Listen to how someone talks about their old friends. Someday you’ll be one of them.

The way somebody speaks about people no longer in their life is a preview of how they will speak about you. If every former friend is an idiot or a traitor, and none of the stories include anything the teller got wrong, that is a pattern rather than bad luck.

So listen for whether old friends are still allowed to be human. Then check your own version: when you tell the story of somebody you fell out with, see if you can include one thing they were right about. That is not weakness, it is the thing that stops the pattern repeating.