You know that friend of yours who complains constantly, seeking attention and validation? How about that friend who boasts incessantly about his job, possessions or ‘good’ family? Failing those, how about the undependable friend who’s always late, or the overly critical one who seems to find faults with everything you do?

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84% of you — if you’re a woman, and 75% of you — if you’re a man, just thought of a friend who fits this description, according to a survey by American magazine Self and Today.com. It doesn’t take a survey to prove this simple fact true — that many of us continue to associate, befriend or confide in people who leave us feeling emotionally exhausted, with a beaten-down self esteem, or just plain annoyed.

A majority of us continue to endure the negativity of a ‘toxic friend’ even though the option of removing them from our lives is staring us in the face. A toxic friend takes abuse to a level that affects our lives even beyond their immediate scope — we are left emotionally exhausted, with a belittled self-esteem and our stress levels go through the roof.

Good friend turned badWhy do we put up with them in the first place? The reasons are as varied as the kinds of annoying friends we let into our lives. For Gayatri Babbar, 26, it was a case of ‘good friend turned bad’ that kept her lingering. “In college, Mitali, who had a shaky self-esteem, dated a guy who would fawn over her, only to insult her the next day. He alienated her from all her friends, demanding that all her free time be spent with him.”

Post the breakup, Mitali was “never the same”. “She began resenting my relationship. Her relationship, being her first and ending so badly, appeared to have scarred her,” remembers Gayatri. “I couldn’t share anything with her, because I knew my happiness would hurt her. We would end up fighting as she would pass catty remarks and belittle me in tiny ways.”

These included complaining about Gayatri’s boyfriend, passing comments about weight gain, and “passive-aggressively uploading really bad photos of me on Facebook!” laughs Gayatri. Gayatri says that the situation left her stressed out and she lost her faith in friendships. “It was harrowing. I lost the one person I would always depend on, and I was left very isolated. And when she turned against me, it took a toll on my self-esteem — if the person who knew me best thought so negatively about me, what did that mean about me?” Surprisingly, Gayatri is still friends with Mitali, and considers her “my oldest and best friend”. “We’ve been friends for so long. I have distanced myself emotionally. I needed to protect myself, so I don’t share crucial information. I might not be able to have the same ‘best friend’ relationship, but I can’t get myself to cut her off.”

According to Bangalore-based Tanya Aggarwal, 34, an HR manager with a telecom MNC, the reason we stay in these friendships is the same reason “why we stay in any dysfunctional relationship. There is something reassuring, familiar and compelling about it. Alternately, you might feel guilty about breaking it off. Maybe the person has implied that he or she ‘needs’ you — without ever having been there for you in return.” About Gayatri’s case, Aggarwal has this to say: “It’s the same reason of familiarity keeping her hanging on. It can be terrifying to start over with new friends, never knowing if you’ll ever replicate the closeness you once had with this person. But it sounds like this friendship has gone south already. I would advice her to keep her distance emotionally — forgive but not forget her friend’s critical nature.”

Sometimes the issue feels so petty, that you might feel embarrassed bringing it up — as in the case of Girish Narang, 34. “My friend Nirali was chronically late for everything. It didn’t matter whether we were meeting for a movie or dinner — she was never less than half an hour late. She wouldn’t respond to phone calls and texts, and lie flagrantly about how long she would take to reach. It felt like too small an issue to fight about, but finally it became a huge issue and we had a big blowout.” Narang was left “deeply frustrated” and “constantly annoyed”. “The resentment just kept building up and made me petty and resentful against her,” he remembers. “I dealt with it by always being late myself! She got annoyed and it finally dawned on her that its not fun being the one who is kept waiting.”

Pity at the workplaceBut what do you do when you just can’t remove yourself from the person’s vicinity? What if it’s your job to be around this person every day? This was the situation faced by Arvind Nagpal, 34, an investment manager at a bank in Mumbai. “I had begun work as a complete rookie, and then Manoj had practically taken me under his wing and shown me the ropes. It was only later, after I had known him better and talked to other people, that I realised his occasional flashes of irritability, pomposity and self-pity weren’t isolated incidents witnessed by just me.” Arvind was torn: “I couldn’t get myself to turn my back on him. He obviously needed a sympathetic ear, and whether it was during or after work, he would corner me and pour out his heart — his suspicions that his wife was cheating on him, how other people at work were conspiring against him, how the loss of his parents had damaged him irreparably, and how his son was a good-for-nothing who never appreciated his father’s sacrifices.”

Arvind continues to shoulder his colleague’s many miseries, unable to detach his sympathetic shoulder from what he now admits was “attention-seeking behaviour”. “This equation has taken a slow but steady toll on my professional life,” Arvind admits. “I wasn’t able to focus on work as much as I should have. I even began avoiding social situations, even going out for a cup of tea with everyone, on the off chance that this guy might corner me again!”

“A professional environment, in this case, can work for either good or bad,” says psychologist Ameer Jagwani. “On the one hand, there is no way to cut yourself off, because his resentment against you will spill over in the workplace. On the other, you have professionalism as a buffer to keep you safe: one easy tactic for Arvind is to say that his work is suffering on account of all the time he spends talking with this friend. Also, when he asks to meet outside of work, you can bring along another friend who is sympathetic to your quandary. The ‘whiney’ friend might not be comfortable talking in front of a stranger, effectively shutting him up.”

Girl-on-girl violenceIn the Today.com survey, 87% of women respondents reported having a female ‘toxic’ friend, and 57% of men reported having a male ‘toxic’ friend. In other words, men and women tend to stick to their own sex when venting negativity. “Female friendships are heavily focused on sharing of emotions and problems, and this is usually not always the case with male friendships. When you make yourself emotionally vulnerable in the way that women do with friends, the chances of a betrayal is more likely,” explains Jagwani. Gayatri concurs. “My friendships with guys, much as I hate to admit it, remain fairly uncomplicated. They seem to not react in the same emotionally overwrought way at perceived slights like women tend to do.” But she maintains that her female friends can’t be done without. “At the end of the day, these friends become something like family. Hate ‘em or love ‘em, they’re a part of your life.”