Life is a lot more fun when you have someone to talk to freely for advice or even pleasure. True friends have a way they colour one’s world, they comfort you in bad times and offer assistance when you need it to make sure you’re fine, but this must go both ways.

With one-sided friendships, it’s usually one person putting in the work, energy, and time to bolster up the friendship. 

One-sided friendships are selfish and toxic; people who call to unload their pain and struggles, referred to as emotional dumpers.

They expect you to listen and offer the necessary advice or even be empathetic with them. That wouldn’t be a problem, but they enjoy the attention, and you may notice that once you start talking about yourself, they quickly divert you, and steal the moment. You can even spend a day with them and all they do is talk about themselves, not giving you a chance to express yourself. 

When they don’t have problems, it may be hard to hear from them. They’re busy pushing on with life and enjoying it without you. But once things take a wrong turn, they come running for support. 

According to Fiona Abayisenga, a businesswoman in Kigali, some red flags are exposed, people who just listen and rarely share anything about their lives are confusing. You can’t claim that someone is your friend when you actually don’t know who they are, that’s a sign that you’re in that friendship alone.

She says that one-sided friendships can trigger self-doubt, for instance, when you expect your friends to come through for you, but no one shows up, it may make you wonder if you’re not good enough or if you offended them, even when you don’t remember doing anything wrong to them. This creates fear and doubt, a thing that can damage self-esteem. 

Abayisenga says that sometimes friends make you feel lonely, especially when you offer them emotional support, but when you need it, they are not available. Emotional support is about providing love, support, reassurance, acceptance, and encouragement in a relationship or friendship. 

"When you don’t get the support you give in return, you may just cut off some friendships, thus living a lonely life. That’s what one-sided friendship does, it makes you feel less important,” Abayisenga says.

She also notes that some one-sided friendships display narcissistic behaviour, they deviate responsibility, seek attention, control behaviour or manipulate, lack empathy, need excessive admiration, have a sense of entitlement, envy others or think others are envious of them and are arrogant. 

Edwin Mukisa, a media personality, says that an indicator of one-sided friendship is when you are not given an opportunity to take part in decision-making, it’s the other party coming to a conclusion, for example; where to meet, what to eat, what to do, et cetera. Such people make you feel less significant, like your opinions are not needed.

He says that if you make the effort to call or send messages but most times never receive their responses, or if they do, they send those one word replies such as "okay”, "yes”, "no probably”, "hi” and so forth, instead of a flowing conversation, it’s evident that you’re stretching way too much. 

Mukisa adds that such people are inconsiderate, even when they make plans, they often cancel. It’s not something that happens once or twice, but often. 

How to make the friendship work

Healthline states that different factors can contribute to one-sided friendships. Your friend might have something troubling them, even if they haven’t been able to share, and they may not realise how unsupported you feel.

‘By opening a dialogue, you can let them know how their behaviour affects you and provide an opportunity for them to share what’s going on.’

Mukisa says when you notice the above signs, lay back and be less involved than you were before, that way, you won’t feel bad that you give a lot more than you receive. 

He says that this will also allow you to spare some time to focus and care for yourself, and treat yourself the way you would have wanted to be treated. "Your identity shouldn’t be determined by others.”

Mukisa is of the view that if you feel that regardless of the efforts to make the friendship work, your friends seem less concerned, it is high time you called it off. Give them distance because you can’t cling on something that is breaking you down.