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“Wow, your friends are like…really nice” my childhood friend, who was visiting from out of town, said in awe after attending a small girl’s night I’d put together in her honor. I wanted her to meet the other wonderful women who’d come into my life throughout the years when her and I had kept up our long-distance friendship. I know it sounds like a generic thing everyone says after meeting one’s friends—“They’re so nice”—but she really meant it, and she was really surprised. That’s not to say that she didn’t think I had it in me to bring together such a wonderful group of humans. I think she was more surprised because, to some extent, does anybody have it in them to have a close group of true gems in their life? No matter who you are, it’s quite a feat.
There are some behaviors that become so commonplace that we just…turn a blind eye to them. We accept them because we believe if we don’t accept them, we’ll be left with nobody in our life. Or, perhaps we don’t always hold our friends to a high standard for fear we’d be held to the same one, and wouldn’t stand up to it. But I have made a strong effort to have, well, I don’t want to say rules for my friends, because they don’t know of any such rules and I’m not their boss. But, I have standards for who I keep in my close circle. I just learned a long time ago that there are certain behaviors that aren’t “just a small thing” or “meaningless.” Nope, they’re indicative of bigger flaws that would really come around to bite me in the *ss if I kept them around in my life. Here are behaviors I just don’t tolerate in my female friend group.
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Any sense of status
In my friend group, there are a lot of different career paths and financial situations. I have a couple of friends who live off of “gig economy,” walking dogs, driving Uber, catering, and doing what they can to just get those bills paid. I have a therapist friend with her own practice and a lawyer friend who is partner at her firm. But there is no sense, when this group is together, of any unequal playing field. That’s because to me, having friends for whom their career/money is their identity just doesn’t work. Who we are as friends, family, and spouses—that’s what matters to us, and money’s got nothing to do with that.
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Silently holding a grudge
I had a couple of girlfriends who, when they’d get angry with me, they wouldn’t address it. They would wait and wait for me to bring it up. I’m no mind reader, so that’s not fair. But, even in times I could likely guess why they were upset, I still felt it was up to them to say something. I can’t tolerate friends anymore who won’t communicate.
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Then being passive aggressive
I especially don’t keep friends around who, rather than just state why they’re upset so we can hash it out and move on, behave passive aggressively. I don’t put up with friends who will start to behave coldly, making sarcastic comments, saying just about anything cruel except the thing they’re actually upset about. Quite frankly, I find that behavior very immature, and find that those who do that like to stay mad. I don’t make room for them in my friends circle.
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Lying to avoid conflict
Yes, that (absurd) business idea is a great one. Yup, that (d-bag) of a man is a lovely boyfriend. No, you weren’t too harsh to your mom (when you said those terrible, unforgivable things). I witness too many friends just lie to each other so as to stay out of the line of fire. I can detect when women are doing this to me, and when I pick up on it, I don’t trust them.
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Ignoring impulsive behavior
If it’s clear, within our friend group, that someone is doing something very stupid—something impulsive, just to run away from an issue or avoid some pain—we aren’t going to sit back and say, “What a great idea!” For example, we aren’t going to just let a friend who is going through a messy divorce go to the Bahamas to meet a man she met online but never in person. No matter how much she insists, “This has nothing to do with the divorce!” Sure.
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Letting them play the victim
We gotta own up to our mistakes. It isn’t easy to do, but that’s why it’s important to have girlfriends who will give us a little push. So, if I clearly f*ck up in my relationship or my job, I don’t want friends who will tell me it’s always everyone else’s fault. And I don’t want friends who want me to tell them their problems are everyone else’s fault.
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Enabling tantrums
Tantrums like, wanting to slander a nasty boss who let you go or…wanting to take a baseball bat to the windshield of a boyfriend who wasn’t really a boyfriend and did always say he wanted to keep things casual…and slept with someone else. This is not a friend group in which we say, “Good for you!” when someone vandalizes an ex’s property in the heat of the moment.
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Encouraging envy
“Look at her. I’m definitely cuter than her, right? And look at the college she graduated from. Like, really? Not very bright…” A friend once said that, while shoving her phone in my face to show me the Facebook profile of her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. “We’re not having this conversation,” I said. “It’s petty.”
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Making false plans
“We should totally go to Palm Springs/Visit so-and-so/Have a potluck some time…” Ugh. The non-committal plan. It makes me nauseous. This is how we do things in my friend group: “Hi, would you like to do this precise thing at this exact time on this specific day?” The false plans of “Some time…” are just a way of getting credit for being a planner while not actually being one.
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Ditching me to fight with a partner
I have laid the lawn down with two girlfriend before over this—one of them understood, apologized, and made a change. The other one…well…she’s out of the picture now. But I’ve had to tell a friend, when she tried to cancel on me at the last minute because she got in a fight with her boyfriend and “really needed to see him” that that wasn’t okay. And that if their fights were so bad that it caused each of them to let down their friends, that was probably just a bad relationship.
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Or just ditching me for a partner
My good friends and I understand that a fulfilling life is one full of a variety of relationships—from platonic to romantic—each of which we nurture and attend to to the best of our abilities. So while I know of some friends who just accept it that their friends will disappear for months at a time when a new relationship comes up, I’m not down with that. And if a friend pulls that, I say something.
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Needlessly talking behind each other’s backs
I add needlessly because I understand that sometimes, when a friend is going through something, the matter can be delicate. The other friends need to convene just to discuss the best way to approach that friend, and help her the best they can. That is okay. But needlessly talking behind a friend’s back—gossiping for the sake of gossiping, with no plans of ever bringing up the issue to that person, is not something I want in my friend group.
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Taking all the spotlight
A very good friend once told me, “Today was your day, everything was about you today, and that’s fine, but can it be my turn?” And she was completely right. That day, she’d come to my performance, then stopped with me at a bar to see a guy I like, and helped me pick out furniture for my new home. Then when she asked if we could make a quick stop at a party to see a guy she liked, I said, “Eh. I’m tired. Let’s not.” And she told me what was up. She was totally right. I try to be cognizant now of sharing the spotlight among my friends.
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Superficial partner choices
I am embarrassed for womankind to even admit it, but I do still hear women encouraging each other to pursue or stay with the wrong man because he “Makes a good living” or “Can provide a nice life for you.” That’s not the mentality in my friend group. We want each and every one of us to wind up with someone who we love for who he is, and visa versa.
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Anger over spoken truths
Sometimes my friends get mad when I tell them the truth—the truth about their bad relationship or the way they mishandled something. Fine. Let them be upset for a moment. I can get upset too, in their position. But what I won’t do is apologize for being honest with a friend. I don’t have the type of friend group in which we think our priority is indulging each other’s delusions or allowing stunted growth.
