Life would be a whole lot easier if everyone liked everyone. There would be no wars, no political upheavals and everyone would be happy. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try there will always be people who don’t like you. However, the worst part is sometimes the people closest to you may secretly loathe you without you even realizing it.
Often, people who seem like our friends end up being the people who hate us the most.
So if you’re wondering whether your best friend secretly hates you, you no longer have to play detective, there are many ways to tell if someone secretly hates your guts.
One of the easiest ways to tell if your best friend hates you is by noticing their body language around you. If they have a closed body languagee all of a sudden, struggle to make eye contact, cross their arms and lean away from you, they most likely aren’t your real friends and secretly despise being in your company and life to begin with.
They are curt with you
When you’re with your friend you feel content regarding the fact that you have a shoulder to cry on, a void to scream in, and a play to laugh your ribs out in.
Even if you are not having deep philosophical conversations, even talking about something silly or unimportant is entertaining.
However, if your friend secretly dislikes you, it’s the complete opposite.
They may cut the conversation short and if you ask them how their day is going, they’ll give you one-worded answers like “fine” or “Okay”. With such signs and more, it becomes clear that they don’t want to talk to you.
Their body language says it all
When we like someone, we have a tendency to make eye contact with them, mirror their body language, and lean in closer when having a conversation.
However, when someone dislikes you, they will avoid eye contact, cross their arms, and lean away from you.
They do this because they feel insecure and threatened around you, so they create an invisible barrier that keeps you out. It’s harsh, but it is a common defense mechanism humans use when they feel uncomfortable. So if you feel like your friend feels uncomfortable around you, you know that there is something wrong and they most likely ignoring you.
There’s a lack of trust
Vulnerability is the key ingredient to establishing a strong connection with someone, but when some secretly dislikes you, they will be suspicious of your intentions; even if they are good. For some people, it just takes a while for them to open up.
However, if you keep making an effort to get them to open up to you and they keep you at arm’s length, it may be a sign that they just don’t trust you enough to open up to you.
If your friend secretly hates you, they will never share their secrets with you, they would be perfectly happy listening to your most intimate and private secrets, but when you ask them to share, they will quickly pull away.
They easily get frustrated with you
It’s normal for friends to argue and disagree over small and trivial things all day long, but the difference is if you have an honest friend, those disagreements never turn into a fight. Instead they are a fun part of the friendship.
On the other hand, however, if your friend secretly hates you, they’ll do anything except make things easy for you. With them, even the smallest arguments will spiral out of control and turn into heated arguments. So, if you notice that your friend is sour, bitter, and angry after an argument, you may want to step back and calculate if it’s normal or they secretly hate your guts.
Their etiquette is forced
When someone outwardly dislikes you, they will be loud about it, whether it’s lashing out at you regularly or telling it to your face.
However, when they secretly hate you, they might try and get along just to avoid conflict.
Whether it’s forcing a smile or doing things to keep peace, they will keep the surface clean between you two.
Deep down, however, they might think ill of you and display this through their passive-aggressive behavior.
They listen to you half-heartedly
When we care about someone, we usually do our best to listen to what they say, but if someone is only listening to half of your story and zones out for the rest of it, it’s clear that they just aren’t that invested in you.
Other indicators include scanning over your messages instead of fully reading them and giving you only half of the answers you need.
Such friends can be very bad for your physiological health. They make you feel like you are boring because never respond to your juicy and fun stories the way you expect them to.
So, make sure you identify such friends quickly and remove them from your life.
They don’t make an effort to understand you
Feeling misunderstood can be a rather alienating experience.
When someone dislikes you, they won’t want to provide support to your ideas and values, instead, they make you feel invisible, unheard, and will dismiss your thoughts, whether it’s done subtly or explicitly.
One-upping is another strategy they use to control the conversation, instead of allowing you to give your own inputs.
Your gut always tells you something is wrong
Sometimes your gut feeling is not enough, and anxiety makes even sound judgments look wrong.
However, if you’re getting a strong message from your gut, free yourself from anxiety.
Your instincts are actually telling you it’s not worth your time trying to change this person’s mind.
If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Life is short, so cherish your moments with people who love you and leave the rest behind.
They make you second-guess your friendship
If your friend hates you, before long you will start to second guess your relationship and start question what the point of it is. You will realize that spending time with your friend is no longer fun, you don’t really have anything in common and you don’t know what to talk about.
Conversations that were once easygoing and fun will start to feel constantly awkward and forced.
Everything that you used to love doing with them, you will stop enjoying all together because no matter how hard they try to hide their hatred for you, it is going to manifest in subtle ways that you can no longer shove under the rug.
No matter how hard you want to believe that you are still good friends, you know in your heart that the friendship is just not worth it anymore.
They use you more than they enjoy your company
Maybe they approached you first with good conversations and that’s how your friendship started, but eventually, the mask falls off.
Do they often come to you when it’s convenient, for example when they need help with a project or an assignment?
You will see that every time you ask them to hang out, they will immediately follow up by asking whether someone else is going or they are simply constantly asking for favors.
Friendship needs to be based on a give-and-take relationship, so if you want to make sure whether they are true friends just ask them for a favor and see how they respond.
If they are happy to help you, you can keep them around, otherwise it’s time to make new friends.
They are never the first ones to make contact
If your friend hates you, you will always be the first one to make contact and they will frequently ghost you.
Sometimes life can be overwhelming with responsibilities pilling up or we get to a point where our work schedule isn’t compatible with our friends, but if you love your froends, you make time for them.
If your friend constantly cancels plans with you or doesn’t respond to your texts at the right time, it might be time to start investing in some other more worthwhile friendship because you deserve support, attention, and respect.
They are always secretly competing with you
This can be quite tricky to detect. Especially if they seem like the passive-aggressive type. You need to pay close attention to how they react to your progress and achievements.
Do they say congrats with and smile but secretly hate the fact that your doing better them?
Are they naturally a jealous person?
One other thing to note is if they copy you because copying is an attempt to steal your identity and keep up with you by becoming a replica of you, not that that’s not flattering but still, you don’t want a friend who hates seeing you succeed.
They smack talk about you behind your back
A solid friendship is about having fun with someone and providing a safe space where both parties can confide in one another.
However, if you see that your friend smack talks about other people behind their backs, he most certainly smack talks about you behind your back too and such a friend is just not worth keeping around.
You can’t confide in them because you know that they love to gossip and there is no way that they will keep your secret.
If your friend doesn’t make you feel safe and comfortable when you’re hanging out with them, and you are constantly worried about not saying the wrong thing, you can be sure that they hate your guts.
They always undermine your success
Whenever you accomplish something you want to share it with your best friend.
However, if your friend hates you, they will always try to undermine your success and achievement.
Imagine you just completed a project that you’d been working on for a while and it meant a lot to you.
You will be excited to share it with your friend, but instead of congratulating you, they will put you down and say that anyone could have done that or start sharing one of their own success stories to try and show you how their achievements are much more significant and important than yours.
The final verdict
Finding a true, honest, and loving friend is very difficult, so when we actually find someone whom we think is our friend, we are willing to overlook every fault of their so that the friendship can last forever.
However, if you’re trying to salvage a friendship that isn’t meant to last isn’t going to do you any favors.
So if you know for sure that your friend secretly hates you, there is no need to continue that relationship, you need to end it right away and move on.
