Relationship brings out the worst in me

Research shows that friendship helps us maintain mental and physical health: improves immunity, maintains normal blood pressure, reduces the risk of dementia in old age and even the risk of sudden death. But even with the best of friends, communication can suddenly become nauseatingly tense. Journalist Karlin Flora described the different types of toxic relationships and explained where problems with friends come from and why it's not always bad. T&P publishes a translation of her article for Aeon.

Remember the last time you sat opposite your best friend and felt that she knows you very well and, most importantly, truly understands you. Perhaps you have felt that she awakens the best qualities in you, in her presence you succeed in the most sensible remarks and the most witty jokes. She inspired you. She always listened carefully, found hidden patterns in your behavior, and then carefully suggested how you can change everything for the better. You loved to gossip about common acquaintances, from time to time you indulged in memories of joint adventures. You willingly delved into your favorite topics, exchanged half-hints that were barely understandable to others, and easily deciphered meaningful euphemisms in each other's speech. Perhaps you even know the pleasant feeling of admiration for your girlfriend, which was accompanied by a sense of pride from the realization of your similarity with her. The person you had a very high opinion of, appreciated you mutually - of course, this brought a feeling of deep satisfaction and happiness, literally energized you.

Such friendship fills us with spiritual strength, shapes our personality, and sometimes can even change our destiny. These relationships have repeatedly been under the microscope of social scientists - thus it turned out that they help us maintain mental and physical health: good friends improve immunity, stimulate creativity, maintain normal blood pressure, reduce the risk of developing dementia in old age and even the risk of sudden of death. So if you feel that you cannot live without friends, not only sentimentality speaks in you, but also common sense.

But even the deepest and kindest friendship, like almost any human relationship, can be overshadowed by conflicts, resentments and tensions. Charm can irretrievably disappear from it, it can even completely disappear for some sad reason or for no reason at all. But there are also not-so-useful types of friendship: sometimes in a relationship that began on a positive note, conflict grows every day, and in critical cases, friendship can be initially painful, toxic. Good friends make us happy, but even they demand a lot in return. If you look closely, friendship is a much more confusing and ambiguous type of relationship than is commonly thought.

For the first time, harsh reality cast a shadow over the cloudless concept of friendship, when sociologists became convinced that friendly sympathy is mutual only in half of the cases. This information is shocking to many: the same studies claim that we tend to deliberately believe that our friends almost always share our feelings. Can you guess who from your list of friends would not add you to a similar list?

One reason for the imbalance is that friendships are often socially desirable: a study of teenagers shows that people who want to be friends with popular people are often selective (thus upsetting the balance of reciprocity). One recent piece of evidence is an article by Stephen Strugatz in The New York Times published in 2012. According to his observations, our Facebook friends, on average, always have more friends than we do ourselves. They also say that friendship is a salvation from a world obsessed with updating statuses. Here is your salvation!

Scientists also identify an ambivalent kind of friendship — it is characterized by mutual dependence and conflicts. If you have such a friend in your life, he simultaneously evokes both positive and negative feelings in you. For example, when you see his name on the smartphone screen, you will think twice before answering the call. This type of relationship is very common. Each of us has a network of socially important contacts, and, according to statistics, there are about 50% of ambivalent characters in it. In fairness, it’s worth saying that these are most often family members, and not friends (after all, you can’t get rid of relatives so easily). Nevertheless, this is another stone in the garden of the "spotless" concept of friendship.

But even those friends whom you boldly call faithful, reliable and interesting people can darken your life if at least one less attractive one is added to these qualities. We know very well from sociological research that a depressed friend is more likely to make you share his depression, an obese friend is more likely to gain weight, and with friends who smoke or drink a lot, you will drink and smoke more.

In some cases, "good" friends develop goals, habits, or values ​​that are inconsistent with ours. Of course, these people didn't do us any harm. But over time, they cease to be part of the group that defines our social identity and / or helps us solve pressing problems. Staying with them, we swim against the current.

