What should I avoid doing to make better friend choices?

To make better friend choices, don’t:

• Keep friends just because you feel bad for them or are afraid to cut them loose.
• Accept ongoing excuses from people who cannot live up to your reasonable expectations about friendship.
• Keep on doing for people who don’t give back to you in return.
• Take an ongoing part in relationships in which a friend wants you to be her mother, can’t admit to being wrong, is a perpetual victim, or has to have the last word.
• Wear blinders, ignore red flags, or avoid seeing the truth about alleged friends.
• Believe you don’t need friends and can take care of yourself emotionally without them.
• Spend a lot of time with people you don’t enjoy or who don’t add to your life.
• Try to fix friends’ problems; instead support them in fixing their own problems.
• Let other people pressure you into staying friends with someone for his own reasons when it is not in your best interest.
• Pal around with people who aren’t introspective and self-reflective, can’t laugh at themselves, and refuse to go into therapy if they have severe dysfunctions.
• Keep company with friends who see themselves as living under a black cloud, because they’ll only make you feel helpless and push you into a caretaking role.