Friends. You’ve had them your entire life. Some have helped you propel to greatness. Others have held you down. But have you ever had a chance to really just examine your best friend?

Once upon a time, or at least a year ago, I once knew a girl. The ultimate love of my life, my rock, my sister from another mister type of bull-wank.  She used to consider me her best friend — and I suppose I would have considered her mine as well. We used to eat together. We used to go out and party. We used to text on the phone all the time. We used to talk about our futures. But as things in my life started to move forward, she began to resent me.

And then you’re finally home from a party. Although the day seemed to go pretty well, there’s a slight uneasiness nipping at your conscience. As you sift through your emotions, you finally unearth it — a snide remark that they made has left you feeling bad.

Sounds familiar?

The reality is, although you enjoy hanging out with your friends, sharing life experiences — not all of them have your best interests at heart. Some are toxic, negatively affecting the way you see yourself, the choices you make as well as your mental health. Doing you more harm than good.

As such, you need to protect yourself, but first, you need to be able to spot them easily. The following are 4 commonly overlooked red-flags of a toxic friend.

1. Jealousy

It’s a nasty little word. We associate it with an incredibly negative connotation — and rightly so.

When we consider jealousy in the most conventional sense, we often struggle to see how it could apply to mature friendships. It isn’t likely that in your thirties, your best friend is going to feel threatened because of your new designer sunglasses. We usually grow out of this type of jealousy in our teens and replace it with (at times even subconscious) envy towards perhaps, a healthy romantic relationship or successful work life.

This more profound type of envy lies within simply being you. It’s more deep-rooted and therefore, damages the relationship in a more aggressive manner. As these people are the closest to you, they have an unfair advantage over knowing your weaknesses — knowing exactly what buttons to push.

As we just live alongside our friends, our lives develop in many directions. Perhaps, at times we admire choices that our friends make or wish we had the courage that they possess. It can be easy to compare ourselves to others, especially those we know the most about.

2. They Leave a Bitter Taste Every-time

Here’s why it’s hard to spot a toxic friend: they look and speak normally because they’re an ordinary person like you and I. You may love their humour; they may even keep you up to date with the trending tik-toks. And yet, interacting with them leaves you with a bitter taste.

A snide remark that rubs you off the way, but almost always, they express it in a soft-spoken manner — precisely why you’re more inclined to overlook it. Especially considering they might be one of your closest friends.

I mean, they’d never intentionally hurt you. Right? Wrong.

It took me a while to realise that those snide remarks were getting inside my head. They were transforming into negative thoughts and affecting how I was seeing myself. Each time I hang out with them, I could feel my energy dwindling little by little. I felt myself lose faith in myself and my capacity to make solid decisions.

3. They have a field day with your boundaries.

Deep down, Mr/ms Toxicity believes they’re so much better than you. It’s not hard to see. Look at the way she insists on everything being done their way, like deciding why you’re broken and why you date the people you do.

Believing he/she’s more capable of making decisions than you are,  holds no regard for your opinion and waters down your suggestions. Also, don’t be surprised when they completely disregards your boundaries and gives unsolicited advice.

If you let people influence your decisions, it’ll leave you feeling inadequate. Sooner or later, you’ll expect them to make decisions for you. Subconsciously, these feelings of inadequacy can make you demean your value.

When you look at yourself this way, you feel incapable of managing your life. Instead of developing standards for yourself and actually living by them, you start to gauge your life by their standards. At this point, you’re exactly where she wants you — eating from the palm of their hand.

“People inspire you, or they drain you — pick them wisely.” — Hans F. Hansen

4. You feel like something is wrong

Relationship psychologist Perpetua Neo, said ‘your body is good at picking up signals that something isn’t quite right’. It can be hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that’s wrong, but if you are constantly feeling on edge, it could be because there’s a toxic person around. She continues to say that “your mental energy is being sucked out by this person and you may feel destabilised around them. Your body is a barometer telling you that they’re trouble.”

According to Women’s Health: ‘A toxic friend has a knack for spreading their toxicity to others — they bring out behaviours in you that aren’t your best. Maybe you’re drinking too much, gossiping, or being passive-aggressive’. You then inevitably end up disliking the person you are around them.

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So, you’ve recognized they’re toxic, now what? There are several options that psychologists suggest are best to deal with your ex-friend.

You can “slow fade” out of the friendship. That’s the easiest, most comfortable way to extract yourself but it only works when both parties recognise what’s happening, and take a step back naturally.”However, if your toxic friend has no clue and feels like this has come out of nowhere they might push back harder, get offended, become accusatory, or totally miss the hint. So, being direct may be the best option.

There is no need for hard feelings or a hurtful delivery but saying something neutral yet firm is necessary. The fact that life is moving you in two different directions should be enough to make them understand you will no longer be spending as much time together. The conversation could be ended by including a gentle reminder about how much you will take away from this friendship.

There is of course, always the option to attempt to cure your toxic friend and make them understand the ways in which they hurt you. This can be slightly more difficult but in some cases can work. Often we are partially to blame for the disintegration of a friendship. Therefore, working together on bettering the partnership is a completely viable option as long as both parties are willing to be honest with themselves and each other.

We can all understand the pain of a long friendship ending, one that’s seen many phases of life, internships, jobs, boyfriends.. As difficult as it may be, sometimes all that we are holding onto is the nostalgia of who someone once was — not the person in front of you today. Letting go could be the best thing to do for your future.