In addition to all the unfortunate effects of conflicting ambivalent friendships, there is also a real harm to our health. In 2003, scientists Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University and Bert Uchino of the University of Utah conducted a collaborative study in which participants were asked to wear a portable blood pressure monitor and record their interactions with people throughout the day. The readings of the devices claimed that blood pressure during communication with ambivalent friends was higher than during truly friendly and even openly hostile communication. This is probably due to the fact that such relationships are largely unpredictable, and therefore force us to be on the alert all the time: "Is Jane going to ruin everyone's Christmas Eve again?" In addition, ambivalent relationships are associated with such unpleasant phenomena as impaired reactivity of the cardiovascular system, premature cellular aging, low levels of stress resistance, and a general deterioration in well-being.

However, in one case, researchers of ambivalent friendship came up with unexpected results: it turned out that it has a positive effect on the work process. As scientists have found, ambivalent colleagues tend to put themselves in the place of another more often than usual, in part because there is always a place for uncertainty in such relationships and a person tries to understand what they really are. In addition, ambivalent friendships add insecurity, which in turn forces people to work harder to establish themselves in their position.

Pseudo-friends, or friend-enemies, is another kind of conflicting relationship between people. But in this case, contrasting feelings are neatly layered on top of each other: friendliness over rivalry or hostility, in contrast to the ambivalent connection with her explosive cocktail of love, hatred, irritation, pity, affection, disgust, tenderness and a couple more unpredictable ingredients. Many of us know firsthand the powerful motivating power that comes with having such a friend-foe in the office, not to mention romantic or parent-child relationships in which this power can become destructive.

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and so are unhappy friendships: there are countless reasons why a friend might be "unfavorable" to you. A couple of American researchers delved into this topic - Susan Heitler, a clinical psychologist from Denver, and Sharon Livingston, a psychologist and marketing consultant from New York. Here are the typical signs of "unfavorable" friendships that they were able to find: a bad friend makes you feel competitive with other friends; she talks about herself much more often than you; she allows herself to criticize you from above, but immediately becomes defensive if you criticize her in response; during communication, you get the feeling that you are walking on thin ice, because at any moment you can provoke an outburst of her anger or disapproval; the relationship is dominated by the so-called emotional swing: today she can be sympathetic and friendly, but the next day she pulls away and behaves as if you barely know each other.

In 2014, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh found an interesting correlation while studying the social lives of healthy women over 50. It turned out that if the volume of negative episodes increased in their relationships with others, their risk of developing hypertension also increased. Negative social interactions - for example, overwhelming demands and criticism from others, disappointments, "exchange of pleasantries" - led to the fact that the appearance of hypertension in the subjects became 38% more likely. But in men, no connection was found between negative communication and high blood pressure. This is probably due to the fact that women in general are more concerned about relationships between people and are socially predisposed to pay more attention to them.

Negative communication also contributes to the development of inflammatory processes in the body - both in women and in men. Such data was obtained in the course of her research by Jessica Chiang, a researcher at the University of California (Los Angeles). According to her findings, accumulated social stressors, like real toxins, can cause physical harm to a person.

Those friendships that are destined to be the most painful of our lives often start on a positive note and only then turn into a nightmare. For example, a recent study among teenagers showed that people who had a friendship in the past were 4.3 times more likely to express mutual aggression on the Internet than just acquaintances. In other words, sociological statistics agree with Diane de Poitiers (favorite of the French King Henry II), who, back in the 16th century, stated: “To have a worthy enemy, choose a friend: he knows where to strike.”

Another slippery slope that friendship can take unexpectedly, was described by writer Robert Greene in his book 48 Laws of Power. Friendly help in finding a job, he warns, can lead to the fact that your relationship will gradually turn from good to harmful. This is due, in particular, to the peculiarities of the emotional reaction provoked by such serious favors.

Oddly enough, it is an act of your kindness that can throw a relationship out of balance. People want to feel that their success is deserved. A friendly favor can cause depressing thoughts: “What if I was chosen only because of my connections? Perhaps I am not worthy of this place at all? A condescending attitude, which is easy to suspect in a sympathetic friend, can seriously hurt self-esteem. The trauma will not immediately make itself felt, but gradually the relationship will become more rude frankness, there will be outbreaks of discontent and envy - and before you have time to understand something, the friendship will end.

