15 Ways You're Pissing Off Your Friends
Friendship is a pretty interesting thing. For some reason, certain people are a lot more appealing than others, and we build these friendships out of bonds that are sometimes even hard to explain. Sometimes friends become friends out of common interests, and sometimes friends just have a moment of connection like any other sort of relationship chemistry where they just bond and stay that way. Often when we spend a lot of time with people and are very close to them, we might actually start to take certain aspects of their friendship for granted. It's so natural to have people around to listen to us, and support us, and to have fun with that that we forget that at certain points we didn't even know them. That being said, it's good to keep in mind how good you have it because it's also possible to ruin friendships over really dumb things, and you probably don't ever want to do that. If you realized that some of your friends seem to be a little irritated at you lately, here are 15 ways that you might be pissing them off.
15 Getting Back With Your Ex
Technically it's your business who you're dating and whether you feel like getting back with your ex or not… except for the fact that you tend to make it everyone else's business when you involve them in every step along the way. They were there when you got together, went through drama, and descended into madness during the breakup. They listened to you talk in circles about your confusion and what could have gone differently, and they gave you as much time as you needed to heal which required a lot of listening and sometimes changed plans on their part. And then you turn around and get right back together with the jerk who's had you crying on their shoulders for the past few months. Again, it's your business, but your friends might feel like they spent an awful lot of time supporting your feelings for nothing like you didn't learn anything in the process or even care about how much support you had. If you do this too many times, some friends will definitely tell you that they're not all that into this.
14 Saying You're On The Way When You're Not
If you're in the habit of being a little unclear about your whereabouts and your timing, you might be pissing your friends off. When you make plans people expect you to show up, and when you pretend like you're on the way but are really still sitting on your bed wrapped in your towel you're going to be late. You know it, but they don't know it, because for some reason you don't feel like it's the right time to tell them. Instead of mentioning that you're running behind and pissing them off up front, you'd rather let them wait and try to come up with a good excuse in the time it actually takes you to get to them. This doesn't usually work since you're late anyway, and if it happens regularly they will come to expect it from you. You'll become the girl who cried wolf about plans… and then to make up for it, your friends will start having to lie to you about what time things start so that they can hopefully trick you into being there on time. What a mess.
13 Mooching
Are you the mooch of your friend group? Mooching is showing up to brunch and forgetting your wallet or just ordering an iced tea and then picking french fries off everyone else's plates. Mooching is always showing up to drink at the house and never providing the alcohol. Mooching is needing rides and never returning the favor. Pretty much anything selfish that has to do with time or money can come off as moochy, and it's not cool. No matter how much money you think your friends have that doesn't mean that they owe it to you for any reason, unless they've explicitly offered to be the one to pay. Assuming never works, and in general, when people do nice things for you it's customary to repay them in some way, even it isn't with cash. Maybe when you don't have the cash you agree to do some favors for the friends, like maybe you want to drive them to the airport or something like that. Not that you want to, of course, but you should anyway.
12 Getting Too Drunk
It might be fun to be the drunk friend, but it's usually not super fun for your friends. No one really loves having a drunk friend in their social circle. Even if you're not drunk to the point of puking or something, being super drunk might still be a little disruptive. Think those drunk moments that your friends have to go out of their way to make sure that you aren't drunk texting the guy you're trying to avoid, those moments that you stumble into a stranger and your friends have to apologize on your behalf, and those moments when your friends have to put you in an Uber at the end of the night because you're not capable of calling your own. Yeah, those might not be serious moments but they all require a bit of supervision, and that means that someone else has to take on the duty of taking care of you! When it's you being the drunk one every single time they can start to get tired of it, because they might feel like they can never totally relax as if they're on the job or something.
