'I've been doing something "toxic" in my friendships. I had no idea.'

A colleague showed me a story in The Atlantic that genuinely made me want to hurl my phone across the room. It asked a question that deeply saddened me: has venting (the literal glue of close friendships) been rebranded as… rude?

Apparently, we have decided that sitting across from your bestie at dinner and having a healthy whinge is now the equivalent of an emotional crime, and I deserve jail time for it. Venting has been likened to 'trauma dumping' where we're forcing our friends to be our therapists.

Julie Beck, the author of the piece, noted that while venting was once seen as a basic expression of closeness, it's now being framed as a burden. She even cited Mel Robbins' 'Let Them' theory that suggests we should accept people's crappy behaviour and move on without getting worked up.

Respectfully? No, thanks.

Watch: The most 'fraught' friendship behaviour. Post continues below.

I am a lover of the vent, a venter enthusiast if you will. In fact, the idea that I should bottle my feelings up or save them for a paid professional because I'm worried about being 'too much', is quite frankly, mean.

We are living in an era of too many rules for friendship. I'm told I shouldn't talk about my dating life because I need to pass the Bechdel test (a measurement used in TV and movies that requires a story to feature at least two women talking to each other about something other than a man). I'm told I shouldn't centre my work because it shouldn't be my whole life. And now, I'm being told that if I complain about a bad day, I'm being toxic.

If we keep putting these barriers around our conversations, our friendships will evolve into something that truly saddens me. We're going to end up with the same friendships men have with other men. Friendships where they've been best mates for twenty years but only talk about menial things, real estate, or sports. Or even worse, they don't talk at all.

I don't want to talk about interest rates. I want to talk about the fact that my period cramps are really bad, and how I loved the steak frites I had the other day, except it was soooo expensive.

There is a specific kind of catharsis that only comes from a vent session with a woman who knows your history.

The best part of a vent is the lack of logic. I need a safe space where I can say something in the heat of the moment, knowing my friend won't hold it against me next week. It's about the plot points, it's about storytelling, it's about the shared interest we have in hating that guy I went on a date with last week.

Listen to the author of this article talk about venting in friendships on the 'Mamamia Out Loud' podcast. Post continues below.

One of my co-hosts recently shared an experience where she told a friend she was in a world of pain. By opening that crack, her friend felt safe to share her own chronic struggles, and they accessed a level of intimacy that would have been completely missed otherwise. That is what we lose when we follow these new rules, where we are forced to interact with our friends in a 'polite' way, forgetting that these are the same women who've picked us up off a bathroom floor and cleaned vomit out of our hair after an unfortunate night out.

When you vent, you aren't just dumping; you're signalling trust. You're saying, "I trust you enough to show you the unfiltered version of my life".

The kind of venting people actually hate isn't the occasional explosion; it's 'circular venting'. The rumination where someone complains about the same problem for three years and refuses to change a single thing. That's a drain. But a casual one-off venting? That's the dream.

My life would be pretty grim if my friends refused to listen to me vent. And if they didn't vent back? It would genuinely hurt my feelings. If we stop being burdens to each other, we stop being friends and start being acquaintances.

If you want more from Emily Vernem, you can follow her on Instagram @emilyvernem.

Feature image: Supplied.