How You Know It’s Time to Meet & Make New Girlfriends
You deserve a mutually beneficial friendship, don’t settle for anything less.
It can be challenging and scary meeting new women and trying to make new girlfriends in adulthood, especially if you’ve been hurt before in friendship.
Let’s be very real here. Many women have trouble trusting other women. A fair amount of us were either bullied in school growing up by other girls or were maybe dumped by our best friend because someone else cooler came along.
This sort of thing is heartbreaking, even traumatic for some. Yes, as we grow older and become adults, we need to move on. However, if we don’t truly heal our friendship wounds from childhood, we could likely end up repeating and attracting the same unhealthy friendship patterns in adulthood.
Let’s get into a few signs of what an unhealthy adulthood friendship looks like and how to know when it might be time to exit the friendship, gracefully and respectfully.
And please know that a friendship ending doesn’t have to be a bad thing. What’s actually happening is you’re now opening up space and energy for the new to come in; healthy, supportive, and mutually beneficial friendships.
The following three signs indicate that you may be in an unhealthy friendship.
Situational support
Do you feel your friendship is one-sided? What I mean by that is, does there seem to be a pattern of situational support? How I define situational support is when a friend or loved one is only available when it benefits them.
Here’s an example: I use to have a friend who would only reach out and make lunch or dinner plans with me when some sort of drama was going on in her life, and she wanted to vent. During our meal, she would take center stage, and I’d barely get a word in. Even when she would ask me a question about my thoughts or opinion on the matter, and I shared, it was like she wasn’t in the room with me, her eyes would glaze over, and she went right back to her venting session.
This was very frustrating and felt one-sided to me. The times I’d reach out to make plans with her, she was too busy or already had plans for that evening or weekend. This wasn’t something that happened once or twice, it was a consistent response and behavior from my friend. She was only available to hang out when it benefited her. The conversations were always about her problems and life. Hardly ever would we talk and discuss things in my life.
Bully-like and gossipy behavior
If you have a highly critical friend who constantly talks poorly about others, this is a clear sign that this person doesn’t even like themselves.
Someone who talks negatively about others when they’re not present is most likely talking negatively about you too behind your back when they’re with another friend.
This bully-like and gossipy behavior friend is not a friend at all. They’re a person who is suffering severely with low self-esteem and self-loathing.
“We project how we feel about ourselves onto others.”
The longer you continue to spend time with this person, the more at risk you are at getting sucked into their negative vortex and becoming unhappy and miserable just like them. I know how hard it can be to separate from a long-time friend. Many of us may feel obligated to stay friends with certain people because they’ve been in our life for so long, or were there for us in the past during a difficult time.
However, not all friendships are meant to last. Some friends change, grow, and evolve together, and some grow apart. If your friendship has been heading down a toxic route for some time now, it’s okay for you to set a boundary, spend less time together, or end the friendship all together.
Your friend is highly self-centered — not genuinely open to hearing your point of view.
I had a friend once who loved hearing herself talk and talk and talk. She was a “know it all,” had to be the smartest gal at the table and always loved having the limelight. Full disclosure, I use to be the same way until I realized how annoying, ingenuine, and unattractive my behavior looked and felt to others. I sure did learn my lesson early on, thank god.
It’s not that your friend doesn’t care about or love you, it’s more so her feeling very insecure and like she has to prove herself. It’s a big self-worth issue more than anything else.
If you’ve tried discussing your friend’s self-centered behavior and actions with her several times in a loving and supportive way, yet not much has changed over time, and this feels very disheartening and disappointing to you. It’s okay to want to move on and raise your standards in friendships. This doesn’t make you a bad person. It means you respect and value yourself and the meaning of healthy friendship.
Remember, you’re not an awful person for wanting more in a friendship, for wanting to feel heard, supported, and appreciated the same way you do for your friend. Friendship is about mutual benefit, not one-sidedness.
And listen, I promise you there are plenty of women out there seeking healthy friendship just like you in adulthood. I know this for a fact because I’ve created an online community around it. I think my next article will be on how to meet new girlfriends. Stay tuned for that, it’s coming! Big hugs.
