Photo: Luz Fuertes
Do you have so-called friends who lash out, relish your pain or minimise your struggles?
These are usually people struggling with emotional regulation or replicating toxic dynamics modelled in their first family, says science writer David Robson.
To not take their behaviour so personally, it’s good to remember it’s mostly unintentional and not coming from a bad place.
“It’s not a personal vendetta that they have against you. Recognising that they are facing their own challenges can actually help to soothe our stress,” he tells RNZ’s Saturday Morning.
Identify frenemy behaviour – in yourself and others
Nobody sets out to be a bad friend and we could all potentially be frenemies to different people, Robson says. Be especially vigilant with people who minimize your difficulties – a “classic frenemy behaviour” which can be very harmful psychologically.
Photo: Supplied/David Robson
“Recognising that it’s their problem, not yours, can be very beneficial.”
After being hurt by friends many times, he now identifies the potential frenemies in his life and is mindful about when he interacts with them.
“If I am facing some other difficulty within my life, I do try to avoid [those people] during those times when I know that I’m not quite as resilient as I need to be.
“In other cases, I certainly will try to make contact with them and I’ll just make sure that I’m in a good place before I try to speak to them.”
Construct a ‘defensive armour’ through self-affirmation
Not to be confused with manifestation, self-affirmation involves reminding ourselves of the qualities we’re proud of in a written list, then picking one quality to focus on in a bit more detail.
Research shows this exercise can help people take perceived interpersonal insults less personally, Robson says.
“What might have felt like a real body blow becomes more of a glancing blow that we can forget very quickly. It really does help us also to view the other person with the compassion that we would want to view them.”
Friends help each other feel less alone
To help someone get a broader perspective on a difficult situation and see beyond their current pain, psychologist Ethan Kross discovered that asking certain questions can be helpful.
Did they learn anything from the experience? How might they view this situation in a year or two?
“You’re not guiding them in any particular direction, you’re just giving them the opportunity to reframe what they’re feeling,” Robson says.
Friends don’t let friends vent for too long
Pouring out your worries to another person for long periods isn’t beneficial for either of you, Robson says, and can actually make the one venting more stressed.
“We’re rehearsing things so much that actually we’re almost rewiring our brain to see the world in a more negative light.”
If you have a friend who’s always encouraging you to vent, they’re not necessarily the healthiest person to be around, he says.
“The ideal friend would behave in a way that is both, supportive and does involve some element of validation and passive listening, but they would also then try to get you to see beyond your problem, to try to get you to see some new perspective, in some way, to maybe offer a little bit of advice or a relevant incident from their own life, but just to do something that’s going to help you to get through the period.”
Friends show empathy when good things happen, too
People who seem enlivened by the misfortune of others – a feeling the Germans call schadenfreude – can be accidental frenemies, Robson says.
Photo: Allen & Unwin NZ
Rather than encourage someone else to keep dwelling on and talking about their struggles to bond over shared unhappiness, it’s much healthier to focus on shared joy.
Research shows confelicity – delighting in another person’s happiness – is fundamental for strong, thriving friendships, he says.
Mitfreude – a German term which means “to feel joy with someone” – is another friendship goal.
“If we could hold confelicity or mitfreude within our hearts and within our lives I think we would all be much happier.”
Robson explores the social and relational landscape in his latest book The Laws of Connection.