My father used to tell me that there are two types of friend in life. There are true friends. And then there are friends for fun. What we all often struggle with is differentiating between the two. Often we treat our true friends as they are for fun and worse… we treat our “friends for fun” as our true friends only to get disappointed later on.
So I decided to make a list of signs that can help you differentiate between the good and the bad.
For simplicity sake I’m going to refer to a bad friend as a she but this could very well be applied to a he.
1) She always makes you wait.
Time is the most important thing you can give anyone because we all (no matter how rich or poor) have the same amount of time. 24 hours. That’s all. A friend who makes you wait all the time is a friend who doesn’t care very much for the value of your time.
The true friends make sure they never make you wait and if they ever do, they apologize profusely and find a way to make it up to you so you know how much it matters to them.
2) She always cancels or doesn’t show up in the last minute.
In life the older you get the less time you have. It takes a certain level of commitment for any person to block out a slot in his or her schedule to meet up with friends or hang out. An appointment is a promise to meet you. Anyone who breaks that promise at the last minute is a person who doesn’t value you or the promise they make.
Sure you can make exceptions for extraordinary circumstances but the more a person does this the less believable each excuse becomes.
3) She disappears from the radar and makes no attempt to stay in touch with you when she gets a boyfriend.
We’ve all had one of these friends. A friend who would call you out for coffee every Saturday afternoon or for Karaoke or just to hang out. Then when she gets attached she disappears. She doesn’t have time to meet up with you anymore and sometimes doesn’t even reply your messages like she used to. Then when that relationship ends all of a sudden she’s your best friend again.
4) She talks about herself all the time and never asks about you.
Some of us like to talk about ourselves more than others and that’s fine. The bad friends though make everything about themselves. Whatever topic you talk about she will find a way to bring the topic back to her which is fine except that by the end of the meetup you realize she never once asked about you. In some cases even when you do talk to her about a problem you’re facing, she again finds a way to bring it back to herself.
5) She talks bad about you behind your back.
You will hear it either from a friend telling you or even by watching her post a vague status update online that doesn’t name you but you know she’s talking about you.
6) She often talks negatively about other people in front of you.
If you’re not lucky enough to have other people tell you about what she said about you, listen out to her when she talks to you. If she constantly talks bad or complains about other people then there’s a good chance she’s talking bad about you too to someone else.
7) She often asks to borrow money without having ever paid back.
Try not to lend money to a friend but if you have to, watch out to see if she pays you back promptly. If she doesn’t then you know immediately she’s not a good friend. If she does, then there could be something there.
8) She waits for you to pay for all the meals but never once offers to pay.
They say birds of the same feather flock together. That good people attract good people. That is true but it’s not so true when it comes to generosity. Generous people tend to attract freeloaders. Know how to spot them and stay away from them.
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I know this all sounds daunting but the good news is that all of us will be lucky enough to meet a number of true friends in our lives. They won’t be perfect and yes maybe sometimes they might commit some of the above too. But you know they’re true friends when they put their heart behind your friendship. Either in making up for mistakes and fights or helping you in the most difficult times of your life. As friends, we too must make the commitment. Friendship is a two way thing.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space