Department of Stereotypes Reports That Women Make Great Frenemies

Do you ever feel like everyone is just terrible? Everyone thinks you’re terrible, too. Especially if you’re a woman.

A new survey by Today.com and Self magazine found that most people (85%) have had what they consider a “toxic” friend- someone who is narcissistic, overly critical, flaky, a Debbie Downer, or a “draining emotional vampire-type.”

Further, most of the toxic friends survey participants reported having were women.

According to the survey data (the majority of which came from women), 80 percent of people have had a toxic female friend (48 percent men, 87 percent women), while 22 percent have had a toxic male friend (57 percent men, 14 percent women).

In other words, men tend to be more toxic to men and women tend to be more toxic towards women.

Women: aren’t we just the worst?

On one hand, this reflects the depressing reality that a society that made “Dontcha Think Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me?” a hit would socialize women into believing that they were constantly in competition with each other and therefore behave accordingly. We are all the Mike Tyson of ladies, and every other lady is our Evander Holyfield, and every day is the day before the World Heavyweight Sexiness Championship. The winner gets all the men’s desire and all the shoes and dresses.

Part of me thinks that this depressingly huge statistic is explained by the fact that the survey was self-selecting. Maybe it was taken by mostly jerks who are themselves narcissistic and self-serving! In my experience, I’ve found that people who are jerks themselves tend to project their jerkiness outward, just as compulsive liars tend to think other people are always lying to them and people who freak out about their partners cheating may be cheating themselves. About 100% of the toxic people that I know think that other people are toxic, which is why I don’t hang out with anyone, ever.