I apologize in advance if posts like this are not welcome here.
I have a friend circle of 6 guys including me. Before some of us got jobs, we used to play games everyday, hang out together if we are in town. Everyone was chill, enjoyed games more and mostly respected each other to some degree.
After getting jobs we still made time to play and hang out, but not as frequently. I only get time to play games with them on the weekends as my job is in a different time zone. But I still call or text them nearly everyday. Some of them play every single day (kind of addicted to GTA online and valorant for some reason).
But in the last couple of months I have noticed a shift in their behavior. Talking behind each others backs and always getting offended for the silliest of things. This is especially true for those who continued to mindlessly play every single day (they work on the same startup company as well).
I always knew that there was one guy among us who would unnecessarily run his mouth. But I always thought of it as his way of having fun. Mybe it was his way of feeling included. Idk. So I never took any of his ramblings to heart. But everything hits differently now, in a bad way. Every conversation feels like I’m walking on eggshells. Now the others are also starting to become like him.
It’s not just me who thought this way. Another guy who have been besties for a long time with the blabbermouth guy personally called me and told that the whole group feels like it’s infected by something and shared thoughts similar to mine.
I want to call it out, but i’m not sure how to do that in a thoughtful way. I just want them to reflect on themselves, not that I have any right to say that. I’m not afraid of offending them as it’s almost impossible to say anything meaningful without doing so.
Thank you for reading. I hope you have a wonderful day.
Sounds like your circle is growing apart. It happens. In this particular case, some personalities have grown enough to not be compatible with some of the others.
I’m not good at situations like these, so I don’t really have a solution for you, other than accepting the fact that your circle of six will soon no longer be six. Stick to the ones who are still reasonable, and with time the toxic ones will either remain so among themselves or will push away the part of the group that is more in line with how you’re perceiving the social dynamic.
Take 1: If I understand correctly, several of them work for the same startup. Frankly, those places are KNOWN to be toxic hellholes because they tend to be run by adulation-seeking narcissists from an upper middle class (entitled) background. Shit rolls downhill and all and your friends may just be picking it up subconsciously and don’t have the ability to really manage the emotions that this is causing. In a phrase: you might end up feeling sorry for them.
Take 2: Are you recently out of high school or recently out of college? Few people really remain friends after this because they get pulled into different directions and their lives change. This causes things to fall apart, but it is nobody’s fault.
Take 3: These people have always been toxic. You didn’t notice it before or didn’t think it was a big deal. Now you notice it and think it is a big deal.
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2 of the guys work for the same startup. One of them is the main ‘problem guy’. This guy quickly embodies the traits of the crowd he spends the most time with. So It’s possible that take 1 is the case.
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All of us are out of college. We are not too far apart, so we are able to meet up easily if we want to (for now).
On a different note- The start of this friend cricle was centered around gaming. I think some people might have different rules (subconciously) for deciding if a person belongs to a certain group. Maybe… just maybe the fact that I’m not able to play games with them regularly made him (the problem guy) subconsciously think that I’m not part of the group anymore. Especially since I do not adhere to the core values (gaming everyday). It’s possible that has caused a seperation in the group. I think I’m overthinking this. So I’ll leave it at that.
- Take 3 seems like the most possible. I had noticed some signs way back. Now it is way more fleshed out.
Now that I look at it, the ‘toxic’ nature may be a sum of all of the above mentioned takes.
Nearly every “startup” I’ve been at was pretty toxic.
From the CEO who bragged about working 100+ hours, to the brown nosers who tried to impressed the company by sniping coworkers and creating cliques.
I’m glad you said “nearly”, because indeed I worked only in one startup and it wasn’t toxic, maybe because we we just marginally successful and there were like 10–15 people at most, half of them being the same ones during the whole lifetime of about three years our startup existed. Also we were as far away from the Silicon Valley as it can get, so that may also be a factor
far away from Silicon Valley
That helps a lot. If the CEO mixes in those circles, the only way for the CEO to survive (i.e. be taken seriously by their CEO peers) is to bump their salary significantly and develop some kind of rallying ethos to separate them from other startups. It turns into a heavy peacocking game where the only way to survive is to flex the hardest.
Startup CEO’s can very quickly divorce themselves from their worker peers just by trying to survive in the SV CEO peer circle.
I am at one and it’s incredibly toxic. I got diagnosed with generalized anxiety after a year here and I regularly have mood swings. But the money is good and I work from home, so I’ve got that going for me.
