Toxic. Energy vampire. Protecting my peace. Low vibrational. Friendship ick. Fake friend. I outgrew them. Bad vibes. Frenemy. Bare minimum friend. Just cut them out.
We have an entire vocabulary for friendships that aren’t working. A whole language.
And when you hear those words… do you actually know what happened?
That’s what I keep coming back to. We have this elaborate, widely shared shorthand, and almost none of it tells you anything specific.
- ▪️ It doesn’t tell you what the behavior was.
- ▪️ It doesn’t tell you what you needed that you didn’t get.
- ▪️ It doesn’t tell you what you would do differently next time.
It just… closes the door. Verdict delivered. Case closed.
I’ve been sitting with this for a long time, and I want to be direct about something before we go any further:
- ▪️ This episode is not about tolerating bad behavior.
- ▪️ It is not about staying in friendships that hurt you.
- ▪️ It is not about giving people endless chances they haven’t earned.
This is about what happens when we reach for a label instead of doing the harder, more honest work of figuring out what we actually need. And I think that distinction matters a lot more than we’re willing to admit.
Where “Toxic” Came From (And What Happened to It)
The word toxic started as a clinical term. Therapists used it carefully, in specific contexts, to describe specific dynamics. Toxic stress response. Toxic relational patterns tied to specific diagnoses. It had precision.
And then… it hit the internet.
TikTok. Reddit. Instagram. Therapy accounts.
And the more it spread, the flatter it got. Because that’s what happens when a clinical term becomes everyday shorthand. It loses its edges. It stops meaning something specific and starts meaning something more like:
“This feels bad and I want it to stop.”
Which, honestly? Is a completely human response. I get why it resonated. People needed permission to say:
- ▪️ “I’m past capacity.”
- ▪️ “I’m not okay.”
- ▪️ “This is hurting me.”
And for a lot of people (especially people who had never had language for what they were experiencing) words like toxic, gaslighting, narcissist gave them something to hold onto.
But there’s a cost. And I think we’ve been undercounting it.
What a Label Actually Does to a Person
Here’s my number one issue with calling someone a toxic PERSON (not a toxic behavior, not a harmful pattern, but a toxic PERSON):
You are handing them a verdict. A closed case. An identity they now have to carry.
I want you to think of a label you received when you were younger. One you’re still, if you’re honest, trying to fight against.
Mine is “too much.” I’ve talked about it on the podcast before. I was told constantly as a kid that I was too much. Too loud, too direct, too big, too present. And I am still, as an adult, untangling all the places where I make myself smaller because some part of me is convinced that being too much is a problem I need to manage.
That label didn’t just describe a moment. It became something I built an entire interior architecture around.
That’s what labels do.
So when we call someone a toxic person, even someone who genuinely hurt us, we are deciding on their behalf that they are not capable of change. Who they are right now is who they will always be.
And I’m not willing to believe that about most people.
“I hope, even the people who have hurt me the most, that they are capable of change. That they don’t do this to someone else. That their story isn’t over because my chapter with them is.”
That distinction matters.
- ▪️ A toxic BEHAVIOR is specific. Nameable. Something that happened and keeps happening.
- ▪️ A toxic PERSON is a verdict.
You can walk away from someone’s behavior without declaring their entire personhood a lost cause.
🎧 The full episode goes deeper into why this distinction matters, and what it says about how we fundamentally see people.
The Sentence We’re Avoiding
Here’s where I want to get uncomfortable for a second. Because I think there’s something underneath the reach for “toxic” that we don’t talk about enough.
Calling someone toxic is often easier than saying: I deserve to be treated better than this.
Read that again.
Because naming the actual behavior (really naming it) requires three things:
- You have to know what you need.
- You have to believe you are ALLOWED to need it.
- And then you have to say it out loud. Maybe to yourself first, in the mirror. Maybe eventually to them.
When you skip straight to “they’re toxic,” you go from hurt directly to verdict. No deliberation. No self-reflection. Just: closed.
And I get why that feels like relief. Especially when you’re exhausted. Especially when you’re in the middle of the hurt and the last thing you want to do is sit with it and pick it apart. Saying “they’re toxic” feels like:
- ▪️ Doing something
- ▪️ Protecting yourself
- ▪️ Making a decision
But you’ve skipped the actual work.
And the actual work is this:
- ▪️ What exactly is the behavior you won’t accept?
- ▪️ What does that tell you about what you need?
- ▪️ Is this a dealbreaker?
- ▪️ Are you actually admitting to yourself that you have a standard, a boundary, a line you will not let someone cross?
Or is it just easier to depersonalize it? To make them the villain instead of claiming your own worth out loud?
“Sometimes ‘they’re toxic’ is actually a way of avoiding an even harder sentence. And that sentence is: I deserve to be treated better than this. And I’ve never said that out loud before.”
That takes guts.
It requires you to put your own worth on the table, to claim it, to admit that you have needs and believe those needs are legitimate. And for a lot of people, and I say this with real compassion because I have been this person. THAT is the scariest part of all of this.
It is genuinely easier to make someone else the villain than to say: I matter enough to ask for what I need.
Red Flags Are Personal. “Toxic” Pretends They’re Universal.
