when your best friend secretly hates you

you're never going to be enough

if you think this is about you, it’s probably not. and at the same time, maybe it’s a little bit about everyone.

listen while you read: purple teeth, the bravery by del water gap

i’ve debated on posting this, because some parts may sound egotistical or it may be an unfair representation of the entirety of the friendship. but just as taylor swift says, this may just be one feeling, magnified for the sake of storytelling (or something like that).

i’ve had a lot of beautiful seasons with friends—moments that felt full and real while they lasted. but most of them have come to an end. and maybe that’s the point, they’re called seasons for a reason. you grow, you change, and so do the people around you. especially in your younger years, most relationships are temporary by design.

still, i can’t help but feel like i’ve also been stuck in some truly awful friendships. the kind that linger longer than they should, mostly due to my own naivety.

i also think it’s particularly hard to have strong female friendships, or at least for me, i’ve found it especially difficult to navigate them. they’re hard to recognize when you grow up believing every connection is genuine until proven otherwise.

i think a lot of female friendships are not based on supporting and empowering each other—especially growing up, while you’re still figuring yourself out and it’s the height of all of your insecurities. but i find the majority of relationships i have experienced and observed (and forgive me if this is a limited perception) are built upon competition, which breeds jealousy, and ultimately leads to a very destructive collapse at some point.

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i’ve noticed this in some of my friends’ (past and present) previous experiences as well. which usually leads me to take on the role of a “saviour”—which i’ve now learned is an immediate red flag at the start of a new relationship.

being someone’s “first genuine friend”, being the “most kind and understanding” person they’ve ever met, might sound like a compliment to your character, but it’s actually an early glimpse into theirs. most of the time, it reveals their inability to maintain friendships. and that means, from the very start, you’re handed the job of holding this friendship together with your kindness and understanding.

which is completely unattainable for you. it puts all the responsibility on you to be the better person in the relationship and locks you into an impossible standard. and when you inevitably slip up (when you make a mistake, as humans do) they tear you down from the pedestal they built.

and how is that fair? because they must be making mistakes too, right? but it’s a setup. you’re expected to be the one who’s endlessly forgiving. it’s okay for them to mess up because you’ve already been cast as the friend who will be okay with it, no matter what.

and that pedestal they’ve put you on? oh, don’t get it twisted—that’s exactly where resentment starts to grow. because after a while, everyone gets tired of feeling like they’re second best.

so your mistakes? suddenly they’re huge. unforgivable. out of nowhere, you’ve apparently been disappointing them all along. because that narrative makes it easier for them to overlook how they’ve treated you. it lets them put your flaws below their own, and justifies everything they’ve done in return.

i’ve noticed a lot of times that this both comes from and breeds a victim mentality, which is evident when your reaction to their behaviour becomes the issue. victims love to shift the blame from their actions to your reaction to wanting basic respect. but alas, you’re the bad guy. and it leaves you wondering where did you go wrong? all you did was try to be supportive, you’ve been more than understanding, you’ve tried your best.

but suddenly, you’re the villain. your need for basic respect becomes “too much”. your boundaries become betrayal. and they’ll say you’ve changed, but really, you just stopped bending.

i want simple pleasures, friends who have my back.

and as soon as you start standing up for yourself, that’s when everything falls apart. everything you’ve said in confidence gets used against you (at least for the first time that you know of, because they’ve probably been feeding this narrative to others behind your back all along).

you realize how they’ve felt about you all this time. your weaknesses are exacerbated.

but this all starts subtly: things you can brush off as them just having their own stuff going on, maybe they’re dealing with something (you’re understanding of that, remember?). but these things should tell you right away that you're not in a good place: a weird tone when you talk about something you’re proud of. a silence after you share good news. and in retrospect, it becomes clear: they can't be happy for you unless they feel like they're winning too.

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jealousy can wear a friendly face, one that smiles when you're near, but secretly wonders why you deserve what you have. and when someone doesn’t believe you deserve the good in your life, they’ll find ways to chip away at it, slowly and most likely behind your back. you won’t even realize it for a long time until the comments they make rear their ugly face (and it’ll seem like it came out of nowhere, but attitudes like that don’t just pop up out of nowhere, they’re harbored and grown over time fyi).

they'll minimize your accomplishments, stir things up when the attention shifts. this behaviour makes it clear: they don’t want to be your friend, they just want to benefit from you.

i listened to a podcast the other day that made an analogy about someone’s behaviour: their actions are like the fruit they bear. when their words don’t match their actions, just use your eyes and look at the fruit on their branches. and in those moments, you start to see it clearly: you never have to ask an apple tree what kind of fruit it bears. you’ll never see an apple tree with a random lemon growing off of it. the patterns of apples growing will tell you everything you need to know.

the shade behind your back will be easy to identify. the subtle jabs. the way you start to feel smaller and more unsure of yourself in their presence.

if you don’t recognize the patterns, you’ll compromise pieces of who you are just to keep the peace. too late will you realize you’ve let parts of yourself go quiet to avoid their moods. you’ve poured time, energy, and care into someone who didn’t even have your best interest at heart. and for what?

to keep a friendship that was never safe to begin with?

because here’s the truth: they will pull you further and further away from who you are and what you’re meant to be. why? because they’re intimidated. they’re not for you. they’ll shape you into someone who fits into their comfort zone. they’ll manipulate, subtly. they’ll squeeze. and it’s not always obvious until one day you look up and realize you’ve become a version of yourself you don’t even like.

and once you stop playing by their rules? once you stop conforming to their expectations? they’re gone.

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the problem with this is that with certain people (me) it feeds the mentality that you must perfect to be loved. and how could you think differently? because as soon as you aren’t, you’re reprimanded. that’s conditional love by the way. something that hurts you and leaves you with deep scars that affect how you see yourself for months.

and yet, it still leaves you thinking, what if i could’ve been nicer? what if i could’ve been more understanding?

but trust me, you will never be kind enough for them. and that’s a reflection on them, not you.

once you realize that it’s not your responsibility to keep everyone happy all the time, you’ll find genuine friendships and relationships. you’re not responsible for calling or texting them x times a week to keep them happy. you’re not responsible for shrinking yourself to keep the peace. you’re not responsible for dropping everything in your own life to help them. you’re not responsible for carrying the weight of the entire friendship. you shouldn’t feel like you have to work that hard just to be loved.

real friends won’t make you feel like a burden for being human.

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