It’s inevitable for people to be subtly influenced by those around them. It’s known as the “chameleon effect,” and it’s why friend groups often share mannerisms and mirror each other’s emotions. It’s usually an unconscious behavior rather than an intentional one, and it serves to create a tribe-like unity.
This is all well and good until the habits you start adopting are toxic ones; those that you always disliked, but now seem to be embodying. When these signs appear, they’re bright red flags telling you that it’s time to cut ties and move on.
1. You’re suddenly echoing perspectives that you don’t honestly agree with.
This toxic friend of yours might be cool most of the time, but has some ideas or perspectives that you disagree with. In fact, they might say things that are upsetting or offensive to you, like making bigoted or racist jokes or implying that people of the opposite gender are inferior beings. Perhaps you’ve always brushed their perspectives off or explained them away as differences in culture or social echelons.
Except that now, you’ve started to make similar comments or jokes on occasion, even though you don’t actually believe what you’re saying. If this is the case, it’s likely that you aren’t just disappointed in yourself for saying these things, but you’re worried about how people you care about and respect deeply would feel about you if they found out what you’ve been saying.
2. You’ve started being lax with promises.
If you’ve always been a person of high moral standards and integrity, then you’ve likely tried to keep your word as often as you can. Basically, if you had to break a promise or a commitment to someone, it was for a damned good reason.
Perhaps this friend of yours, however, makes tons of promises whenever it benefits them to do so, but only keeps their word when it’s convenient to them. And over time, rather than being stringent about keeping your commitments, you discover that you’re only keeping the ones you want to do, and finding excuses to break those you don’t.
3. You’re emulating their poor behavior towards their partner.
It’s a sad truth that a lot of people treat their partners quite shamefully. Some humiliate their spouses under the guise of making “jokes,” while others disrespect them or trash-talk them when they aren’t around. If your friend does these things on a regular basis, you may find that some of their habits have seeped into your own life.
This could take the form of making a disrespectful or dismissive comment when your partner says something, or making subtly disparaging comments when you’re hanging out with your friend.
Whether your partner has called you out on this or you suddenly realize what you’re doing, it’s a powerful wake-up call that this isn’t okay, and you need to distance yourself from this individual.
4. You’re losing empathy and becoming more callous.
Perhaps you’ve always had a lot of compassion and empathy for others, but this friend of yours has not. In fact, they seem to enjoy schadenfreude whenever it rears its head, and show a shocking or even disturbing amount of disregard for suffering when they come across it.
If you’ve been spending a lot of time with this person, you may discover that some of their callousness has rubbed off on you. Instead of responding to horrifying imagery with anger or sorrow, you’re suddenly cracking dark jokes. Or worse, you feel absolutely nothing and move on to whatever is more entertaining. Hopefully, you have enough self-awareness and emotion left to realize how bad this is, so you can cut and run immediately.
5. You’ve adopted speech patterns you detest.
Maybe your partner jokes about how you sound like said friend when the two of you are having a conversation. Or you hear a recording of yourself and realize that you don’t like the way you sound. Perhaps you’ve started peppering your speech with the filler words or sound effects that you’ve always hated, as well as the type of profanity that used to make you cringe. If so, it’s likely a sobering revelation.
If you’ve always found this friend’s speaking habits off-putting, you may feel a wave of self-loathing when you discover that you sound much more like them than you ever wanted to. While this might not be a friendship deal breaker for everyone, if it’s bothering you enough, you may want to minimize contact for a while so you can readjust your speech without external influence.
6. Your habits are starting to mirror theirs.
I saw this type of behavior in a guy I knew several years ago. He got a new flatmate with whom he became instant friends, and when I went over to their place for a visit after a few months, my friend seemed to have transformed into a clone of this new guy. Whereas he used to come work out with me regularly and took a fair bit of pride in his appearance, he was now a disheveled couch potato who smelled like he hadn’t showered in weeks.
It’s normal for people to adopt some of their friends’ traits and behaviors, but this is only a good thing if these mirrored behaviors are beneficial ones. If the habits you’re adopting are damaging your health and causing you to develop boils, that’s a huge sign that you need to break off this friendship as quickly as you can.
7. You’ve taken to pushing boundaries the same way they do.
Perhaps this friend is the type who intentionally pushes or oversteps boundaries because they find it funny to do so. They like to be the alpha creature in any given scenario, and taking liberties with other people’s limits is a way for them to show that they’ll do whatever they want, and that nobody can stop them without creating a conflict that they may not be prepared to follow through with.
If you’ve been spending a lot of time with them, you might start pushing boundaries like this by calling your partner or friend by the nickname they’ve stated that they hate, or doing little things that you know are upsetting or seen as disrespectful. Even though these things might seem small, they’re toxic behaviors that you’ve never done before. Furthermore, you probably can’t explain why you’re doing it now.
If you realize you’re behaving this way, you need to remove this person from your life before your mirrored habits ruin your other relationships permanently.
8. You find that you’re being more physically aggressive or combative.
If this friend of yours tends to be physically combative — often brushed off as just being “playful” — you might have matched their energy on several occasions. For example, if they slap your arm when talking, you might slap back. Or if they throw something at you when irritated, you’ll do the same. Only now, perhaps you’re finding that behavior has extended past your interactions with them and is manifesting in your other relationships.
The dynamic you have with this particular friend may work for the two of you, but it might be very much not okay with others in your friend circle, including family members and your partner or spouse.
If any of them have confronted you about this or told you that you’re being abusive, you may have initially tried to brush it off, only to realize you’re behaving the same way this other person does… and if you keep them in your life, you may absorb more of their toxic habits over time.
Final thoughts…
It’s never fun (or comfortable) to cut ties with a friend, especially one you’ve been close to for a long time. But if it turns out that their toxic habits are brushing off on you or influencing you in a manner that you definitely do not want, that’s a sign that it’s time to cut ties and distance yourself accordingly.
If you continue to spend time with this person, you risk them continuing to influence you negatively until you become a version of yourself that you barely recognize, and whom your loved ones don’t want around anymore.
