Have you ever dropped a friend?

Yes when I realised that encounters with my ex friend took me days to recover from because of all the chaos and drama she surrounded herself with.
In the end I had to protect my own mental health and drop contact.
Feel it was right decision for me but some mutual friends were pissed off at me for leaving them to deal with her ongoing car crash lifestyle.

Ah! Very, very similar!

Big difference is she's not married. Divorced about 20 years ago.

Interesting. If some of the details in your story were vdifferent, I'd swear we know the same person!

In my case, I asked a question regarding a friends medical treatment as it was suspected at the time that I might have the same condition. She had always talked very candidly about her health, therefore it wasn't an insensitive/ private topic and she often talked about the physical pain she was in. Therefore, when it was raised that I may have this very same problem, I thought she would be the perfect person to give advice. I asked her about her experience at a specific hospital local to us, only to receive a very curt " as I've told you before, it was actually a hospital in neighbouring county I was referred to... ". No words of comfort or help or support, just a telling off for getting the name of the hospital wrong. She put me in my place that day, as if she was pissed that I may have the audacity to suffer from the very same illness she did. This came on top of a long line of shit friend behaviour - constant last minute cancellations, talking about herself non stop, never asking anything about my life, only going to places that were convenient for her, using me as a cover for her illicit affairs (!), So much so that her husband thought I was a bad influence for dragging her out for evening drinks and having to look after the kids, whereas she was actually with her other man .... Haven't spoken to her for years now.

Yes after 20 years. Always late and disorganised and rearranging meet ups and I put up with it because it was the way she was.

The breaking point was her and her new DP were coming to stay with us for a holiday. They never arrived, never called, ignored all my messages. A week later she rings, is super rude, doesn’t explain or apologise, starts asking for a favour. I cut her short and couldn’t do it even if I’d wanted to.

I realise now I spoke to her a week before to confirm details and she had been difficult about the fact DH wasn’t available to ferry them about the country. Still no reason not to turn up.

I heard from her once before when she wanted me to pay for her and DPs holiday home and ‘we could come and stay the night if we fancied’. I suspect this all comes from DP but there was no point continuing the friendship anyway.

utterly charmless response !! Good riddance x

Yeah people that drain my energy I just slowly fade out. Or people who are insensitive, or do that annoying conversational confrontation thing someone posted on a few days ago (that was brilliant btw!!)

Yes. Fairly recently.
Known her a long time. Lots of little things led up to the rift.

Loads of niggling and upsetting comments that i overlooked for years.

But the small thing that finished it for me was when her dad had a health scare and app to see a consultant.

On what i thought was the day of his app i told her i hoped he'd get good news and good luck at hospital.

Her response was 'as i told you last week, his app is tomorrow, not today'.

It was the phrasing 'as i told you last week'. Somehow in that moment the scales dropped off my eyes.

And told her that was rude and didn't appreciate it.

Haven't had contact since. Some 3 months or so now.

Yes, we'd been friends for a couple of years and she had been through a terrible time. One thing after another and I was always supportive and enjoyed our friendship. But I found her inability - to be honest, refusal - to see anything positive so draining. Everything had to be negative, even a hint of, "but look at this in your life that is going well" was shot down. She was very bad at listening to anything I was struggling with too, but I'm not a big talker like that so it never really bothered me.

She complained about how I had to pull out of something because I got the date of a holiday wrong and we were still travelling that day. My fault but it made me think of all the times I had changed my plans to see her when she was down and she never seemed to appreciate it. And then I had something where she kept telling me how she knew I'd just drop her like lots of other friends have. I had no intention of doing that at all but it was like she was pushing me to do it and I just thought, fuck this! I didn't have friends like this as a teenager out of choice, I'm not doing it now!

I do feels sad though and miss her friendship, at least when she wasn't constantly complaining. But it just got too much.

Yes. When I was younger I had poor boundaries for bad treatment - just didn't recognise it because it was my family dynamic. And I made a friend in the same creative industry as me. She had every advantage and family connection and money, but had coasted on that with little talent. I had bootstrapped myself up from 'umble beginnings and was lucky to get a bit 'discovered'.

