Before toxic thoughts, remove toxic friends from your life.

A girl I know recently made a confession to me: “my judgement is fucking skewed. No matter what happens, I always try to look at the positive side of a human being. And this is even after they wrong me, disrespect me or hurt me. This is a pattern that I religiously follow — especially when it comes to choosing boyfriends”, she said.

I didn’t quite understand why she made this startling confession. All I knew was she had recently broken up and the problems had escalated so much so that her ex blocked her from everywhere. There was strictly no point of contact and she was unsure if there were ever going to be any.

But then she told me. The reason she was stressing too much on her “skewed judgement” was because of a friend hers (who has grown increasingly close to her in the last several years). Their interactions, by the way, are restricted to how my friend has made bad decisions in her life, how she needs to lose weight and how she needs to work on her relationship with others.

Basically, it is a lot of bullshit for no rhyme or reason. She has no right to utter one negative thing to my friend. But my friend, being the good old soul that she is, doesn’t pay much attention to that woman’s lectures but I know that now she is just irritated with her.

I know my friend like no one else. Her private life is very dear to her. She guards it with her soul. Whether it is her family, close friends or even ex-lovers — she protects them all. I really appreciate this quality of hers, given how “socially” active we have become online and having something known as “privacy” is rare.

Thankfully, my friend has realized how manipulative that woman is. She told me so last night and I am so happy she can finally see how crazy and dominating her friend is. From whatever I have been told about her, I can see that every little problem gets magnified for her. No wait — everything becomes about “her”. It’s “me-me-me” all the way for her!

Whether it is work or relationships — she gets supremely defensive and behaves as if everyone out there wants to bite her ass. Seriously, it is so stressful. Sometimes I find her antics hilarious and now, so does my friend. But I think that Queen of Manipulation needs to know a thing or two about herself:

Shut the fuck up.

You may be your own boss but you certainly can’t boss around. Your friends might bow down to you, come running to you if you create a scene or cry crocodile tears because you want their attention — but that’s not how the real world works. Please — the sooner you snap out of the illusion, the better it is.

Don’t act like a relationship guru.

Because you are not one! Your actions and choice of words clearly prove that you are immature and don’t have the slightest clue about what you are doing. All you want is oodles of attention and appreciation because that feeds your huge ego. So really — stop perceiving others as sad or poor. They don’t need your pity. They certainly don’t need your “words of wisdom”.

Stay out of other people’s lives.

You don’t need to know every little detail about other people’s lives. You are not “Miss-know-it-all”. And it is NOT important for you to know everything about your friends. Seriously — let them breathe! So what if you were not told something by a close friend of yours. So what?! Fuck off, please!!

Don’t try to bring others down (to your level).

Just because you made similar mistakes in life, doesn’t mean you find flaws or remind others of the mistakes they made. That’s a cheap move. No one’s trying to bring you down and so shouldn’t you. Cut some slack. Take it easy. Not everyone can live as per your command!

I feel sorry for your friends.

No actually, I don’t. Because it is them who have decided to stick to you and listen to you like you are a God Mother. I sincerely pray to God that they have never made a decision on something just because you manipulated them into doing so. Really — I hope they snap out of it and think for themselves on their own.

It is quite possible that they did let go of something because you were a bitch about it. I really hope that decision is irreversible. I hope they have not formed an opinion about someone because of your half-baked, negative opinion.

Just stop being so toxic.

Despite my rant, I like to think of myself as a positive person, someone who never stops believing in the goodness of things till the very end. Yes, there have been times when I’ve felt lonely, sad, hurt and depressed — but who doesn’t feel caged in this room of negative emotions from time to time?

Same is the case with my friend. Instead of making her feel worse, keep your trap shut. You are a toxic human being. Despite your perfections, you paint a rather ugly picture of yourself. And I hope people around you wake up and see that!

My inspiration: this article.