Bad Friendships Harm More Than Bad Friends

A simple tool to spot & improve them

We often think bad friends bring us down.

But what about the ones we consider good?

I learned it the hard way.

Bad friendships with good friends harm more than we realize.

In today’s issue, I'll share…

• My personal experience with good friends

• A simple tool to evaluate friendship health

• and how I improved 60% of my bad friendships

Let’s dive in.

A decade of unhealthy friendship

I have many friends who are great humans.

But I never realized I was doing it all wrong.

As a result, I cultivated bad friendships with some of my greatest friends.

For example, one of my friendship was based on toxic positivity.

• We held each other to the highest standards.

• Aimed for perfection and nurtured it in each other.

• Never shared setbacks, disappointments, and failures.

• Only discussed the awesome stuff upon meeting or call.

This happened to an extent that my friend got stuck into a bad marriage.

I didn’t even know it until the marriage ended up in a disaster.

This raises two questions:

• Why wasn’t he able to tell me that he is going through hell?

• Why wasn’t I able to find out that shit has hit the roof for my friend?

Reason 👉 We believed we only have to share the positive stuff.

That was the motto of our friendship since day one — 13 years ago.

In front of family and others, we were the closest friends.

But were we? 🤨

I don’t know. We never allowed each other to be vulnerable.

Did more harm than good. Both sides.

It blocked our emotional growth. Mine specially.

But did we love each other? You bet. (Still going strong 💪)

On the other hand

Bad friends are another thing.

You can spot them quickly.

Red flags and your loved ones can help you do that.

But bad friendships with good friends are tough to track.

Which brings us to…

How can we solve it?

You have to take time to analyze and spot patterns over time.

Start by making a list of all the friends you think are good.

Rate each of them on three factors:

• Vulnerability - How many times do you share emotional ups & downs?

• Energy - Do they suck your energy or bring their own to the relationship?

• Feeling - How many times do you feel good after sharing your heart?

Download or print this sheet to get it done.

Here’s a snapshot of how it helps me measure friendship health.

Friendship Health Checker

Once you rate each friendship on the 3 factors, you’ll get a health percentage of your relationship.

Here’s what to do with the new insights

• Friendships higher than 80 are good ones.

• Lower than 80 needs work but can be done.

• Ones under 60 are currently harmful for you.

The lowest ranking friendships need your attention. They require solid work.

You have to make some hard decisions:

1. Communicate what you have found

2. Distance yourself slowly

If they understand, propose to improve your friendship. Tell them ‘we need to be more vulnerable from now on.’

If not, you know what to do.

I use this technique to continually evaluate my friendships.

Every time I do, I spot pitfalls and red flags that I'm ignoring.

But this exercise opens my eyes.

As a result…

I have improved 60% of my bad friendships in the last year.

How did I improve them?

Once I had found 7 bad friendships.

I decided to meet them in person to convey my findings.

• Two of them ignored it.

• One of them laughed at me.

• Four considered it. Wanted to talk about it.

Those conversations lasted whole nights.

Past that point…

I started measuring the quality of our catch ups.

After every meetup, I wrote a note in my phone on how I felt.

I asked myself these questions.

• Do I feel energized or drained?

• Was I able to be my authentic self?

• If we made future plans. Am I excited?

• Were discussion topics meaningful for both?

• How do I feel after meetup — Awesome, Okay, Not Good?

• Was there a good balance or did one person dominate the convo?

It only took 10 minutes but saved years of miscalculation.

How they made me feel became my litmus test.

But this process only worked with friends who were willing to work on our friendship.

The ones who were not ready to admit it.

I had to distance myself. It was necessary for both ends.

After four months…

I came back to the friendship health checker.

The new numbers looked great.

I had moved 4 out of 7 friendships from red to green. Solid improvement.

Cheers to my friends for helping me get it done. 🥂

Lastly…

I understand it can be hard to measure a friendship objectively.

Let’s not try to do that.

Simply use the guards-up test to differentiate.

• Bad friendships keep you in a defensive state. You have to swim.

• Good ones keep you in the defenseless zone. You float.

Remember this 👇

Vulnerability is the best measure of a deep relationship.

We all deserve positive and healthy relationships, but sometimes we find ourselves in toxic friendships with good people without realizing it.

By using the method above, you can identify the signs and make changes for your own well-being.

If you want help in using the spreadsheet or working on your friendships, you can reach out to me on Twitter. I’d love to help someone who wants to improve.

I hope this post will help you think friendships in a new light.

That’s all for today!

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Checkout my other stuff

• The Art of Taking Calculated Risks

• Intelligence Secret of Socrates, Einstein, Steve Jobs

• Decision Making - Tools of Zuckerberg & Walter White