more or listen when someone talks about their life?
Even when you’re not open about explicitly comparing yourself to others, you’re creating this internal rivalry and that makes you toxic because of that.
5. You Never Apologize
I have a simple question for you: Do you remember the last time you apologized to someone and actually meant it? I’m not referring to jokingly saying sorry or in a not serious way.
You get away with such easy apologies with people that when someone actually calls you out and demands a serious apology from you it throws you off and you just find yourself flabbergasted.
How dare them not accept my apology? You think to your self.
Since no one has ever held you accountable you have no idea what a true apology looks like.
You frequently resort to cute tactics and minor apologies in order to get out of sticky situations, but when you find yourself backed into a corner with no where to go, your ego kicks in and you end up throwing a tantrum, refusing to apologize despite any and all opportunities.
You would rather destroy relationships and never see people again instead of apologizing for something that is clearly your fault. You refuse to even consider that you’re in the wrong, adopting a superiority complex that claims people lesser than you don’t even deserve a true apology.
The Toxic Checklist
Did you recognize yourself in one of the 7 toxic traits above? If no, no problem, take a look at the descriptions below for more checklists.
How many of them apply to you?
1. People feel worse when you are with them. You make them feel guilty and sometimes humiliate and criticize them and even blame them for some of your problems.
2. You enjoy being on the receiving end but never give. You basically are happy to enjoy the kindness of others, but you offer nothing in return.
3. Sooner or later, things get personal, and you really enjoy making peeple know how bad they’ve offended you. You have no problems holding a grudge for a long time. You manupulate people to be on your good side because they are scared of being on your bad side.
4. You are not someone who takes responsibility for your behaviour, but you are very good at calling people out when they make a mistake, often with a snarky word.
5. You don’t find it in you to celebrate other people’s achievements. Their accomplisments seem rather mediocre to you.
If you fit in at least part of one of the above explanations, there is a possibility that people will do their best to avoid you.
Read the following article to learn how to be a better friend
Coping with emotionally draining friends
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