The other day we published 6 smart ways to deal with toxic people, which leaves an obvious question open: “Who exactly are toxic people?”
You can find them everywhere: at work, among your friends, in your relationships… And just like any kind of toxin, we should avoid or limit our exposure to them, because they can be truly destructive and exhausting.
Unfortunately, nobody comes with a warning label that says “Careful, I’m toxic”, but they do have traits that we can clearly spot.
1. The toxic arrogant.
There is a fine line between self-confidence and arrogance. Among other things, a confident person doesn’t try to tear down the people around them; an arrogant one does. Confidence inspires; arrogance intimidates. Arrogant people feel superior to others, which amounts to feeling that everyone else is inferior to them. The battle against this kind of person is lost before it starts: you can choose between listening to all their almighty wisdom or standing up to them and getting caught in an endless argument.
2. The toxic victim.
The perpetual victim is one of the most dangerous people you can have around you. The universe is constantly conspiring against them, and they never manage to see their share of the blame in the hundreds of problems they have every day: I had a bad childhood, my boss is unreasonable with me, my family doesn’t love me, people get tired of me. They never take ownership of their own lives, because, obviously, none of the problems they cause themselves is ever their fault.
3. The fool.
Yes, simply the fool. Although fools come in all shapes and sizes, to me a toxic fool is someone who makes the same mistakes over and over again and makes no effort to learn from them. They prefer to be happy in ignorance rather than face knowledge. They don’t want advice, and they have a philosophy of life that makes you wonder whether they should really be in therapy. They don’t ask for help, nor do they accept it, even when they know they have problems. But sooner or later, if you are close to that person, their problems will end up becoming your problems.
4. The envious.
The problem with envious people is that they don’t really want to get what you have; they want you to lose what you have. Your loss would be their happiness. So being close to these people means having an enemy constantly setting traps for you.
5. The toxic liar.
To be honest, almost everyone lies, but there are harmful chronic liars where you never know what to believe. You can never trust their word or their promises. They lie about themselves and they lie about others, so in other circles they will probably lie about you.
6. The toxic pessimist.
Negativity destroys relationships; it destroys energy, vitality and everything in its path. And there’s nothing spiritual about it; it’s scientific. If you are constantly exposed to negative comments, sooner or later you will end up having a bad day, and then a bad week.
7. The toxic greedy.
While ambition is good, because it means wanting to get ahead, extreme greed basically means wanting everything at any price. And it is these people, with their urge to have more and earn more at any price, who lead innocent people to stop being innocent one day and get into trouble.
8. The toxic gossip.
Gossips tend to see themselves as having an interesting, deep conversation about other people’s lives or actions. The problem is that they make no distinction between speculation and facts. They often get third parties into trouble by taking conversations out of context, which can lead to confrontations when nobody knows who said what. A gossip who knows what they are doing is as dangerous as one who doesn’t, because of the damage and conflict they cause.
9. The toxic slacker.
Although we can all be lazy at some point, there are chronic slackers who infect everything around them, because even the most mentally strong people tend to end up adapting to the pace of the people they surround themselves with. The more time you spend giving in to laziness, the less you will want to get out of it.
So if you spot these kinds of behaviour in the people around you, you are already exposed to toxicity. And the advice is clear: avoid them at all costs if you can, or reduce your exposure to this kind of toxicity, because it doesn’t matter how strong you are. Sooner or later, these people end up doing damage.
Further reading
- 7 types of toxic people in a company who shouldn’t stay a minute longer than necessary
- 10 toxic behaviours that are ruining your life
Featured image: garann, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
