I’m all for female friendships. I love hanging out with girls, these are way wayyy better than guy friendships.

But this post is about those girl best friends who are secretly not your best friends: in reality, they’re energy vampires.

I had this girl who I’ve been calling my best friend since 7-8 years. I’ve known her more than half my life- we went to the same school and we’re together in college too. She was the one I’ve been relying on since forever.

Till a few days ago I realised something. I’ve been holding on to her just because of our lengthy friendship and because we’ve shared so many memories. Not because of who she is.

Because every day, she’s been negging at me about every single thing. She comments on what I wear to uni. If I make new friends she calls me desperate. Telling me my friendships with other people mean nothing. She even has negative comments about my hair, the way I talk, everything I do, whoever I talk to. She made fun of me when I had a crush, she’s super judgemental. She makes me undermine myself and makes me self conscious.

In the past, since I had no self respect or boundaries, every time we sat down to eat lunch I would automatically pay for her as if I was her mom or something and she wouldn’t even offer to pay back. We’re talking about years of money here (please, tell me I’ve been dumb). In uni I would offer pick AND drop service to her every single day. She barely returned the favour, and only when I forced her to later. I am FUMING while writing this, both at myself and at her. I wish I hadn’t been such an idiot.

She would constantly judge every single person around us. That negativity went into me too, I would think bad about every person in front of us, slut shame girls, think bad about everyone, forever gossiping. The only reason she would celebrate my birthday is because I celebrated hers (and I went way out of my way than her).

Now that I finally have gathered some boundaries and sense of worth (thanks FDS), I suddenly stopped doing her these favours. I didn’t pick her and take her to uni one day. She reacted as if I’m doing something bad to her. As if all those years of service I’ve been doing to her don’t matter. Fuck you, honestly. I cut her off, I don’t talk to her anymore. My other friends are enough.

And the day I stopped talking to her- I felt SO FREE. Like I could do anything and not get judged for it, I won’t be getting any comments about my appearance or my actions anymore. I am free to do as I please. I am trying hard to keep a positive mindset and not judge people as much as I used to do with her. And honestly, although it feels awkward at times since we go to the same uni and are classmates, when I think about how her opinion doesn’t matter anymore- I feel so free!

So the moral of the story is: your friends make you into who you are. Choose your company wisely, and cut off all the toxic people in your life. You’ll never feel so free!