For a long time, I believed friendship was like family: you don’t just walk away when things get a bit rocky, you stick through the tough parts too. There are phases when someone might be more tiring, sensitive, or sharp-tongued, but you forgive it because none of us are perfect. After all, where else can you truly let off steam if not with those whose love feels certain? I thought a good friend stands by you, endures, understands. And that was true for a while—until it stopped being about occasional struggles and started being about constant hurt.
There’s a huge difference between slipping up on a stressful day and genuinely regretting it, and building your confidence by putting others down.
One friend in our circle started off just a little much. The kind of person who always teases with a smile, and if you call it out, says, “Oh, I was just joking.” At first, we laughed along. But gradually, our smiles faded. The jokes became sharper, more personal, and always aimed downward: appearance, life situation, money, relationships. Things she knew were sensitive spots.
After a while, a pattern emerged. After gatherings, someone’s phone would ring—one friend crying, another completely crushed. “Maybe I’m just too sensitive,” they’d say. “Maybe I’m overreacting.” But when subtle remarks started wrecking someone’s self-esteem for days, it became harder to find excuses.
There came a point when we couldn’t sweep the problem under the rug anymore. We sat down with her—not to attack or shout, but to share how we felt. How it hurt when she pointed out someone showing up in a playdate jacket while she wore her new fur coat. How painful it was when she compared a friend’s husband’s “failures” to her lover’s (!) career, as if it were a competition. How uncomfortable it was when she remarked on the less-than-perfect order of the apartment she dropped into unannounced, like we were being graded.
We Couldn’t Save the Friendship
The goal was to save the friendship, but it didn’t go as hoped. She got offended, explained we misunderstood her, that she was just being honest and that nothing could be said anymore. She said she just wanted us to “hold ourselves to higher standards.” Somehow, we ended up apologizing for “hurting” her. Maybe that was the first sign that nothing would change.
And it didn’t. The jabs kept coming. Quietly at first, then confidently again. When she commented at a café meet-up on a friend who was trying hard to lose weight allowing herself a pastry, and later I was comforting a sobbing friend on the phone, something inside me finally snapped.
This isn’t normal, I thought. It’s not normal to clean up wreckage after friendship.
It’s not normal for someone to feel superior by putting others down.
Friends should hold each other up. They should create a space where you can relax, where you don’t have to be on guard, where you don’t have to feel ashamed.
When someone only takes and doesn’t give, when being together drains instead of energizing, no matter how hard it is to say: it’s time to decide. That’s when we chose not to invite her anymore. There was no dramatic breakup, no public showdown. Just setting boundaries.
And though it hurt, it also brought relief. Because sometimes friendship isn’t about enduring everything—it’s about knowing when to protect each other. Even if that means cutting someone out.
