Nikki Torres
COM 101
Durkin
October 22, 2009
Handle with Caution
During this journey we call life, we come across many people. These people include people we see at school, people we see at the store, people who live down the block, or people we see while walking down the street. It does not matter where we see these people; we genuinely do not know anything about them. We do not know what type of friend they are, they can be what is called a “toxic” friend. A toxic friend is a friend who has an imbalanced belief of how much each person is to give in the friendship, a person who claims “star-status” in the friendship, or worst of all, gives lack of flexibility and room to grow. The three main types of toxic friends that we tend to come across are the promise breaker, the double-crosser, and the competitor. It is these friends that tend to be needier than the average friend. It is these types of friends who make life more complicated than desired.
Everyone has heard the saying “promises are meant to be broken” but it is the promise breaker type of friend who take that saying to a whole different level. This type of toxic friend constantly breaks promises and lets you down. There may be many reasons as to why they are constantly doing this. One reason they act like this could be due to past friendships they had, in which they were the ones who were continuously disappointed, making it hard for them to break the cycle. Another reason may be because they are going through a hard time right now. After putting up with it for so long, the habit comes irritating, yet to person doing it; it is a pattern in which they have grown to be comfortable in.
When it comes to making a decision on what to do in this situation, we have two choices. Choice A, we can dump the friend and forget the friendship entirely. Choice B, we can discover ways to separate ourselves by lowering the bar. For example, if a friend promises they will do something for us or meet us...