Friendships are so central to our lives, yet we often let them unfold without giving them much thought. But like all important relationships, your friendships need intentionality and tending. We need to think about how our behavior impacts our friends and vice versa.
“Strong friendships require care, follow-through, and sometimes conversations that feel a little uncomfortable,” said Kristin Anderson, licensed clinical social worker and founder of Madison Square Psychotherapy. “The good news is that most relationship ruptures can be repaired, as long as both people are willing to show up and try to work through it together.”
Without meaning to, all of us will be rude to our friends or make hurtful mistakes at some point or another — whether because we find ourselves at different life stages that cause misunderstandings or simply because we didn’t think before speaking or acting. Making a rude mistake here and there doesn’t make you a bad person, just human, but that doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility to repair the relationship.
“The line between being an inherently rude person or just having a rude moment is defined by your awareness, willingness to take accountability, and acknowledgment of room for growth,” explained Layne Baker, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles.
HuffPost spoke to three experts about the most common rude mistakes friends make, plus how to repair after making them and how to avoid them in the future — because “in true friendships, you can recover from mistakes,” said Danielle Sethi, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Naples, Florida.
“Friendships are as dynamic as the individuals in them. Our needs may change as we grow — individually and together — and we can talk through that and adjust to keep growing together,” Sethi added.
Giving Unsolicited Advice Instead Of Support
The mistake: When someone shares a problem they’re dealing with, it’s super common for a friend to immediately jump in with advice. Most of the time this comes from a really good place, but that doesn’t mean it’s what the friend needs in the moment.
“This dynamic is so common because none of us want to see the people that we care about struggling, and seeing others in pain might even make us uncomfortable,” said Sethi. “As a result, a natural instinct can be to offer your unsolicited advice in a good-faith effort to help, which can come off as condescending or misattuned if someone actually needs support in venting and processing.”
According to Sethi, support and validation should come first “before we try to get rid of someone’s problems.”
What to do about it: Offering unsolicited advice can be reflexive, but that pattern can be changed.
“If you notice that someone is sharing something that has some emotional charge to it, resist the urge to take the emotion away by telling them to look elsewhere — like at the bright side,” Sethi said. “Instead, let them feel what they feel.” What you can do first of all is reflect back to them the emotion it seems they’re expressing, for example by saying something like, “That sounds so painful and scary. How are you managing through that?”
After that, you can ask whether your friend would prefer support or advice in that moment and act accordingly.
Consistently Excluding Your Friend From Get-Togethers
The mistake: Of course you don’t have to include all of your friends at every gathering you host. Sometimes you really are having a couples-only event and your friend is single, or you really are hosting a book club and your friend doesn’t like to read. But if you’re consistently excluding your friend based on unchecked assumptions, that’s really rude and could feel extremely hurtful.
Coupled-up people may “forget to invite their single friend to a weekend event because everyone else is part of a couple, or because they assume their single friend wouldn’t want to participate without a plus-one,” Baker said. “Or perhaps a single friend unilaterally decides that their newly married friend won’t want to spend time away from their partner, and stops reaching out.” Similar dynamics can arise between friends with and without children, too.
What to do about it: Communicate! Try your best not to assume what your friend does or doesn’t want to participate in and always extend an invite when appropriate. Let them decide whether they’re able to attend or not — and don’t assume that the way they RSVP to one invitation is the way they’ll always RSVP.
Feeling Entitled To Your Friend’s Time
The mistake: You should never assume that your friend can spend time with you whenever it suits you, without respecting their needs and prior engagements. This dynamic often occurs between parents and their friends without children, according to Baker.
“Parent friends may assume their childless friends have more free time or flexibility when it comes to hanging out, simply because they don’t have kids (spot the self-absorption!),” said Baker. “And that assumption can lead to expectations of a childless friend’s availability to them (read: entitlement!), which is not only inaccurate but deeply unfair.”
What to do about it: Try asking yourself: “Has my friend given their input about this situation (event, plan, etc.), or is my assumption answering on their behalf?” Baker suggested.
You know what they say about assumptions. Instead, it’s always best to communicate thoroughly with your friend before assuming they are free or able to spend time with you or attend your event. You don’t get unlimited access to your friend just because you perceive yourself to have more responsibilities than they do.
Not Acknowledging Your Friend’s Big Life Event
The mistake: When our friends experience painful events such as a breakup, a job loss or a death, many of us have no idea what to say — especially if we haven’t had a similar experience before. Conversely, when positive things happen to our friends such as a new relationship or new job, we might assume they don’t need us to acknowledge the event because they’re too busy dealing with it or it’s not that important.
“Even if you’re just busy or unsure of what to say, silence often lands as disinterest,” said Sethi. “This is one of the most common missteps in adult friendships, especially when people are overwhelmed or assume someone else will reach out if they need support.”
What to do about it: The good news is this mistake is easily remedied.
“A short message like ‘I’ve been thinking of you’ or ‘How are you holding up?’ can really go a long way,” said Sethi. “You don’t need the perfect words. You just need to show up.”
Regularly Flaking On Plans
The mistake: To be clear, honoring your boundaries and canceling on a friend once in a while because you’re just too tired or something unmovable came up is understandable.
“We’ve all flaked before, but when it becomes a pattern, it erodes the friendship,” said Anderson. “It’s easy to rationalize (‘I’m just overwhelmed’ or ‘I’m taking care of myself’) but over time it sends the message that the friendship is optional or low priority.” We often forget that our friendships “need consistency and care,” as Anderson put it.
What to do about it: While canceling once in a while is OK, you still need to take responsibility for what you do afterward if the friendship matters to you.
“If you need to cancel, follow up and suggest another time,” said Anderson. “Being a good friend doesn’t mean always being available, but it does mean showing that the relationship matters, even when life is busy.”
Forgetting To Consider Your Friend’s Circumstances
The mistake: Consideration for others always goes a long way, but sometimes it’s hard to see past what’s happening in our own lives, which can cause hurt on both sides.
“I see this play out when friends do not consider one another’s situations and instead become offended or take decisions or comments personally,” said Sethi. “For example, a friend becoming offended at another friend for an inability to attend a bachelorette party, when the reason for not attending is a financial constraint due to having kids, not a lack of care. Another example I’ve seen in my practice is a friend becoming offended to hear complaints about her friend’s job while she is struggling to find a job.”
What to do about it: This mistake really comes down to lack of communication, so the solution — naturally — is to focus on communicating effectively.
“Hurt feelings can come into play when we assume someone’s intent or meaning without asking them,” said Sethi. Two things can be true: Their actions or words can hurt you, and it is not in an attempt to hurt you. Both intent and real-life impact are important, and friends should own up to both.
In the bachelorette example, you would tell your friend how them not attending made you feel while assuming they had the best intentions and giving them the opportunity to explain where they were coming from. In an ideal world, they would then explain why they weren’t able to come (for example, because they couldn’t afford it) and offer an alternative for celebrating you or otherwise making it up to you.
“Once you start talking about your feelings, you can figure out ways to repair any hurt and create more connection without making assumptions and growing apart due to miscommunication,” Sethi said.