11 Spilling Secrets
Spilling other people's secrets can get you into a lot of trouble. People only tell you things if they think you're trustworthy, to begin with, but if you aren't so trustworthy after all you will start to get a reputation for having some loose lips and then people really aren't going to want to tell you anything. People generally tell secrets because it makes them feel better for some reason, or when the appeal of the drama is too much to pass up on. But neither of those are things that anyone should be aspiring to be exactly. If you feel like you're the type of person who is not good at keeping secrets but you don't want to hurt anyone, you might just tell people not to tell you anything that you can't pass on to your best friend or something, since you tell her everything. You can also ask if it's a permanent secret or if it's something that only needs to be kept under wraps for a short period of time. If you must spill to someone else, make sure they're at least trustworthy.
10 Complaining (Over And Over)
Your friends are always there for you, but they also want you to learn from your mistakes and listen to their advice and hopefully change things in your life that you don't like. Listening to you complain about the same things over and over might literally drive them insane. There's actually a saying about insanity: it's doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That applies to you, and it also applies to the people who are listening to you all the time. Common examples include: dating the same types of men and being stressed out by their same bad behaviors, refusing to let an incident go that you can't control and bringing it up every day for three months, complaining about how horrible your job is without having any plans to make a move, and complaining about how broke you are when you won't just stop spending money for a second. Sometimes we get into like grooves in a bad way where we're a broken record of complaints, but it's often not necessary.
9 Being Competitive
Being in a constant battle with your friends is exhausting and immature. You don't need to be competitive with them to be awesome yourself. Stop the running out and immediately buying the same jacket that your friend looks super hot in because you also want to be that hot. Don't compare where you are in your career to where they are, whether you're in the same industry or not. Don't tell yourself negative stories about your friend's relationship because you want to believe that her life should be as complicated as yours. People feel your competitive vibe and they don't like it, especially if they don't have any reason to compete with you. If they did you probably wouldn't be able to be great friends because being competitive isn't nice. By trying to get on someone else's level sometimes you're trying to pull them down, so keep in mind that it isn't necessary. There is enough good stuff in the world for everyone and we're all incredibly different even if we look sort of similar on the surface. We can be equally hot in different ways, and there are enough jobs, and successes, and men, and money to go around.
8 Weird Texting Habits
Sometimes you don't respond to your friends' text messages at all… and sometimes you won't stop rapid fire texting. Sigh. If you have weird texting habits, your friends are probably feeling pretty insane about it. People generally contact you because they have something that they want to say, and very often whatever they have to say warrants a response as well. That's right, ignoring people's text messages doesn't thrill them. You may have noticed that when you start ignoring people they don't keep texting you, which works great when you're trying to get rid of that guy you met at the bar and totally regret giving your number to, but don't do it to the people that you care about. It feels disrespectful, like whatever you're doing is way more important than what they might need or want from you. Communication is important no matter what kind of communication it is, and it's good to get into the habit of being responsive to people because that also means that you'll be in that habit when it comes to answering work emails and pings as well.
7 Obsessive Social Media Posts
Of course, there's no real wrong or right way to use social media if you're using it for fun, but there certainly are a lot of opinions out there that would say otherwise. Most people who get annoyed at social media can agree on some common things that the rest of the people do wrong. You might be one of the wrong doers if you: post like five photos of the same thing at once, play Farmville, post inflammatory statements on Facebook, invite people to like your "pages" for things that aren't really things, that sort of thing. People don't like to feel bugged no matter what the circumstances are online or not, so when your friends feel like they're seeing too much, hearing too much, or are getting invited to too much they are going to get irritated. If anyone has ever mentioned any of this to you then you might already know that your social media habits could use a little upgrade. One good tip: notice what behavior gets likes and what doesn't.
6 Tagging Friends In Bad Photos
People really don't like getting tagged in group photos where they don't look good. Sure it's pretty much impossible to get a group photo where everyone feels like they look equally amazing and hot so there's a bit of understanding there, but only a bit. If you regularly post photos where you look amazing but your friends look horrible they're going to get irritated whether they're saying anything about it or not. That's just wrong. You might even start to isolate your friends where they're just not interested in taking photos with you anymore because they know they have no say when it comes to the final product. Watch out. If you don't have their back when it comes to posting photos, they aren't going to be real concerned about yours either. That's when you have to start watching out for other people are tagging you in as well. Be reasonable with your posting choices.
