They come in varieties. Further, while some toxic people seem to have mastered holistically the dark art of toxicity, most toxic people are not quite so skilled; they have mastered selected aspects of toxicity and combined them with their natural personalities. Thus, here we profile seven notable subspecies who can be spotted on the terrain of our lives.

Author Robert Tew once wrote, “Don’t let negative and toxic people rent space in your head. Raise the rent and kick them out.” And he’s right; his modern proverb expresses well the way Jesus and other biblical exemplars such as Nehemiah treated toxic people. Thus, the first installment of this series focused briefly on the life of Jesus and revealed that Jesus walked away from toxic people. He refused to entrust himself to people who could not be trusted.

So if, like Jesus, we determine to walk away when necessary, we must be able to identify who is toxic to us and who is not. After all, we are not omniscient as Jesus was. Yet, there are some clear and identifiable signs of toxicity. Indeed, in the last installment, we enumerated ten signs that a given person behaving in a toxic manner toward us. Building on that post, this installment will make an analogy between toxic people and exotic species of wildlife. We will draw upon the ten signs from the last post, and for amusement’s sake, will compare each type of toxic profile to a “subspecies” of wildlife.

Not every subspecies of toxic wildlife is created equally. They come in varieties. Further, while some toxic people seem to have mastered holistically the dark art of toxicity, most toxic people are not quite so skilled; they have mastered selected aspects of toxicity and combined them with their natural personalities. Thus, here we profile seven notable subspecies who can be spotted on the terrain of our lives:

1. The Palavering Peacock: Have you ever met somebody who manages to turn any conversation toward himself or herself, sucking any available “air” out of the room? And if he is unable to get people to talk him or his chosen topic, he gets bored with the conversation and walks away? If so, you’ve encountered a distinctive sub-species of TP—the Palavering Peacock. These conversational hijackers prefer to feed on Large Group Lillies and Small Group Spruce, although when starved they have been known to graze on Single Person Sunflowers.

2. The Micromanaging Malapert: Do you know somebody who wants to control everybody and everything around them, even down to the small stuff? Somebody who suffocates you? If so, you have probably gotten a whiff or two of these control freaks—the Micromanaging Malapert—a TP sub-species whose preferred habitat is the Passive Person Plains but who is known to migrate quickly toward prey in any environment.

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