Last week we looked into how to avoid being toxic. Now we’ll look into how to avoid toxicity from entering your life.
While the word “toxic” is used pretty loosely these days, my intention with this post is showing behavior that although it may seem normal or small in the beginning, causes big trouble down the road. This is why it’s toxic behavior: it’s sneaky and harms you, lethal combination.
How to avoid toxicity from entering your life
Learning how to not be toxic is a great first step. It means that you know think straight and are able to recognize people with deranged thoughts. You must avoid this people like the plague.
Here’s a list of people that will harm you and your interests if you let them in:
1) Avoid girls who have a problem with you living at home or with roomates in your 20s
Something that I find so wild from the US is that parents kick out their children at 18. After being, quite literally, the most pampered children in the world they suddenly get stripped of it all and have to find somewhere to live and some way of paying their own tuition in college.
“Lame-excuse-of-a-parent” rant aside, I think that model is quite ineffective. Assuming you lived correctly, you can 100% pay for your child’s tuition and cover housing expenses so he/she can focus on school and try his/her hand at business on the evenings, instead of being forced to stay in survival mode during some of the most energy-filled years of his/her life.
Anyway, I think this creates an unhealthy admiration to being “independent”. Sure, being independent is important and attractive, and necessary after a certain age of course. The problem is when people start living large in the name of “independence” and use money they don’t have or critically need. It’s no surprise that more than half of people in the US can’t afford an unexpected emergency of $1,000 USD.
This brings us to the kind of girl we want to avoid: girls who have a problem with you living at home or with roomates in your 20s.
If you’re just starting out, one of the most important things you should do is get as quickly as possible to a point where you’re saving 50% of your income. You can’t do that if you start accumulating monthly payments right out of the gate.
At 22 earning $30k/yr you don’t deserve a house yet. You don’t even deserve to live alone. The smart thing is living at home rent-free or with roomates if you live in a different city than your parents because of work.
Then these girls come and say you’re a broke loser because of your living situation. Don’t pay attention to them. Yes, you are kinda broke but it’s because everyone has to start somewhere! the worst thing you can do is spending MORE. No, no, you gotta spend less and earn more, so you can save and invest more.
The truth is that aside from girls like these, pretty much nobody expects a lot from a 22 year old. Actually most people will assume daddy bought that house for you if you buy one and start flexing it. Ditch these girls immediately and take advantage of the fact that you’re pretty much invisible right now. 0 expectations means you can focus 100% on improving.
2) Avoid girls with BPD
I didn’t knew, but BPD is basically fear of not being loved. The person with BPD desires to love and trust someone blindly, but is so neurotic that ends up sabotaging every relationship they have due to insecurity.
Wanna see an example of a BPD in fiction? Look at Anakin Skywalker in episode 2, 3 and the clone wars series. The guy is a genius, but he’s also deeply jealous, insecure and domineering with his wife. This behavior is basically the BPD’s way of “forcing” good outcomes.
Say you’re in a relationship with a BPD woman and you’re out at some bar with a friend (without her). She’ll probably start saying something like “don’t forget I love you” (fearing that you’ll cheat) but will progressively become more anxious and neurotic if you don’t regularly text back.
That doesn’t sound too bad… the first time. Consider this deep insecurity and imagined jealousy will only get stronger if she doesn’t do anything about it. She can change of course, but you don’t want to get stuck as the guy enduring her outbursts while she says she’s trying to change.
3) Avoid girls who want to pressure you into anything
Usually this is about committing to them, either becoming official boyfriend and girlfriend or proposing.
That is pretty bad already, but also consider girls who pressure you into leaving your parents house to live in an apartment with them. Similar to point #1, only you know your finances to choose if this is a decision that makes sense or not.
This is important because girls like this try ro manipulate you into taking them on vacation, getting a better car “because you have to project a certain image”, in short: they try to manipulate you into spending.
This is falling under a female frame. A masculine frame is wealth building, but the moment you start buying a huge brand new car in monthly payments so she can drive it, after you bought her a house and took her on expensive vacations, while you’re still trying to get your side hustle up and running… my man, she got you.
4) Avoid guys who can’t get girls
Younger than 25 is fine.
But being older than 25 and still getting friendzoned? that guy is THIRSTY AF.
This is dangerous for you, it means he’ll throw you under the bus for the chance that some girl he met 10 minutes ago will give him half a smile.
If you have a girlfriend and she’s nice to him he’ll think she’s available.
Basically you’re dealing with a homeless guy, you can’t expect him to not go wild if he sees a piece of bread.
5) Avoid people that ask you for money and don’t return it without you having to remind them
These people are scum, no easy way to say it.
If people lend you money of course they didn’t forgot about it.
Don’t ask for money, but if you do, be sure to pay the person back the next time you see him/her. No exceptions. If you can’t do this then it means you can’t afford it, so suck it up.
Unfortunately people asking other people for money is way too common, so I now use this as a filter. When someone asks me for money I hand them over a $200 MXN bill (which in Mexico is roughly what dinner for one costs). Then I watch how much time it takes for them to pay it back. If they don’t pay it back, he or she gets black listed, which means I can’t ever trust them. No second chances of course, if they ever ask for money again (and for some reason I still talk to them) I would simply say “No” and move on. $200 MXN seems like a good price to know the real nature of someone.
New readers:
My first book, “The Game of Casual Dating” is a guide that will teach you how to go from getting 0 girls to meeting, dating and sleeping with girls you find attractive by building a solid foundation of social skills. No rehearsed lines, no deceiving, no sketchy tricks. Just pure skill and female psychology knowledge. You can buy it Here.
My second book, “The Art of Building Highly Addictive Relationships” is a guide that will teach you which girls are worth keeping around and how to build relationships with them in which they can’t get enough of you. You can buy it Here.
“Introvert Game” is a guide that will help you attain a deeper understanding of your personality as an introvert and figuring out how to seduce women by playing to your strengths rather than trying to swim upstream using guides designed for extroverts. You can buy it Here.
Photo Credits: Donald Giannatti