5 Always Borrowing Their Stuff
If you borrow stuff without asking, you can be pretty sure that you're driving your friends insane. No matter how well you wear a shirt, you're still wearing it and putting some mileage on it. Not everyone loves that. Even if they let you borrow things they still might not love it that you need to borrow something every single day. It's a bit of a hassle for them to also figure out what you should be wearing from their closet in addition to figuring out their own outfits. Plus the friends that you tend to borrow a lot from might not be borrowing so much back, so that creates an off balance in the sharing situation. When you borrow stuff to be nice and gracious about it, not try to mooch it for life by explaining to them why it looks so much better on you than them. That might work from time to time, but it's not super nice. If you borrow stuff from them return it in perfect condition, thank them, and then think of a favor that you can do for them as well.
4 Bragging
Your friends want to hear about your accomplishments and all of the lovely things that happen to you in a day… but you definitely shouldn't be bragging about it. There's a difference. Sharing is when you share some sort of information or story that is of interest to someone in the sense that they can relate or need the details, or are supporting an accomplishment. Bragging is holding something over someone else's head that they don't have or can't access, just to drive home that they don't have it. Ultimately this always come back to self-esteem, so if you realize that you sort of like to show off about certain things to certain friends you might want to consider why that is. Something about that friendship seems to be making you insecure in a sense, otherwise, you wouldn't feel the need to prove to them your worth or one up them. No one likes a braggart, so regardless of your intentions when you're being braggy people are generally going to get tired of listening to you and try to change the subject.
3 Not Supporting Their Relationships
Watching your friends get into new relationships (and hearing about them, of course) can get more than a little complicated. Of course, you want the best for them but sometimes you have super different opinions about what the best actually is. When you speak your mind about someone else's relationship your insights can be invaluable… but they also carry the risk of totally pissing people off and causing them to alienate a bit from you. Love (or lust) can be intoxicating and make it hard for people to think straight some of the time, and a lot of the time people will choose their significant others over their friends when it comes to certain things. This is only natural since if your goals are to be in a relationship and maybe get married someday you have to focus on the boyfriends to get there. But it also means that people won't stick around to listen to what you have to say if you just can't be supportive. Before you tell someone that you don't like their boyfriend, try to figure out if you don't like them for you, or if you really don't like them for them. It's different.
2 Playing Devil's Advocate
If you're constantly playing devil's advocate, you're definitely going to drive everyone insane. This is essentially when you put forward some sort of argument that plays the other side of the equation to get people to think more deeply about something about considering the other options. It can helpful in some circumstances to play up the alternative viewpoint because sometimes we do need to be reminded that there are at least two sides to every situation, and this can provide a lot of insight. But if you do it for things that don't need it like someone's opinion that they feel really good or excited about, it's just straight up annoying to downright bitchy. If it ain't broke don't fix it as they say. Play devil's advocate too often and you risk just being negative because not every situation does have a negative side to consider. Sometimes you can just let things be as they are without trying to change or control them, which is really what you're offering when you're being contrary for no reason.
1 Not Believing In Yourself
Your friends really hate to listen to you get down on yourself about anything. They see the real you and they like you a lot so they don't understand why you just can't see it as well. They can tell you all day long that you don't have anything to worry about but it doesn't ever sink in until it comes from inside you, and in the meantime, you are going to exasperate everyone around you. Think about how it's a given that your mom thinks you're beautiful, same thing. It's a little different since your mom has an investment in that belief since she created you, but if your friends love you they are going to have the same sort of feelings about you. They roll their eyes at your insecurities because they just don't see those perceived flaws that you do and wish you would instead focus on the really wonderful things that are way more obvious and not need a reminder about them every single day. They're not trying to be insensitive, they just seriously can't understand why you don't think you're as awesome as they do. And those are definitely the best friends to have!