BGF versus the GBF
We define bad good friend as a friend who is bad at managing the time between each gathering (physical) but is good at providing social and emotional support. SO what’s a good bad friend? That’s a friend that is good at showing up when invited…aaaannd not much else. Actually a good bad friend might just be toxic friend. They are friends that put you down, gossip about you, flippantly apologizes, makes you feel unsettled, tries to change you, or makes everything about them.
If you feel miserable after spending time with a GBF, that is assuming you didn’t have to beg them to grab coffee with you and they only done so because they had nothing better to do, then it’s time to dump them. Yeah dump them. You can and should break up a friendship just like a romantic partnership if is leaning one-sided.
This first type of breakup is right out of the ole modern male handbook. Ghost them. Well, more like gradually separate yourself from the friendship. This is easier and really only advisable to those friendships where you were doing all the inquiry to hang-out. If you were initiating all the gatherings, all the FaceTime calls, all the texts, the DMs – all you need to do it just to stop. Stop initiating. If it is mixed, you are free to decline invitations to hang out or disengage. If you begrudgingly feel inclined to accept an invitation to hang ask yourself why? Learn your motive so you can articulate it to the bad friend and don’t be rude or insulting about it to you or the friend. “I don’t feel comfortable going to the café with you today because we have a nasty habit of gossiping about our friends and I’m trying not to do that anymore.”
A good friend will be empathic to this and provide a solution to help. But we are breaking up with a bad friend…realize snark is around the corner not empathy. Know this, however, when you communicate your issue with the bad friend, no matter what snarky comment they will reply with know that you already positioned yourself on the higher ground. You can end that conversation with a simple “I’m sorry, that is how I feel.” Boom dust your hands of the mess. Had you been direct like “I don’t want to hang out because you’re a nasty gossiper”, then you positioned them in the higher ground and frankly requesting them to throw insults back at you. Then you are playing the second type of breakup in the modern male handbook – bitches be crazy. And we are above that.
Reluctantly you might not want to throw the friendship away. This is fine, but you first need to ask yourself two questions:
1) Honestly, do you think this friendship is salvageable?
2) Are you both willing to have a very uncomfortable conversation?
These two questions are essential because the results might lead to the second kind of breakup – a mutual one.
You are going to need to conduct some friendship management here – like couples therapy minus the license counselor and the Freudian bed. Talk about why the friendship is not working out for you. Do you need the other person to step up? Sometimes good friends have bad days, or bad years, a natural ebb and flow occurs but you will need to let the friend know that they – the person you care about – is not fulfilling the friendship role you need from them. This is how they can get out of this cycle and move forward with you (or without you). A good friend will listen to what you are saying and try to make changes. A bad friend will not, and you will need to take action of ending the relationship.
It’s perfectly ok to move away from friendships. I mean you always have us.
Your BGF