Ravi Speaks:
A TOXIC FRIEND IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN AN ENEMY.
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| A TOXIC FRIEND IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN AN ENEMY. |
The first question which might come to your mind would be what after all is so ditching that I have been scribbling down the impossible lines here. It is all about my so-called friend who no doubt was elder to me by around four years but made me believe to be his nearest and dearest one. But unfortunately, this all was just a temporary phase.
Till the time it was good and convenient for him he showed to me that he was good and caring also. But on many occasions, he proved to be the most selfish creature I had seen. This was confirmed through his acts-which proved his hollow relationship with me from time to time. At times his level of obnoxious thinking went even up to calling me ‘a perverted brain’.
With me the more established I got with my so-called friend;the relationship turned out to be more harmful. “He was continuously putting me down. Regardless of whether it was out in the open and self-evident, or an unpretentious punch, it was depleting.”
Such deceptive characters put you down and anticipate that you should get them, or channel the existence right out of you for their benefit. With poisonous companions like these, who needs the additional adversaries?
Now let me open. In my profession, I had one of my dearest friends whom I knew from my school days. He happened to be my immediate boss for quite some years. He was holding the chair of GM. Initially, we were like very good chums and did our office as well as personal obligations very well without any feeling of disparity. He being my immediate boss did not give me initially any such feeling that he would even think a fraction of adverse things happening upon me and my family. I decided to give my 100% to his orders/suggestions and started acting in the best possible manner. I thought myself to be luckiest that I was given this choice to pick up appropriate stuff. Suddenly with time, I realized that I had picked up many things which had made me efficient as well as confident while serving the company from that side.
Now a time phase came when he being very close to the CEO got a sudden jump to the post of GM and proved that way a very smart guy-as it normally happened in the private sector. I was reporting to him directly in the capacity of SM and that way had many such official issues to be settled with him during the working hours. It was here I found him many times a changed character. Remaining professional on our respective parts was naturally maintained initially but later after he got the so-called power into his head-he failed to maintain that defined demarcation which is essential and foremost.
While we used to go on tour for three to four days together, I could get the chance to be even closer to him. It was during these closer moments I could find the farthest distances in our friendship. He had taken his bossism to his head and that was reflected many times in his statement. Ours being a sales job-we had to face the occasions when the targets were either falling short or were not at all being met. In such a segment he used to lose his cool very easily.
He used to play a brain game with me on many matters and finally would be happier to see me as the loser. I remember he would invariably call me out of a whole lot of senior Managers and tell me to do the presentation especially at times when the sales picture would be at the lowest ebb. I knew that time that I had to face the tough time from the evaluators but then I had no other way out. He would very openly tell me in front of my subordinates that I was not a competent person to hold the post which I had and compare me with the losing flocks around. I would on the other hand feel it very much since I knew his capabilities also. I started realizing that he would extract some sort of satisfaction and happiness if people like me would be reprimanded and even threatened for our low performance.
Ideally, at the top-level management, the maturity lies in taking the whole low profile performance with a cool approach and trying to analyze the basic shortfalls coming our way. Then the top matured management would love to extend every possible help in whatsoever form so that we come out of the situation with flying colors.
I observed a sort of sadistic mentality in my so-called friend. There have been many occasions where the situation was a happy one to be celebrated but he would make such occasions very dull in which he was an expert. I am reminded of my silver jubilee celebration-where I had completed my 25 years with the company and normally all the participants would celebrate the same with a lot of fervor and happiness. Such occasions would inspire the rest of the younger colleagues to put in even more effort so that they too would reach the milestone of 25 years completion. This great man officiating as the GM created such a scene in the morning hours itself that all the people in the meeting got horrified and the real taste of celebrating the occasion went for a six. If you try to analyze the reason you would find none as the solid reason to get so much perturbed-but then the sadistic mentality cannot be ruled out.
What Is Toxic?
“A companionship is between two friends,” says a great writer- “There must be balance in a companionship for it to be solid – – not one individual whose necessities get addressed and another whose requirements are disregarded.”
Friendships saturate our lives, affecting our professions, relationships, families, kids, wellbeing, and surprisingly our retirement.
Just as companionships are significant all over, and they have positive things to add to all parts of your life at the same time they can likewise be harmful in any of these areas too.
A poisonous friendship is unsupportive, depleting, unrewarding, smothering, unacceptable, and frequently inconsistent.
In my case with that gentleman-“Harmful companions worry you, use you, are temperamental, are excessively exhausting, and give nothing back,”
This situation of his mental maturity was proven on more than one occasion where he was simply proven as the toxic -friend. He did it in one of the final meetings-where I had literally to say goodbye to all my colleagues who had spent so many years under my supervision-he outrightly acted as a real dictator trying to prove himself as the judge, the jury, and the executioner-neglecting the rest of the managerial breed which was representing the meeting with me. Alas in the closing hours of the meeting he realized that his act of thumping the supremacy on a whole lot of participants proved to be counter-productive and the total impact proved to be mean and oppressive.
In the initial phase, I was all out for him and his suggestions but slowly and steadily I realized that he had started taking the promotions to his head and that phase was the one where even the higher authorities should have gauged or perceived the harmfulness coming out of such a thoughtful process in the head of a senior managerial cadre. He probably won’t be a harmful companion to other people as he proved towards me.
One of the attributes of a harmful fellowship is that the old buddy feels he can’t remove himself from the relationship. It is not true. I for one realized that he did not leave anything short of creating all possible hardships for me and finally I decided to neglect him for good. That was the only way left for me to reach back on track with all self-protection and satisfaction retained.
Finally, the association with such people also gives a very good lesson when you realize that their false friendship was even more dangerous than the actual enemy.
Therefore a Toxic friend is proved more a foe and not at all a friend anymore.
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