My best friend for years was my number one go-to for advice and guidance. I told her all of my secrets, but I never would have thought she’d judge me for anything I did. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
- I told her I was starting to casually date and she kind of freaked. She was more old-fashioned than me and didn’t necessarily believe in talking to more than one guy at a time, but I didn’t think she’d judge me for doing it. I explained to her that I was upfront with all of the guys I was talking to about the fact that I wasn’t looking for anything serious at the moment, but she still told me I was being dishonest and unfaithful. Seriously?
- She tried to pick out my boyfriends for me. Anytime I would tell her about a new guy I was seeing or even introduce her to someone, she would always find something she didn’t like about him and suggest someone else for me to date. Never mind that we had completely opposite tastes in men, it was like she thought she knew what I wanted and needed out of a relationship better than I did and it drove me nuts.
- She judged my other friends. She was a pretty jealous friend and she didn’t like it when I got close to other people. Whenever I would try to introduce her to anyone, she was awkward and standoffish to the point where everyone thought she was rude and deliberately cold. It was embarrassing for me and made me feel like I had to choose between her and my all of my other friends.
- She monitored my drinking and partying. On top of trying to hand-select my boyfriends, she also tried to act as the party police and made snide and judgy comments anytime I went out to a bar or a party with other friends. She was really shy and didn’t like to go out much, so she’d decline any invites I would extend to her and then get upset if I chose to go out. She’d comment if I had a few drinks and tell me my lifestyle was getting out of control. After a while, I just started tuning her out.
- She was a total hypocrite. She loved to judge my dating and social life yet she was a serial dater who seemingly couldn’t bear to be single for more than five seconds, and she hopped from boyfriend to boyfriend like nuts. She had a lot of casual hookups with guys she met on dating apps and would jump from person to person until she found someone who she could go on more than one date with. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that as long as you’re being honest and genuine, but I just didn’t appreciate her being so critical about what I chose to do in my own life when her choices were not only similar to mine, they were way more extreme. It made no sense.
- Her control issues went beyond my social life. She would always try to micromanage every facet of my life, it seemed. She tried to tell what choices I should be making career-wise, school-wise, and everything else you could imagine. It frustrated me so much because it felt like she thought I was a broken person or something and that I needed to be fixed. The reality was that I was pretty happy with where I was at in life and didn’t need someone telling me that I shouldn’t be.
- She couldn’t have a rational discussion. Anytime I’d try to reasonably confront her about how I felt, she’d have a total meltdown. She would yell at me and tell me that I was wrong and she wouldn’t even listen to what I had to say. I really cared about her and wanted to maintain our friendship, but she made that so difficult because she couldn’t even be mature enough to have an adult conversation. It was her way or no way. I was over it.
- We had to “break up.” Anyone who’s been through a friend breakup knows that it’s the absolute worst. I didn’t want our friendship to end. We’d been so close for so long, but it was getting to the point where it was just toxic. I didn’t feel supported or encouraged by her anymore. Every time we hung out, I would feel sad and terrible about myself afterward. We didn’t have a dramatic breakup, we just started to slowly stop making plans, talking less and less, and eventually we faded into an acquaintanceship rather than best friendship. It really did hurt, but ultimately it was for the best.
- We actually get along better as acquaintances than we did as best friends. Having a friend breakup doesn’t mean you have to become enemies or anything. Of course, when it first happened, we didn’t speak as much for a while, but now that’s it’s been quite a few years, we speak every now and then and we’ve even met up a few times and hung out. She’s not what I would consider a close friend anymore and that still makes me sad sometimes, but unfortunately people grow apart sometimes and they don’t mesh anymore. We may not be BFFs, but I still care for her and wish nothing but the best for her in everything she does in life.
