How to deal with a toxic friend

rtbf86330229·6/23/2017, 2:48:33 AM·2 votes·688 views

I started playing league about a month ago, because of a friend of mine and I love every minute of it. Except recently my friend has been getting increasingly toxic and heated playing league. Whenever someone makes a mistake or someone is having a bad game, heck even if he makes a bad play its never his fault. Recently his toxicity has targeted me, I really enjoy playing Teemo in norms, and he flames me every time I make one mistake or anything. He is currently Hard stuck gold 1 but of course he deserves diamond or maybe even challenger. I find it hard to learn or improve with him. Any tips I really dont want to have to stop being friends.

5 Comments

TryMucinex6/23/2017, 4:33:18 AM3 votes

It takes some words of wisdom, ability to understand different perspectives, experiences, and sometime even actions to change a person's personality/belief. It all depends on you and your friend. And depending on how far someone is on the imaginary "nice-bad" spectrum, it can be incredibly hard, even me, to handle it properly. =/

Sometime, in this case, people have pride (pride's a bad thing) and start putting down others in different ways such as... false kindness (you suck a lot, but it's normal to be dumb in this elo, it's ok =D ), verbal abuse, attempt to defend himself/herself against any attention toward oneself.

To help out, I can't say for sure. While it may not help your friend himself/herself, could try finding a higher-ranked player who can show a better way to deal with players with poor skill (which would be your friend in that example). Not the "taste of your own medicine thing", though...at least not without proper execution/lesson afterward.

Fox Illusion 6/23/2017, 3:54:18 AM1 votes

Pretty hard predicament but hes just gotta realize hes bad or try to help him with his personal problems that hes takes out on league.

OceanicEyes6/23/2017, 6:49:03 AM1 votes

This might sound like dumb advice, but have you told him this stuff? Talking to him might help, though it definitely depends on the person. I have friends who, if were acting as your friend in this predicament, would scoff it off and not care. On the other hand, I have friends who would take how I'm feeling into consideration and actively listen.

As for what to say exactly, you could always mention how you don't enjoy how heated/critical he gets in games (to be polite and avoid calling him toxic outright), but if necessary I would also consider being completely forward with him about how he is behaving.

Sir Yamazuki6/23/2017, 10:00:59 AM1 votes

You have to talk to him about his attitude and abusive behavior. If he doesn't listen to you, or expresses any form of care then you need to ask yourself if he's really a friend. Letting go of someone is difficult, but sometimes you **have **to. You don't have to necessarily never talk to him either, it could be a temporary break to show him that you really don't like his attitude either, because if you let him know it's a problem and he doesn't listen then he isn't going to take you seriously when there's no consequences.

LordDanathor6/23/2017, 8:13:25 PM1 votes

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21. KJV

In other words, you just have to keep countering his toxicity with reason. People often imitate what they're exposed to. So if you remain calm and reasonable down to a fault, there's a chance it rubs off on him.

But seriously, why would you play Teemo ;)