5 Friendship Red Flags That Usually Show Up Before You Admit the Friendship Sucks

Adult friendship is basically realizing some people recharge your battery and other people make you need a 45-minute emotional debrief in the Uber home.

On That’s the Point, hosts Jon Volk and Kristin Johns break down the friendship behaviors they’ve officially stopped ignoring, including fake-jokes, one-sided energy vampires, and the people who somehow turn every casual hang into a low-grade emotional crisis.

Here’s the cheat sheet.

The Friendship Red Flags You Should Probably Stop Pretending Are Fine

🚩The chronically moody friend

“Consistently moody people tend to be selfish people. Their emotions are what is directing their whole personality,” Jon says. Everyone has bad days. But when every dinner, trip, or casual hang turns into managing one person’s emotional weather forecast first, it gets exhausting fast. Eventually the entire friendship starts revolving around keeping one person emotionally stable enough to participate.

🚩The fake-jokes that always have a little bite

“It’s a purposeful way to cut you down without having to bear the responsibility of actually saying mean things to you,” Kristin says. Comments like “haha you would say that” or “love that for you” are designed to stay right on the edge of plausible deniability. Enough bite to sting, enough humor to make you question whether you’re allowed to be annoyed by it.

🚩The friend who can’t celebrate your wins

If your good news consistently lands on someone with a weird half-smile or a “must be nice,” that’s the flag. “Someone’s success and joy never determines the amount of success and joy you can feel,” Kristin says. A friend who can’t be happy for you when you’re up isn’t safe to be vulnerable with when you’re down.

🚩The take-take-take friend

“Asking for favors, asking to promote something, asking for this when we’re not even that close, it’s like, bruh, I’ll pass,” Jon says. You know the type. Suddenly they’re triple-texting because they need a ride to the airport, a favor, a repost, a couch, emotional support, your HBO password, something. Then the second you need somebody? Crickets. A friendship shouldn’t feel like a subscription service you’re paying into alone.

🚩Leaving the hangout feeling kind of weird about it

“If you leave feeling kind of emotionally drained and a little bit like they were taking digs at you and making you feel bad, big red flag,” Kristin says. Happy hour shouldn’t require a three-person debrief afterward just to figure out whether somebody secretly hates you. Walking away thinking “okay wait…what was THAT?” usually says enough on its own.

Listen to the full episode on That’s the Point, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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