Everyone has preferences, strengths, and expectations for friends and partners, and it’s only human nature that not everyone will “click” and cultivate a great connection. However, some people struggle to maintain any type of healthy relationship, and more often than not, it’s because they harbor subtle traits of people who are hard to get along with fundamentally.
According to a study from the Journal of Personality Assessment, many of these unfavorable personality traits are inherently intertwined with insecurity that’s driven by an unfulfilled desire for social stability and emotional security. Although their outward traits are noticeable and often annoying to others, they’re tied to internal conflict, making them inherently hard to acknowledge, address, and heal from.
Here are 11 subtle traits of people who are hard to get along with:
1. They have transactional relationships
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While experts have primarily studied and researched transactional relationships, their presence in our lives can be subtle and complex to acknowledge, especially in our developed relationships. They manifest in uncomfortably slight ways, from figurative conversation comments to literal Venmo requests from friends.
These kinds of connections can be taxing, both emotionally and physically, as they often cultivate the same stress and anxiety as a business interaction rather than a friendship or partnership.
2. They’re envious
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Envy is a complex and deep-rooted experience that manifests not only in insecurity and complicated internal emotions but also randomly in everyday life. While it might feel personal in passing interactions or frustrating conflicts with people in our lives, it’s truly a reflection of someone’s comfort in their own identity, as an investigation from the Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy eloquently explains.
The subtlety of envious people in everyday life can look different across relationships. Still, these people commonly will belittle you in front of others, purposefully give you bad advice, or even accuse you of being “unfair” simply for being yourself and sharing your accomplishments, feelings, and experiences.
3. Everything is about them
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Attention-seeking behaviors are some of the most subtle traits of people who are hard to get along with, as they are rooted in personal discomfort, trauma, and insecurities that many have spent their entire lives grappling with. They can both be hard to address from an outside perspective and challenging to unlearn personally.
Many people find these kinds of narcissistic tendencies confusing. They’re intended to be self-enhancing, otherwise known as protection against negative views from others, as a study from the European Review of Social Psychology explains. Ironically, their attempts at self-preservation in the public eye only harm their perception of others, making it difficult to sustain healthy connections.
4. They get frustrated quickly during arguments
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Other subtle traits of people who are hard to get along with revolve around a confusing sense of self-identity. Many insecure people spend the majority of their time “wearing a mask,” constantly defending themselves from judgment and external opinions but inadvertently harming their own emotional intelligence.
Psychologist Nick Wignall argues that people with healthy emotional intelligence will validate other people’s emotions without judgment. Still, people who can be hard to like and connect with will often immediately resort to criticism. They fear vulnerability, as they misguidedly intertwine it with inferiority, and will resort to frustration when they’re called out for suppressing or invalidating emotions.
5. They expect emotional support, but never give it
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As life coach Christy Whitman explains, “emotional vampires” are always more focused on their own emotional needs and wants than everyone else’s. Even when you’re looking for support or are in desperate need of a listening ear, they’ll find ways to make the conversation about them.
These are the kinds of people who constantly struggle harder, work harder, and have more trauma than everyone around them, and they’ll find ways to make sure you know that. They deserve emotional validation and support, just like everyone else. However, their constant need for attention ties back to their reliance on transactional relationships to feel a sense of control over their connections.
6. They seem to know everything about everything
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Despite being a largely under-researched and misinterpreted psychological phenomenon, attention-seeking behaviors manifest frequently in everyday life, as a study from the British Psychological Society argues. One of these subtle traits of people who are hard to get along with is the tendency to misrepresent their knowledge and skills to impress others.
Often a means to maintain control over conversations and connections, these kinds of people will assert their dominance by pretending to know everything and be “inherently better” than others in their lives. Equally frustrating and annoying, this kind of behavior continuously widens the gap of genuineness between many relationships.
7. They’re always working or talking about work
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Like the founder of the International Journal of Applied Philosophy, Elliot D. Cohen, argues in a Psychology Today blog series, people who complain about work a lot often ruminate on negative thoughts and complaining as a means to emotionally validate their struggles.
They want to appear more important and busy to maintain authority in their relationships, and for many, that means painting a picture of their professional life that’s likely fabricated.
If it’s not a cycle of obsessive thoughts, they may complain as a means to connect socially, but for people who’re hard to get along with, it’s more often than not more toxic to connections than helpful.
8. They are always touching you or in your space
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Many people feel unheard, unsupported, and disrespected by entitled people, especially when they feel a sense of control over their physical space and emotional energy.
Stepping over communicated boundaries and reasonable social expectations for connection, these people will encroach not just on your emotional well-being with negative thoughts and unhealthy conversations but also on your personal space with physical affection or toxic body language.
A study from the Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychology explains that this kind of entitlement can be a defense mechanism for many people, protecting them from forced vulnerability and complex emotions in social situations. Instead of addressing their discomfort, they force others to bear it, making it hard to enjoy their company.
9. They’re constantly complaining
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Interacting with someone who relies on gossip or complaining to connect with others can be emotionally draining, making it hard to connect and cultivate a healthy relationship.
While it’s often a sign of insecurity or mental turmoil, which deserves to be supported and recognized, there’s a certain threshold friends, partners, parents, and others need to acknowledge when it comes to protecting their well-being.
10. They’re suspicious of random things
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Genuine friends and supportive people in your life will be gracious when you share your triumphs with them. Sharing your triumphs with them is a hallmark of a healthy relationship, as counselor Brittney Lindstrom argues in her article on beneficial connections.
However, others committed to sabotaging you or simply struggling internally will find anything they can to critique you. From the significance of your success to something as minuscule as your appearance, putting you down is their self-enhancement, an ironic twist in their attempts to gain external validation and social approval.
11. They never take accountability
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A 2019 research study on accountability argues that there’s a societal misconception that making mistakes is a sign of weakness, which can be highly impactful for people with selfish or narcissistic tendencies to grapple with. In relationships and connections with these people, they’re expected to resort to blame-shifting to remove themselves from self-perceived negative situations.
While it might help them relieve personal emotional burdens of shame and guilt, their friends and partners feel more unheard—mainly when their mistake or conflict revolves around their relationship’s well-being.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News and entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health and wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.
