[SERIOUS] You should say goodbye to that friend.

I’ve recently been practicing the art of cutting out a particular type of friend and I’d like to share it with you. I firmly believe that you should forget about any “friend” that makes you feel like shit more than 10% of the time you hang out with them.

Hear me out:

I think we all have at least one of those friends that are fun to hang out with…some of the time. The rest of the time, we not only hate them, but we also hate ourselves when we’re around them. Not only that, we even hate them/ourselves when we’re not around them. So what is that sweet golden ratio? What are the right numbers to fill in these blanks:

“I love them __% of the time. They’re great. We laugh, we have a good time together. But __% of the time I’m with them I wanna cut myself.”

I thought about the right ratio for a long time. Probably for too long. At first I thought, maybe 60:40. And then I was like, why would you wanna hang out with someone who makes you miserable 40% of the time?! Then I went down to 80:20…a more extreme ratio. That should be okay. But then, okay, so think about it, 20% of the time you’re with this person, you are not happy. The truth is though, you probably think about this 20% for way longer than it’s worth. You probably replay the hatred that this 20% caused in your head over and over again…so yeah, 20% doesn’t cut it.

That’s why I’m saying 10%. 90% of the time, this person is great and 10% of the time, they make you unhappy. That 10% you probably deserve. You probably need that 10% to keep you grounded. I say probably. This theory is a work in progress. More participants are needed in the study.

Here’s the reason why I was even thinking about all of this. I had a “friend” that was the exact opposite. I enjoyed his company 10% of the time. You’re probably thinking, WHY THE F*CK would you hang out with someone whose company you only enjoy 10% of the time?? It’s easier to fall for such trap than you think. He was funny and genuinely made me laugh…during that 10%. We had serious conversations that made me really think…during that 10% But y’know what? Most of those laughs and most of those serious conversations were at other people’s expense. We spent those times making fun of others and then complaining about how awful they were. Misery and jealousy not only LOVE company, they THRIVE on it. So if I were to be honest, that 10% wasn’t a genuine good time with that friend. In fact, I became a person that I loathed when I was with this friend. And during that 90%? He would insult me and make fun of me in front of people because he thought it was funny. He tried to convince me that I was depressed so that he and I could be depressed together. There was no significant difference between the good 10% and the bad 90%. Again, misery and jealousy not only LOVE company, they THRIVE on it.

I stopped hanging out with this friend and life changed. I was happier, I spent more time with the friends that didn’t make me feel awful about myself. I asked myself, was this 10% of happiness at others’ expense worth the 90% of self-loathing? That’s when I realized that it should be the other way around, the reciprocal.

I now only spend time with those friends that are the exact reciprocal to that old friend. Those are the kind of people you want to hang around. Yes, maybe some of the time you argue and you get upset. No friendship is perfect. I never said only pick the 100:0 angels that totally exist in this world. But, you deserve nothing less than 90:10. Anyone who makes you feel like shit more than 10% of the time…when you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous that you’d want to hang out with them at all.