Now that you’re getting your life on track, it’s important to surround yourself with good vibes and good people. Having a list of friends as long as your arm can be a good thing (just ask the glitterati), but we’ve always been believers of quality over quantity, especially when it comes to friends. Here are six false friend types you may find lurking on your list.
1. The Large Ham
When this friend enters a room, they feel the need to shout it out and announce their own arrival. They have so much joie de vivre, such a blazing passion for life, you can’t help but want to hang out with the and bask in the light of their amazingness. Grandiose doesn’t even begin to describe them. It’s great to have a bit of ham in your life–how else would you get bacon without it? But when hanging out with your ultra-loud, ultra-boisterous buddy starts making you feel like a footnote in their fabulous and loud personality, it’s time to cut the cord.
2. It’s All About Me!
Mirror mirror on the wall, I really am the prettiest of all! Always perfectly primped and polished, this type of friend acts more like a role model for you than a friend. Hanging out with this type of friend just makes you want to be a better person, aesthetically. That’s great, but when you’re checking your lipstick out in the glittering tears of your friend’s agony, practically begging this friend to listen to you when you’re down, you know that it’s time to stop. You’re never going to be anything like this friend of yours, so why bother? Find your own brand of ah-mah-zingness. Pretty is only skin deep, but beautiful is inside-out.
3. The Guest Star
Okay, so this isn’t really a TV trope, but it is a kind of friend. Some friends are guests stars in what the days of our lives—they’re only really there once or twice in a season, and you hardly notice when they’re gone. Guest stars can be good, in a sense that when they arrive, you feel like something special or different is hanging in the air. But beware of relying on the Guest Star when you need them. They’re just guests, after all.
[crp]
4. The Drama Queen
Nobody loves a drama queen, and if you’ve got one in your midst, it’s best to steer clear. Drama Queens are constantly in crisis, and that can be okay to deal with until you’re actually in crisis, and then where are you both going to end up? Our suggestion is to just skip the dramatics and find friends who care about your problems, even just a little bit.
5. The Tin Man
In counterpoint to the Drama Queen, the Tin Man (or sometimes the Emotionless Robot) is oblivious to all emotion, and will not notice when you’re lying on the ground and curling up in a ball of your own feelings. Sometimes perceived as cold, you find yourself wondering how you became friends with someone like this in the first place. It may take a while for their warm, gooey centers to come out, but it’s possible that you may never find it at all.
6. The Finicky One
They’re the kind of friends that have to have everything just so, and anything that doesn’t follow their specifications just won’t do. These kinds of OC-friends can sometimes be overly critical of you, and can usually be interpreted as bitchy. Should you stick it out with them, you will find yourself fitting into a particular peg in their life, and may not be able to navigate your way out of it.
It’s not that these people are necessarily bad individuals; it’s just that the way they affect you might be negative. So while it’s not necessary to cut all ties, the healthier choice for your own peace of mind might be to give them a reduced role in your life. And if they persist? Well, that’s why you have the option to unfriend and unfollow!