7 Things Only Fake Friends Do

What makes a great friendship? Some would say it’s having shared interests or a similar sense of humor, while others would argue it’s loyalty and dependability. Some want a friend who’s fun, adventurous, and exciting, while others would rather be with someone supportive, empathetic, and good at listening. Either way, like with any other kind of relationship, all friendships need honesty, trust, care, and mutual respect to thrive and survive. But when it comes to fake friendships, you’ll notice that all of these things are sorely missing.
Fake friends are people who act like they’re your friend when really, they’re anything but. They only care about you for superficial reasons (like your popularity or your money) and are never there for you when you need them the most. Selfish, manipulative, and disingenuous, they’re solely interested in what you can do for them and couldn’t care less about you as a person.
So, are you wondering if you have a fake friend in your life right now and how you can spot them? Do you want to make sure that the people closest to you are friends with you for all the right reasons? Well, here are 7 things that only a fake friend would do:
1. Talk about you behind your back.
First and foremost, a true friend would never gossip about you behind your back and spread all your secrets to everyone. No matter how juicy the rumor would be or how popular it would make them, they would never jeopardize your friendship or humiliate you like that by stabbing you in the back. And while fake friends talk trash about you and spread rumors about you when you’re not looking, someone who really cares about you would never stoop so low as to betray your trust like that (Motion, Heath, & Leitch, 2015).
2. Throw you under the bus
When the going gets tough, fake friends are willing to just throw you under the bus and pin the blame all on you if it means getting to save their own skin. They don’t vouch for you, they don’t take your side, and they certainly don’t stick up for you when someone is hurting or belittling you in some way (Walton & Hassreiter, 2015). They will just stand idly by when you’re being harassed (be it verbally or emotionally) because the truth is, they don’t think you or your friendship is worth putting themselves at risk for.
3. Constantly cancel on you
Have you ever spent weeks planning on a trip, only for your friends to cancel on you at the last minute? Was there ever something you were looking forward to doing with them, but they never even bother to show up? No matter how many times you keep reminding them about it or making them promise you they’ll come, your so-called “friends” never keep their word! Flaky and indecisive, you’ve had to learn the hard way time and time again that you can’t ever count on them to come through for you.
4. Exclude you from their plans
Another way you can tell when someone doesn’t care about you as much as you do about them is if they’re always excluding you from things (Bowker, 2011). Fake friends will conveniently “forget” to invite you and leave you out of everything they do. Even if you go out of your way to invite them or tell them about your plans, they just don’t do the same for you because, the harsh truth is, they don’t really consider you a friend.
5. Call just to ask you for favors
“Oh, hey! Listen, I know we haven’t talked in a while, but I need a really big favor. Do you think you could help me, pleaaase?” Does this sound familiar to you? If you have a friend in your life who only ever calls you up or gets in touch with you to ask for your help, then they’re probably a fake friend. Fake friends think it’s okay to ghost you for weeks, only to come back and ask you for a favor. They don’t even bother to ask how you’re doing because, really, they’re just using you to fix their problems. And the moment you give them what they want, poof! They’re out of your life once more.
6. Give you back-handed compliments
A back-handed compliment is something fake friends do to subtly put you down by making it sound like praise. They might say things like, “You did surprisingly well”, “That was better than I expected from you,” or “You look so much better than you usually do” as a way of criticizing you without being too obvious about it. This kind of thinly-veiled hostility shows that they are jealous of you and that they judge you more harshly than they want to let on. They don’t really want to compliment you or say something nice about you because what they really want to do is take a dig at you and pass it off as a bit of “light-hearted teasing between friends.” Yeah, right.
7. Only talk about themselves
While it’s certainly true that most of us do love to talk about ourselves, once we come to care for someone, it’s only natural that we’d want to know how they’re doing as well. We check in on them, get to know them better, and listen to all the thoughts and feelings they want to share. But in a fake friendship, communication is largely one-sided (Hocutt, 2007). Self-absorbed and inconsiderate, fake friends will go on and on about themselves without ever once letting you get in a word of your own. All they want to talk about is themselves, their problems, their opinions, their plans, and whatever else is going on in their own lives. They don’t care much about you or what you have to say, and they don’t pay attention to any topic that doesn’t involve them.
So, did anyone in particular come to mind while you were reading this list? Have you ever been in a fake friendship or fallen prey to fake friends before?
While it may be a painful truth to swallow when the people we once considered our close friends turn out to be nothing more than users and phonies who only want to take advantage of us, it hurts even more to keep denying ourselves the truth and stay with someone who’s no good for us. So for the sake of you and your mental health, watch out for fake friends and cut them off from your life before it’s too late. Be mindful of these 7 things that only fake friends do and you’ll have more room in your life for happy, loving, and healthy relationships with people who truly care about you.
References:
- Motion, J., Heath, R. L., & Leitch, S. (2015). Social media and public relations: Fake friends and powerful publics. Routledge.
- Walton, M., & Hassreiter, S. (2015). Real friends and fake friends: Research relationships in an era of global social media. In Ethical Quandaries in Social Research.. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council.
- Bowker, J. C. (2011). Examining two types of best friendship dissolution during early adolescence. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 31(5), 656-670.
- Hocutt, M. A. (2007). Relationship dissolution model: antecedents of relationship commitment and the likelihood of dissolving a relationship. International Journal of service industry management.
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