Picture this. One of your close friends has been bugging you for months. When you meet up, they turn up late, ignore your news and then proceed to go on about their latest problem. When they do take notice of you, it’s to dish out a cutting remark. No wonder you always feel drained after seeing them.

So what do you do? Do you ask them why they’re behaving like this, and try to get to the bottom of what might have been the catalyst for this change? Or do you go for the nuclear option, cutting them out of your life altogether in a bid to prioritise yourself?

If you’ve spent any time on the internet over the past few years, you’ll probably recognise the paradigm of the so-called toxic friend. TikTok coaches implore us to ditch them, portraying them as energy-sucking vampires who don’t have your back. And there are plenty of articles specifically designed to help us identify potential red flags and toxic behaviour patterns. According to this model, the other person is the villain of the piece, and you’re the victim. Ditching them becomes an act of self-care, a way of preserving your boundaries and valuing your own peace of mind.

But what if this binary labelling is doing us more harm than good? In new research published in the Families, Relationships and Societies journal, sociologists have explored how the toxic friendship trope has been presented online in recent years, and argue that the term is an over-simplistic one, encouraging us to ditch these relationships rather than looking for a solution that could save it. What’s more, they found, this is framed as a courageous act.

Why the ‘toxic friendship’ formula isn’t doing us any favours