Four Friends You Should CUT Out Of Your Life Forever

The Flake
Cancelling at the last minute, postponing until later, promising she'll be there soon and then mysteriously not responding to texts - believe me, you'll know if you're friends with a flake. (Tip: Look in the mirror and see if your face has a resigned, world-weary expression.) Not only is the process of arranging to meet up exhausting (all those emails with subjects like Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Tonight!), chances are you'll be in a bad mood with her before you even see her, which kinda makes the whole thing pointless

The Oversharer
You'll know you're mates with an oversharer if every time you hear her say your name in conversation, you leg it straight over and get ready to silence her with a manicured dig in the ribs. She re-tells your stories, blabs about that night you accidentally woke up at his place wearing an elf outfit and often accuses you of being 'SO oversensitive' if you call her on it. This is one endless broadcast you could seriously do with switching off...

The Underminer
Something about you two is similar - your career, your style, your single status maybe - but it's gone from being something that binds you to a toxic wedge. And toxic wedges (the clue is in the name) have to go. She's competitive but on the sly - a veiled compliment here, an uneasy question there... If you have a boyfriend, don't expect him to necessarily get it - women are subtly fine-tuned to detect underminers in a way that men just can't. Like how we can find the shortcut to the Ikea Marketplace. And they just can't.

The Stalker
This high-maintenance friend requires instant responses to her text messages and will happily berate you for not Liking her bikini pictures on Facebook. She assumes weekends will be spent together and books you in for what she calls 'Quality Time'. Yikes. This is a high-intensity friendship that leaves you feeling a bit like it's gonna blow any second. Unless you're happy to straddle the fear/friendship tightrope, you might want to cool it.