Ravi Speaks:-Toxic Friend More Harmful Than A Foe

One never visualizes the situations where he has to see certain things that he might not have even perceived in his wildest thoughts. People whom you consider to be your close ones show their reality eventually, and you are left high and dry to believe the unbelievable. The first question that might come to your mind would be, “What 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 older than me by around four years but made me believe I was his nearest and dearest one. But unfortunately, this was just a temporary phase.
He demonstrated to me that he was good and caring until it was good and convenient for him. But frequently, 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. His level of obnoxious thinking went even as far as 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 charlatans put you down and expect you to get them or channel the existence of right out of you for their benefit. With toxic companions like these, who needs additional adversaries?
Now let me open. In my profession, I had one of my dearest friends whom I knew from my school days. He was my immediate boss for quite some years. He was sitting in the GM chair. Initially; we were like very good chums and did our office and personal obligations very well with no feeling of disparity. He, as my immediate boss, did not give me the impression that he would even consider a fraction of the bad things that were happening to me and my family. I gave my 100% to his orders/suggestions and started acting in the best possible manner. I considered myself to be the luckiest; I was given the option of picking up items. Suddenly, with time, I realized that I had picked up many things that had made me efficient and confident while serving the company from that side.
Now came a time when, because he was close to the CEO, he was promoted to GM and proved to be a very smart guy—as is customary in the private sector. I was reporting to him directly in the capacity of SM, and that way I had many such official issues to be settled with him during the working hours. I found him here several times with a different personality. 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 got the chance to be even closer to him. It was during these closer moments that I could find the farthest distances in our friendship. He had taken his bossism too far, and that was reflected many times in his statement. Ours being a sales job, we had to face the occasions when the targets were falling short or were not being met at all. In such a segment, he used to lose his cool easily.
He used to play a brain game with me on many matters and would be happier to see me as the loser. I recall him calling me out in front of a large group of senior managers and telling me to do the presentation, especially when the sales picture was at its lowest ebb. I knew I had to face the evaluators’ harsh criticism at the time, but there was no other option. He would 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 feel it very much since I knew his capabilities as well. 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 top-level management, 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-level management would love to extend every kind of help 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 on 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 a 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 our retirement.
Just as companionships are significant all over, and they have positive things to add to all parts of your life, 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 over 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 lot of participants proved to counter-productive and the total impact proved too mean and oppressive.
In the initial phase, I was all out for him and his suggestions but slowly and steadily I realized he had taken 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 attribute 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 left nothing short of creating all hardships for me and finally I neglected him for good. That was the only way left for me to reach back on track with all self-protection and satisfaction kept.
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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