I very much like this comment on the combox of my friendship video:

This video post on friendship really hit home. I’ve had a lot of shame about having girlfriendships blow up. Now I can see that they were unequal, unhealthy, toxic, and needed to end, just as many dating relationships ran their course in my single years.

I now have a motto, reverse paraphrasing Gloria Steinem: I no longer accept behavior from a woman that I wouldn’t tolerate in a man.

The bottom line is, in any relationship — is there mutual respect? Attention to boundaries? If a person is relentlessly negative and leaves you deflated after every contact — that’s not a friend.

I do think women, in particular, can be guilty of using their friends as complaint-receptacles — they often assume intimacy without realizing it has to be earned, just as in a dating relationship.

I no longer feel bad about letting rotten relationships go.

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