Poisonous Friends
At one point or another during the course of life, we will chance upon people whom I call poisonous friends. These "friends", as the word poisonous suggests, not only harm your emotional well-being, they do damage to your mental health as well.
Characteristics of Poisonous Friends:
1) He/She, through painfully thought-out comments, suggests that you have very low moral standards. At least, compared to him/her.
E.g. You broke up with a guy who broke your heart and started seeing another guy a few months later. The first thing a poisonous friend says to you, "Wah! You change very fast hor?!"
2) He/she insults your integrity.
E.g. By suggesting that you were cheating at Mahjong with your partner. Which was not only untrue, and that he or she should know better when you have been friends for more than a decade and have played countless times at mahjong.
3) He/She passes thoughtless comments just to hurt you.
E.g. After a tiresome meal that you have whipped up for your friends, insteading of showing appreciation, a poisonous friend will tell you that your cooking is not as comparable as XXX, another friend.
4) He/She pass mean remarks behind your back.
E.g. After a meal that your friends have whipped up for everybody, the poisonous friend takes you to the back and tell you that their cooking is not comparable as yours. Not that it hurts you, but I find it loathsome of someone to pass such remarks after other people have painstakingly made the effort to fill your stomach.
5) He/She claimed you as their friend/sister/brother, when he/she needs help, but does the deeds as stated above when he/she does not.
6) He/She suddenly become the most understanding people on earth when it comes to the people who are still single and unattached. But to a friend of many years, he/she does not apply the same supportive attitude.
7) He/She tried to be a good friend by keeping you company during your breakups but all he/she could talk about were their previous breakups.
8) He/She doesn't dare to poke fun at those friends who are more eloquent than him/her. He/She only poke fun at you because you are kind enough not to humuliate him/her publicly or in front of his/her partners.
There are of course a lot more characteristics of a poisonous friend. The question is, should we still keep such people as friends?
I've been in dilemma for a long time about this. The said friend is someone I've known for more than a decade. Not only was he nice, he was an incredibly humble and loyal friend. But he has since, changed over the years (I blame his job for this) and while a few of us have hinted/told him straight in the face about this, he persisted that there is nothing wrong with him. He is fine and alright to have around at times. But whenever he says something just to irk me, it immediately bursts a blood vessel of mine.
Some of my friends do not understand my resentment towards said friend. That is because they do not experience when I am being made to go through. I swear none of you will be as tolerant as me, when you have to undergo the same kind of insulting and hurtful remarks.
I do not understand why he picks me for such abuse. Is it because he secretly hates me? The abuse that I suffered has accumulated into a lot of built-in resentment over the years. As such, I am no longer polite with my rebuttals. Some friends have told me that I am biased against said poisonous friend. But you guys do not understand that this is a result of cause-and-effect. If he had not attacked my dignity and integrity on several occassions, I wouldn't have to bear such prejudice against him. I am not an unreasonable person. I'm sure you guys know that.
To tell the truth, I am more hurt, than I am angry. It's almost impossible to forgo all contacts with this person as we share a common group of friends.
Apart from not meeting up with my friends when he is also present (the last option I would like to adopt), is there something else I can do about this?
Barney - just in case you're wondering, I'm not talking about you, okay? even though you try to irk me all the time =)
posted by Adrenaline at 12:28 PM
19 Comments:
Next time put Dettol into his green bean soup.
If it is who I think it is, then fuck him/her. I've thrown away poisonous friends before. He/Her isn't the first and he/her might not be the last.
Not happy to lose money, don't play lah. Some more want to play for bigger stakes.
Nabei. He/She is banned from entering my house and consuming my efforts, no matter how bad.
you could tell him how much he's hurting you..
and that you really don't want to lose him after all these years..
if he still isn't jolted back to reality, you should dump him, pronto.
it's best taht you tell him first..
Sometimes when you know someone for an incredible amount of time, you take all kinds of shit from them because you have come to accept them for who they are.
I have friends who piss me off once every few months but at the very end, they are still my friends. I just try to minimise contact with them to minimise chances of them pissing me off and keep as light and fluffy as possible.
Heh :)
sibeh sian: i doubt i will be cooking for him again so no chance to do that.
ogre: i am glad that u can finally understand wat i have been made to go through.
ezer: it's not like i've never told him. but he kept insisting that he hadn't been mean to me. Somehow, he has such a huge ego that he refuses to accept any opinion that puts him in a bad light.
mela: i have heard abt your reaction on this. I'm not trying to defend said fren, but to be frank, i didn't think he seriously meant it when he passed those remarks to me abt the meals u guys prepared. But i felt he did deliberately try to hurt me when he commented abt my cooking.
and it's so true wat you said. that we've come to accept all the shit fm certain friends juz becos we've known them for a long time.
i have tried to avoid contact with him. Nowadays, I wouldn't ask him out for mahjong or anything. Just to minimise the chances of him pissing me off.
