The Friendship Mistake Almost Everyone Makes

The word “friend” should describe a living relationship, not a lifetime appointment.

Over the years, I’ve surprised a few of my hypnosis students and Brain Software Podcast listeners by recommending that they fire their friends. I know that sounds harsh. I’m not suggesting you become cold or trigger-happy with the people in your life. I’m suggesting that a friendship should be judged by what it actually is now, not by what it was twenty years ago.

I like to think of my relationships as a series of concentric circles, with myself in the centre and the people closest to me nearest to it. Those people have earned their position. They’ve stood by me when things were difficult, kept confidences, and shown goodwill in actions rather than just words. Anyone can say, “I’m always here for you.”

The interesting part is whether they’re still there when it’s inconvenient.

Further out are good friends, casual friends, colleagues and people I simply enjoy running into. There’s nothing wrong with any of those circles. The mistake is thinking everyone deserves the same access to your life. One of the great improvements most people can make is learning to distinguish between someone they like and someone they should trust.

Duration Isn’t the Same Thing as Loyalty

Trouble starts when somebody is standing very close to you while behaving in ways that should have moved them several circles outward long ago. Maybe you’ve known them since school. That history can feel important, but duration isn’t the same thing as loyalty.

There are a few reliable signs. Passive-aggressive behaviour is one, because it lets hostility travel under cover: the backhanded compliment, the sulking, the joke that always leaves one person wounded. Then, if you object, you’re told you’re too sensitive. They get to throw the grenade and then critique your reaction to the explosion.

Gossip is another. If someone constantly brings you everyone else’s secrets, it might be worth considering what happens to yours when you’re not in the room.

Success can be the most revealing of all. Some people are wonderful when you’re miserable, because your misery doesn’t threaten them. Let something wonderful happen and suddenly the temperature changes. People get jealous and strange sometimes. But if it keeps happening, pay attention.

A friend doesn’t have to agree with everything you do. A good friend should occasionally tell you that you’re making a terrible decision. But there’s a difference between honest disagreement and chronic undermining, and you can usually feel it. One leaves you clearer. The other leaves you smaller.

People Simply Need to Be Moved

Most of the time you don’t need a dramatic break-up scene. People simply need to be moved. A close friend can become a casual friend. Somebody who mishandles personal information doesn’t get any more of it, and somebody who sabotages your plans doesn’t need advance notice of them.

Sounds too cruel? Here’s your reframe: think of it as housekeeping.

Sometimes, though, it isn’t enough. If someone repeatedly lies about you, humiliates you or betrays your confidences, calling them a friend out of nostalgia starts to look less like loyalty and more like poor judgment. The word “friend” should describe a living relationship, not a lifetime appointment.

Family complicates all this, of course. But being related to someone doesn’t give them unlimited access to your time or your peace of mind. You can love someone and tell them less. You can stop lending money, stop having the same argument, and stop volunteering information you know will be used against you.

And sometimes nobody did anything terrible at all. You simply changed, and a relationship that once fitted perfectly no longer does. We have a bad habit of confusing gratitude for the past with obligation in the present. Someone can have been enormously important to you once and still not belong in your inner circle today. Both things can be true.

The Ones You Could Call at Two in the Morning

This works in the other direction too. If people keep moving you outward, it’s worth asking why. Maybe you interrupt constantly. Maybe every conversation turns back to you. Maybe your jokes aren’t nearly as funny as you think they are.

The rarest people are the ones I think of as super-friends. They’ve proved themselves under pressure. They’re the ones you could call at two in the morning, and before asking for the whole story, they’d want to know where you are and whether you’re all right. My dear friend Brian McDowell has been that kind of friend for over 60 years.

Those people are worth looking after.

The point of firing friends isn’t to become ruthless. It’s to be more selective about who gets the best parts of you, because your time, attention and emotional energy are all limited.

So when somebody repeatedly proves they’re not really on your side, perhaps you don’t need another heartfelt talk about boundaries. Perhaps you just stop giving them a front-row seat and let them discover, gradually, that they’re now somewhere near the parking lot.

- Mike Mandel