But she really resented every little success I had. When she got work out, I would give her immediate support and positive feedback every time. When I got work out, she'd go silent for a week or two, then come back and say she'd seen it, and wouldn't comment, but 'as long as you're happy with it, that's the main thing'... And I didn't have enough confidence to realise that the problem was with her, not my work.

Then I had a bigger success. I couldn't wait to tell my friends and contacts, because I was pretty shy but this seemed a good excuse to reach out. And the moment I told her, she went straight out and told them all before I could. They were sending their congratulations to her to pass onto me, like she was my manager. If you can imagine your SIL telling everyone you're pregnant before you can break the news, such were my feelings.

And I had enough. I knew she'd DARVO me if I confronted her, and I was still a bit feeble in those days, so I ghosted her. And indeed, I got a few mails from her about how I couldn't ghost her, she was vulnerable, she was a special case who needed careful handling and I was really upsetting her, and if I would just tell her what I thought was wrong she could put me right...

I still see her online presence from time to time. She has done nothing over the last decade, living off her private income, but all she does is complain bitterly about everyone else's success, often in a really nasty way, and I realise that was how she'd always felt about me.

I'm a bit older, wiser and more feisty now... 🙂

If I posted that I was having an issue with a company in the south west (where I live) she'd always tell me how wonderful their service was for her in the south east. It was always "I have no problems with them and don't understand why you do"

I also remember posting that I'd found out that I have a rare condition. To which she said she'd never heard of it and then asked how my parents didn't notice it. To which I said if you've heard of it, you'd know there's no obvious symptoms. And the symptoms are conditions in their own right or symptoms of other much more common conditions. Virtually everyone I've met with this, has said they have things like Autism, learning disabilities / delays and sensory impairments. It's not like Downs Syndrome where you can see their facial features look different.

Yes, because I realised she was an unpleasant, sanctimonious person who resented anyone she perceived to be doing remotely better than her in some area of life and vocalised increasingly odd views. I'm usually someone who tries to persevere and hold on to friendships but in this case I breathed a sigh of relief.

@whalesonthebus I really don't see any reason you should feel bad about this? I think friends should boost you and leave you feeling supported, energised (because it's so lovely to spend time with them) and cared for. Sounds like she was the opposite ♥️

Yes, best friend too. Felt like a break up at the time a bit! Was fairly traumatic. But now 2 years on much better and I can see the wood for the trees very obviously now.

Very glad I'm now investing my time and care in other friends who have risen to fill the gap and are much kinder and nicer.

Hang in there! It will get much easer with time.

I'm letting someone drift on 'muted' if that counts. She's been quite unsupportive during and after cancer treatment. Fine if just not very present, or text catch ups very occasionally. I don't expect a certain level of attention or for friends to get it right every time, but her flaking and poor taste comments have tipped the balance. I don't want to make a big fuss but I don't want to feel rage every time she says something stupid and thoughtless or cancels her own arrangement yet again so I'm quietly phasing her out and prioritising myself.

Yes I've phased people out of my life a few times over the years, and just recently phased out a friend I'd been friends with for over a decade. If I no longer feel like I'm getting anything from the friendship or it starts to feel hard work then I'll phase them out. I know when I start to dread spending time with them that it's time to do it and life is too short to waste my time with anyone who isn't fulfilling something in my life.

Yes, my closest friend throughout my teens. It transpired that she’d been telling lies, huge whoppers, about me to mutual friends, some of whom believed her. So I lost a group of friends because of her.
As time passed I realised she was very jealous of me. I was very upset for a while, we’d had been very close and even travelled together. Haven’t seen her for 15 years.
A person who would know us both filled me in recently on her life. I’m not a believer in karma but let’s just say I’d rather my life than hers.

Yes, my childhood best friend of 25 years. We'd done loads of very special things together over the years. She had some tragedy in her life but despite all possible support from me over a good few years she became bitter and jealous, and wanted me to be that way too. I wrote to her wishing her well above all and expressing my heartbreak at how she was and asking her to consider seeking professional help... She pretty much cut me dead at that point.

Another mum friend... we'd done loads of lovely family stuff together. something fairly minor happened between our DC, her DH went absolutely postal at my DH and I couldn't go back after that.