Hi, had been reading your blog for a while already. =)
8) He/She doesn't dare to poke fun at those friends who are more eloquent than him/her. <<< strikes a chord...
There's this friend who does this all the time, but never to me (probably because I am the better of us two, haha.)
Urm just a tot abt said poisonous fren... could it be an outward expression of deep hurt/disappointment in his life? After all, perhaps he can only be an ogre with his closest frens... Mebbe he doesn't know how to express/talk about his hurts... Just providing an alternative viewpt...
On an unrelated note... You know what??? I'm soooooooooo glad I chanced upon this blog through a convoluted series of links. Because I've rediscovered several blogs of people I've really really missed in the past year or so (shhhhh... no telling ya?)... More adrenaline to you sista! Blog away! Me really enjoying your archives... Steady bom bi bi, you write veli the well!
kanigi: u see? it's becos u're more eloquent than this fren that he/she doesnt dare to poke fun at you.
and it's not like im any less eloquent than him. It's juz i don't get that mean with him.
Thanks for dropping by!
vandice: i've played aunt agony to him many times and i doubt very much this could be the reason for his behavior. It just wasn't fair of him to abuse his friends this way.
Your comments are very flattering. Thank you very muchie.
Not only does Adrenaline writes well, I heard she has many other, eh, assets as well. Heh.
Laughs. That's below the neck lah.
Oh, you mean how friendly, understanding, considerate and kind she is?
Yes, she is a FUCKer.
Greens and runs away.
don't u wanna put a tagboard on ur site?...
just a suggestion... hihi...
sian & ogre: the two of you make such a cute couple .....
ezer: i dunno how to do that. hehe.
I think that, everybody changes. No matter what, he/she's still your friend. And moreover he/she's someone you called a friend for a decade. No doubt he/she might not have treated you like you would have liked (or what a friend should have), but at the end of the day, he/she must have been at some point of your life made an impact on you, like what a friend does.
If he/she's really bothering you, minimise contact lor. What you want him/her to do is to change mah. So let him/her find you once he/she's done so.
Not suggesting a clean break lah, but you know, minimise contact.
And I tell I hate sore losers! Esp on the mahjong table.
hmmm....go out anyway but ignore him. or straight out ask him, y are u so mean?' when he tries his word stunts again.
i had a fren who said something wrong to me once and it has not been the same since, so i'll just set up group meetings and conviniently forget to include her. ahem.
zhebin: yah lor, im minimising contact liao. I only meet him nowadays when the other friends call for gathering. We used to meet up pretty often but ever since he got attached, he wouldn't bother to stay in touch with us. He would join us only when he and his gf got nothing on. And even during these times, he still tries to irk me.
And i super dulan him during mahjong one, such that i no longer count him in as a mj khaki. He throw big tiles for people to "hu" then he say bobian. When others do the same, he will make u feel like u're an idiot. nabeh that asshole. tok abt him i also dulan.
akk: i think after this incident which has also infuriated my other friends, we're all trying to conveniently forget abt him.
ogre: Wah seh... first time I hear of such a definition for the F word lor... Power siah...
adre: you're veli the welcommen... eh... (special request) make a post on the wedding preps leh!
And hor, you got get the boy boy to re-propose or not??? I lost the Lee Hwa story in the archives (got post or not? I ish the kaypo type lah)
Sollie hor... all this sudden interest from this lurker...
sibeh sian: You ah... dun stare too much ah... bak jiu sae bak jiam then you know... is tt why you shade your eyes in the avatar??? :-p
haha...
you can go to my page..
when you see the tagboard, click on the link that says GET ONE.. it's on the right side below the tagboard..
you sign up and get the code for your tagboard..you can edit the tagboard too.. with colors and fonts and sizes, i think.. :)
hi.. i came across your blog last week and have been reading through the archives since then. (while i'm at work hehe :P)
really enjoy the reads and your unique views/experiences in life.
i don't know if this advice is coming too late, but i suggest you have a coffee with him alone, and communicate about the hurt that he has caused you. and also probably the hurt that you have caused him, if any. communication's very important in every relationship, even friendship. that's how i would settle this problem if i were you.
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