Friendship Deal-Breakers

Bad personal hygiene, pessimism regarding its endangered status, causing drama in your life by eating your beloved
friends – a tiger will make the worst friend possible.

Every indignant meme, Thought Catalog post and Buzzfeed quiz aims to warn you against the standard relationship deal-breakers that you need not put up with. More important than relationship deal-breakers, however, are friendship deal-breakers – qualities in a friend that make you want to smack them in the face, but you settle for posting sarcastic memes in their tribute instead.

Bad Hygiene
This isn't so much a bad quality in a friend as a bad quality in a person in general. Our friends are the people we tend to spend the most amount of time with, so bad hygiene is a primary concern. They might see you through every thick and thin, but bad breath, body odour and unsightly eating habits are not things anyone signs up for. So if you're the only one in the group not being included in the group hugs, you might want to rethink your personal hygiene regime.

Pessimism
My friends, bless them, are mostly all bright little boxes of sunshine. And that is how friends should be. Every group needs a mother to the bunch. The friend who tells you when something is a bad idea or reminds you to study – that isn't pessimism, it's called being responsible. But then there's that person who finds the dark side to every opinion, every event. This is the person who will hold a grudge against you for being busy or not receiving a call that one time last month. They're the ones who will force you to pick sides in a fight that doesn't concern you at all and really, you're better off without that kind of childishness.

Over-intrusiveness
However close you may be to your group of bffs, there's something that every person needs—space. If they fail to understand why you sometimes need to be alone, or why you cannot share a particular secret with them, don't blame yourself. If they read your messages behind your back and talk to people pretending to be you, call the police. You'll be surprised to know how often that happens.

Not Sticking Up For You
This needs a little elaboration. Obviously, when one of your friends finds love, they're going to need privacy. The newly acquired girl/boyfriend is going to take precedence over other people and failing to understand that would probably make you the weird one. But then they will want to read their conversations with you, ask to be included in every secret or problem you share with your friend, object to any kind of one-on-one friend time and throw a tantrum over the most harmless of friendly affectionate displays. What your friend's other half does is irrelevant, but when your friend condones this kind of behavior and allows for you to be put down by the person they're involved with, it's time to leave the scene and let the crazies be.

It's redundant to say “Don't be friends with people who treat you wrong or backbite about you” because no one chooses to do that consciously. It's really the subtle flaws which annoy us on a daily basis that tend to work their poison more. But if their presence makes it worthwhile to tolerate their little imperfections, and if they tolerate yours, I'd say you've found a friend worth sticking around for.