We know that friendship is important to our health and happiness.1 In fact, research shows us that friends are as important to our well-being as family.2 Blieszner R, Ogletree AM, Adams RG. Friendship in later life: a research agenda. However, friendship can span a ton of different types of relationships. There are the friends we only meet at parties, and there are our ride-or-die BFFs. There are the friends we’ve grown up with, who know our lives inside out, and there are work friends whom we eat lunch with every day. There are friends we hang out with once in a while, and friends whom we can’t go a day without talking to. All of these different types of friends play different roles in our lives. Whatever types of friends you have, it’s important to know the signs of a good friend versus a bad friend, and how to know if someone isn’t a good friend anymore.