“So, can directness and disinterested help destroy true friendship?” - you ask. On the one hand, this statement challenges the ideals of absolute openness and boundless generosity - the necessary attributes of sincere friendly affection. But on the other hand, it seems that here lies the key to why friendship can be both favorable, and ambivalent, and harmful, and even move from one state to another.

In his article "The Evolution of Mutual Altruism", published in 1971, evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers summed it up: "Each individual tends to show a tendency to both altruistic behavior and cheating." Cheating here is understood as the conscious intention to give at least a little less within the relationship or take at least a little more than our friend would take or give in a similar situation.

Trivers explains that evolution has made us clever swindlers. The complex mechanism of our psyche helps us detect those who cheat too openly and notice when we ourselves become too generous. Trivers writes:

“A rude crook will not reciprocate, and an altruist will receive absolutely nothing as a reward for his generosity ... Obviously, in this case, natural selection will be extremely negative towards the crook. Crafty cheating, on the other hand, involves a certain degree of reciprocity. This art is to give less than you receive - or, more precisely, to give less than the partner would give in the opposite situation.

Perhaps it is this balance between selfishness and altruism, which averages close to 50/50, that explains many of the other 50% rates that crop up in research on friendships. Let's remember: only 50% of friends have mutual sympathy, our social networks are 50% composed of ambivalent relationships. Even the average person is able to recognize a lie only 50% of the time. Evolution has made us shrewd enough not to let ourselves be fooled, but at the same time saved us from the inevitable torments that life in a world of absolute harsh truth would bring with it. So we were left with a loophole for compliments and white lies. Similarly, we are able to detect cheating on the part of friends, but still not too virtuoso, otherwise we would risk completely losing faith in people and any desire to maintain friendly relations. Nature has kept the perfect balance - 50/50.

Psychologist Jan Jaeger conducted a survey for his book When Friendship Hurts (2002) and found that 68% of respondents had experienced friend betrayal. Who are these heartless traitors? Why are there so many? However, with the figure of 68% - maybe not “them”, but “us”?

This frightening thought made me wonder: do we really make an effort to forgive small offenses? Express dissatisfaction before it builds up and forces you to end the relationship forever? Find time for a long-awaited meeting? Recognize the right of another person to disagree with us in everything? Are we really trying to give generously rather than keep score? Do we pressure our friends with our unjustified expectations? Is it true that we do our best to keep our friendship? Well, maybe most of our friends feel the same way about themselves. And if they're unfriendly or we're pulled apart by the natural course of life, maybe we should accept that and not label relationships as toxic that we just don't want to have anymore.

When a relationship ends at the initiative of a friend or they disappear from our lives without any explanation, it can be excruciatingly painful. And although it is no secret that the circle of social contacts narrows as we grow older, we still somehow believe that friendship is forever. The rupture of friendships forces us to rethink our own vision of life and our own personality, especially if a friend has been around for many years. As the fresh wound throbs with pain, we hasten to brand him or her as a traitor.

But sometimes we have to leave a friend to become ourselves. In her book Connecting in College (2016), sociology professor Janice McCabe states that breaking friendships early in life is an important part of personal development. We inevitably form our individuality and self-consciousness based on our environment: either we strive for certain people, or we repel ourselves from them.

While we all need to take a second look at our friendly behavior and acknowledge our responsibility for the conflicts that sometimes arise in a relationship, there are still aspects of friendship that are beyond our control. For example, a large number of mutual friends and acquaintances can become a cornerstone in an ambiguous situation. Let's say your friend has crossed the line, but you don't want to disturb your whole company with your conflict and therefore you don't announce publicly that you no longer want to do business with her. You just move away from her, but gently, so as not to cause an open confrontation and not force mutual acquaintances to choose each time which of you to invite to visit. In such cases, we remain chained to "bad" friends forever.

The laws that dictate to us with whom to remain close and whom to let go of ourselves sometimes remain a mystery even to ourselves. Think about it: do you have any acquaintances who are very nice to you, but whom you have not seen for several years? And vice versa: are there those in your closest circle with whom you actually never found a common language? Perhaps the first ones put you on the list of "bad" friends at this very moment.

Faced with toxic friendships, painful breakups and disappointments, we experience tremendous stress that can harm us not only psychologically, but even physically.

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