Here’s the other thing that bothers me about this vocabulary: it implies universality. It implies that anyone reasonable would agree. That what’s a red flag to you is automatically a red flag to me.
And that’s just not true.
Friendship needs are personal. They’re shaped by:
- ▪️ Your history
- ▪️ Your attachment style
- ▪️ Your current season of life
- ▪️ Your capacity
- ▪️ What you’ve been through
So if you told me about a friend you cut off and called toxic, the specific behavior you named might be something I genuinely don’t mind. And vice versa. The exact reason I walked away from someone might be something you’d be completely fine with.
Which means the word toxic isn’t actually helping you figure out YOUR dealbreakers. It’s getting in the way of that.
And if you don’t know your own dealbreakers, you can’t:
- ▪️ Communicate them
- ▪️ Look for them
- ▪️ Recognize when they’re being crossed
…until you’re already exhausted and resentful and reaching for the verdict again.
This is how people end up saying, “Why do I keep making all these toxic friends?” And the answer is usually:
Because the label closed the door but didn’t tell you why you shut it. So you walk back through the same door, with a new person, and the whole cycle starts again.
🎧 There’s a lot more in the full episode about how the “toxic” label can actually make it harder to build the friendships you want.
Three Questions to Ask Instead
Okay. So if I’ve convinced you, even a little, to put down the word toxic, here’s what I want you to do instead.
Three questions. Sit with them honestly.
Not “they make me feel bad.” Not “the vibe is always off.”
WHAT DO THEY DO? What do they say? What do they not do that you expect them to do?
For example:
- ▪️ “They walk into every room and say hi to everyone except me.”
- ▪️ “They always talk about themselves and never ask me a single question.”
- ▪️ “They agree to plans and cancel every time, same day, no explanation.”
When you get specific, that’s where the information lives. That’s something you can actually work with.
Vague discomfort is not a strategy. Specificity is.
I know. Uncomfortable. But important.
So much of what gets labeled toxic is actually an unspoken expectation that nobody ever said out loud. And yes, there are behaviors that feel like they should be obvious. But here’s where nuance lives:
What feels obvious to you is shaped by your history, your needs, your normal. It’s not universal.
The example I use in the episode: someone who’s been talking about themselves every time you hang out. Toxic behavior? Maybe. Or maybe you met them two weeks after they asked for a divorce and they are drowning and you are the first person who’s been kind to them in months.
- ▪️ Same behavior.
- ▪️ Completely different context.
- ▪️ Completely different response required.
You might need to tell them: “I really want to get to know you, and part of that is you getting to know me too.”
This is the one where your worth shows up.
Because sometimes the answer is yes, this is a dealbreaker, and you are allowed to walk away. But you have to CLAIM that. You have to say:
- ▪️ “I deserve equal time in conversation.”
- ▪️ “I deserve a friend who follows through.”
- ▪️ “I deserve to be asked questions.”
Not “they’re toxic.”
I. Deserve. Better.
And maybe the answer is: I don’t know yet. Maybe I want to test it out a couple more times and see if it evens out. That’s also a valid answer. But make it a conscious choice… not a slow slide into resentment.
Walk Away With Clarity, Not Just a Verdict
If you go through those three questions and you decide to walk away from a friendship? Great. Walk away. I’m not here to tell you to stay.
But walk away with CLARITY. Walk away knowing:
- ▪️ What you needed
- ▪️ What you wouldn’t accept
- ▪️ What you’re looking for next time
Because that clarity travels with you. It helps you recognize the right people faster. It helps you communicate earlier. It makes the next friendship better.
What doesn’t travel with you is a verdict. “They were toxic” tells you:
- ▪️ Nothing about yourself
- ▪️ Nothing about what you need
- ▪️ Nothing about what to look for or ask for or protect next time
It just closes the door without explaining why.
And we are living in a loneliness epidemic. That’s not me being dramatic. It’s documented. It’s real. And simultaneously, we have:
- ▪️ More vocabulary than ever for walking away from people
- ▪️ Less friction than ever in doing it
- ▪️ Fewer community structures pushing us toward repair
I’m not saying those two things are simple cause and effect. It’s more complicated than that. But I am saying: in a world where we’re all trying to figure out how to be less lonely, learning to communicate our needs (to ourselves FIRST, and then to the people in our lives) is some of the most important work we can do.
All three options are work:
- ▪️ Staying and communicating
- ▪️ Walking away and starting over
- ▪️ Going through life alone
None of them are easy. The question is just which one you’re going to choose.
And the one that makes you better at friendship, the one that actually travels with you into every new connection you try to build, is the one where you:
- ▪️ Do the reflection.
- ▪️ Name the behavior.
- ▪️ Claim your worth.
- ▪️ Say the harder sentence.
I deserve to be treated better than this.
That’s the work. And you’re capable of it.
🎧 Listen to the full episode here: friendshipirl.com/episode175
Mentioned
- ▪️ Episode 85: Shifting People-Pleasing Friendship Patterns with Deb Blum
- ▪️ Episode 99: Is Individualism Costing Us More Than We Realize? with James Richardson
- ▪️ Episode 12: The Roots of Connection Framework
- ▪️ Episode 100: The Wheel of Connection Framework