Sadly, yes. I had a friend who was much younger than me. Over 10 years I gave her a lot of emotional and practical support. I genuinely loved her. Then I was the one needing support and she failed to step up.

I even told her why I’d be distant and she gaslit me. Haven’t seen her for over a year now. I miss her but she wasn’t a real friend.

I dropped quite a new friend because she was constantly calling me. For example, she’d call me while I was driving home from work and I’d explain that I was driving and would call her when I got home. She’d agree. Then if I didn’t call within five minutes of getting home I’d get half a dozen missed calls from her, and it would never be about anything urgent. I was a single mum with a full time job and a longish commute, and just couldn’t be doing with it, so stopped returning her calls or meeting up. I felt bad because it was basically ghosting and if it happened now I’d explain etc. but at the time I just didn’t have the bandwidth for any more hassle in my life.

It was a reply to the thread.

No malice. Just long and with a few reasons which helped with the decision and why it wasn't ghosting it was explained.

Little bit emotional, 3 situations and scenarios but someone couldn't be bothered to read it properly and had to make a remark. I asked MN to removed it because I felt like an absolute bit just honestly replying to a thread for some whopper who didn't have the energy to read it make a remark.

Yes I'd had half a wine, felt a bit emotional at the end of the post stating how much it actually hurt to do and was like break up but worse

No it shouldn't though because it's public forum.

If she couldn't finish reading that's her problem why is she not rude? Just had to scroll past and keep her mouth shut, nobody else bothered to be rude. I've seen much more long winded posts and nobody say anything.

Also.... Pot. Kettle. Have a good look at yourself before criticising other people's behaviour :)

@asruralasitgets I was going to say YABU as a friend who has been dropped and it hurt a lot.
But reading your post about your friend (the anxiety over the taxi) reminded me of a friend I had who was exactly the same. Awful behaviour over silly things like hotel key cards and 50p, in hindsight that ex-friend probably thinks I dropped her. So YANBU

I did this a few years ago. I felt awful at the time but the 'tax' associated with spending time with her was too much. She was (and likely still is) a lovely person in general but she really brought me down every time I saw her and I felt so heavy and burdened after every meet up.

For years she was great and we spent lots of time together. She then met her now DH who is very religious and pious about it, despite being divorced (not that there's any issue with being divorced to be clear - the issue is that he cherry-picked the bits of the bible that he would weaponise) - he was a massive hypocrite and she started to be the same.

Whenever it got a bit much and I would gently call her out on her hypocrisy, it became a game of 'ah but...' and quickly became tiresome. I realised that I was getting no joy out of the friendship and just stepped back and stopped responding. I do feel shitty for doing it that way but had my own issues and no emotional capacity to deal with a protracted discussion/argument.

Yep I dropped my best friend been about a year now ! No regrets !
im actually happier now than when i was friends she was quiet toxic !
not once has she been round and asked what happened cus she knows x

More times than I care to admit, but my boundaries have always been poor and as a self confessed people pleaser, I've dropped people Rather than deal with conflict. I don't regret my decisions at all, as I have been thoroughly used and abused in all of those friendships, but I do wish I'd had the confidence to call out bad behaviour from the very start and given them a chance to rectify their actions, rather than letting things fester . maybe then, some of the friendships could have been salvaged.

One ex friend I'd known for over twenty years but over time, it became a very unbalanced friendship where I often felt ridiculed or belittled. I was always the butt of the joke. I always felt their other friends didn't like me, as I'd often receive a very luke warm reception upon meeting or they'd actively be dismissive/ cold when they had never Even met me before. As it transpired, one such friend accidentally let it slip, that they were very surprised how nice and fun I was given what ex friend had told them - that I was boring, insipid and couldn't hold a conversation! For whatever reason or to simply make themselves look better, ex friend had painted me in the most negative light to ensure no one would want to befriend me. I dread to think what else they had been saying behind my back. Stupidly, I did initially try to forgive and forget but it was just one transgression too far, and they came up with the same old b.s excuses to try and cover their tracks, so our friendship could never truly recover. I felt betrayed honestly. I do miss them on occasion - we had such a long history, but once the trust is gone...