If you hate lima beans, it's not the fact they are poisonous that makes them utterly not worth your time. They're not poisonous. But they're still utterly not worth your time: because they are not to your taste. You have every right to avoid them. You cannot possibly enjoy them. They're positively awful.
There are people like that, too. They're not toxic. You don't need to make stuff up just to explain why you don't want to have unpleasant times interacting with them. They taste awful. Reason enough!
Nobody is owed you.
Nobody is owed your time or company.
People have you in your life because they want you there. If that's not true, you should feel a little sick about that. If they didn't want you there, they do not need an excuse, alibi, or diagnosis to justify that. In your life, when there's somebody who you simply can't enjoy, don't get along with, your interactions just clash or go sideways - that person is not "toxic."
Even when they give you bad reactions, even physical reactions - that person isn't toxic. You are allergic.
It is you who doesn't cope well with their interaction style, their personality, their person. Others who remain friends with them aren't "fooled." They just don't have the sensitivities you do. This doesn't make them stronger or tougher. Some of them would probably keel over from eating a peanut!
"Oh I'm not interacting with that person, but it's because they're toxic. It would be useless."
Peanuts aren't toxic. Interacting with them is not useless. Some people do wonderful things with them. I will have great interaction and relationship with the person you call toxic, and no, it won't end up biting me in the end. I may even find the person off-putting at first! Maybe I'll catch a little of what's bugging you - and then make a breakthrough, after which it's all fine. Once you know what to expect from a person, and what to trust them for, you can include them in plenty of delicious recipes, speaking socially. And then that person can potentially give you many (or any) of the things a person is able to give to another.
What can you trust a person for? Generally, after a long enough exposure, you can trust them to be the person they've shown you. Calling someone "toxic" doesn't decrease my obligation to try to make interaction work with them. My obligation to try was originally zero.
Obviously work bonds, family bonds, any bond we don't consider dissoluble - you may have an obligation to interact. But you know what, if calling them "toxic" gets you out of it, then it wasn't indissoluble.
Toxicity doesn't exist in the other person. It exists in the specific reaction between the person who is X and the person who can't take X - and plenty of people can take X, I assure you. Plenty of people make X a staple part of their diet. Everyone who thinks X is delicious and potent and nutritive good eats isn't wrong, just because you got all red and puffy and almost died. Know yourself, and know what you can't or won't take. Be alert for the signs, and limit your exposure to those things. If you're in an unhealthy relationship, do what you need to do: probably, end it. Think about what it was you couldn't take in that relationship. In the future, you can watch for it. It's not poison to everybody. It doesn't have to be. It's poison to you.
Some people are not reliable. Some people are procrastinators. Some people are known to lie. Often, there are certain identifiable conditions that trigger a lie, such as "didn't want to hurt feelings!" Some people have a temper. Some people are very closed, and won't talk about what's going on inside them. Some people do huge deep sharing, and need the other to as well. Some need a wholllllle lotta sex. Some people don't want sex at all, or hardly. Some people close down when they feel you've hurt them. Some people bear a grudge. Some people are too jealous, some are not jealous enough for the other's liking. Some people get too bothered by something, some get not bothered enough for the other's liking. Some people are great with conflict, direct and disarming. Others shun conflict entirely, others approach it indirectly. Some people get a case of the ass and call that last class of people "passive-aggressive."
None of these people is toxic. For every trait you could name, there are wonderful, happy relationships and healthy interactions between the person with that trait, and another person who has no big problem with it. A person who knows how to spot it in time, or defuse the bomb or hopscotch past the mine, or just plain doesn't mind - maybe even finds it a virtue. I mean even on a literal level: you could probably cook and eat any of those people with (fingers crossed) no ill effects.
Nobody's toxic. Some people just taste awful to you. Or you're allergic: some people just give you a bad reaction.
You don't need excuses, fake diagnoses and warning labels to cut out what you know you can't possibly enjoy. Why would you? Are you really saying you can't just spit them out and try something else, without slapping a fake warning label diagnosis on them?
Or do you believe you are a nice person, someone who needs an excuse - or else you owe yourself to everyone?
Because damn. That's not allergic. That's one of those deals where you need to bring in a plastic bubble. Get a fricken immune system, dude! Listen to your antibodies and learn from your taste buds.
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Image credit: "Bee & Peanut"
(me)
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