Glad you got diagnosed. There’s a ton of bad management in startups. Especially stay away from managers that grew up in toxic shops.
I’ve always been a strong employee. People get good at pushing buttons. Spent more time in a divorce therapy talking about a manager than the personal issues.
Realized for every boundary problem I had, there were n alienated people on my team that really got hurt hard. Sr. Management fixed the issue
Be good at taking breaks. Be good at looking for new roles before you need them.
Often; the money side that seems big to employees is new house rich. If you aren’t happy, it’s not worth it.
Be honest and open about it. Like next time he does it just say like that it’s not cool. If people see the problem guy getting called out then they’ll reflect on themselves.
If people see the problem guy getting called out then they’ll reflect on themselves.
Or they won’t and at least you will know it is time to move on,
And what?
Hoping people will change is a fools game. If a group of people have turned into people you don’t want to be around anymore and you have expressed the issues to them and they do not see the problem or did not attempt to change.
Cut you losses.
Find people whose values and outlook you do agree with and invest time creating new friendships and connections.
There isn’t any easy way to approach this. I have a little* experience with this.
You’re going to have to talk to the whole group. Whether it’s one on one, the entire group, or a smaller group with the offending party (or parties) excluded. Then as a group you are going to have to deal with the individual(s) with the solution.
Solutions can be ejecting the problem person(s) from the group, breaking up of the group, you leaving the group and having to establish a new group of friends and keeping contact with a couple of these people (there are probably more solutions but these are some examples).
What you CAN’T do is sweep it under the rug as it will make the group more toxic and harder to repair any damage that has occurred leading to more lost friendships. The SOONER this is dealt with the better.
Hope you get everything sorted.
The problem person has become an integral part of the group. Ejecting him would be very difficult as 3 of the other guys have sort of become like him and will be in support of him.
To the problem person, its always “us” vs “them” or “us” vs “another person”. I have tried talking to him in person, but he always seems to dismiss logical solutions to arguments. Changes topics quickly and He always has to find someone to take his side, so that he wins.
I know for a fact that he can be a decent guy when he is with a group of decent people. But it’s always the negative traits of the group that he ultimately tries to embody (unknowingly). I don’t want to paint him as a villain or anything, it’s just something I’ve observed over the years. Then again I may be wrong.
Like you mentioned, I definitely won’t sweep it under the carpet. It’s never a solution.
Then my solution is to call him out for being shitty in front of as many people as you can. Point out WHY the behaviour is shitty. If they persist, and the others follow the leader like drones, then it might just be time to cut them out of your life.
You aren’t required to keep friends. At all.
I had someone I called a friend SA me. I cut them out of my life, and told people we had in common what happened and that I would no longer be associating and not to be invited to events where they were. I ended up losing that group of friends over it as they choose the person that committed several acts of SA against me.
You painting him as the villain only means adopting his toxic behavior.
He’s your friend. Be very wary of this thread’s overall advice, which mostly seems to be “determine whom to ostracize and then do it”.
Any solution of the form “identify the toxic people and get rid of them” is itself toxic. That’s not how community works.
Addressing this issue with the offending parties absent is called “gossip” and it is, itself, a toxic social action.
Address it with the people — sorry with the friends — in question.
Yes and no. It’s necessary for interventions and sometimes to determine if someone is being dishonest. There’s a difference between checking a fact with someone else or raising your concerns to a third party about actually problematic behavior and enjoying the discussion and critique of someone else as a bonding activity with another person.
We would have waited a lot longer to get my grandmother tested for Alzheimer’s, if we hadn’t been able to compare our experiences of her, for example.
Next time you’re all together, and every time that guy says something off putting, you should say something in response in front of the whole group. It doesn’t need to be mean, or condescending, or even conflictual. You can make it a question (always open ended!), something along the lines of, “How does talking shit about people serve you?,” “It’s pretty weak to talk shit about someone behind their back. What are you afraid of that you won’t say it to them directly?,” or deflect with humor, “This was maybe funny the first 5 times you said it.” If one of the other guys says something, you could say, “Did Johnny tell you to say that?”, or “Did you learn to talk like that from Johnny?”
You should absolutely make it implied through persistent comments like this that you are observing a problem with how they act. It sounds like the other guys are following the leader, so try becoming the leader and model the behaviors you value.
Also though, you live in a different time zone now, and people change over time. It might also just be time to put more distance between yourself and those guys and find some new friends.
