When did you know a friendship was over....

[PaulHollywoodsSexGut]

...and how did it end? Fading away or formally finished?

I am in a situation where I have one friend who I truly believe is having a shit time in her relationship but I haven’t seen her in 10 months and we live one hour from each other and worked 10 mins apart.

After 11 cancellations and no shows she claims that she’s in a bad place (I believe her and I am sympathetic, I am) and wants to stay pals but my wits are at an end now and I can’t keep making time for her for it to be pissed on.

The other friend is in a similar situation, also live > 1 hour away but has a very lovely sorted life with her NCT mummy’s and I don’t feel my face did anymore. She cancelled on me twice, the date has never been rebooked and if I’m honest I don’t care.

The clincher is I am away to move to the other end of the UK. Friend #1 I’m unlikely to see again but that’s because we are literally 4 weeks away from packing our life up and weekends are now all booked. I also think, “well, you had your chance...”

Friend #2 I don’t want to tell as I’m not fussed about seeing her again but she’s acted like a scalded cat before about my not contacting her about “big things” and it totally floored me. It was like she cared, but not enough to actually make time to see me it even have a trip to the park with the kids all together?!

Anyway, I’m rambling but if you were moving away in 4 weeks how would you manage the end of the friendships; one where the friend is unreachable but obvs having a bad time

@bakedbeanzontoast - following on from my last post I worked with a girl who was lovely. Always inviting me round to hers for coffee but I never took her up on her offer as although I was happy to be friendly at work I didn't want the pressure of meeting up out of work. Anyway, I decided to push myself to be more socialable and eventually accepted her offer. I text to arrange and she said she was busy that day so I suggested another day and she never replied and didn't mention anything when I saw her. It really knocked my confidence especially as it'd taken alot to accept her invite. I actually saw her a few weeks ago and she took my number to arrange meeting up but I've not heard from her. It's situations like this that make me reluctant to bother.

I was reluctant to post my story about the end of my life long friendship because I am still in denial and can't quite believe it's happening.

Basically her best quality became her worst quality for me , which was her extreme tolerance and exceptance of some of the most horrific people you could meet.

My friend had always seem to attack and make friends with racists and sometimes even date them, I have always supported her in her endeavours because she was a champion of the underdogs, was very intelligent and was able to educate people.

Even during the referendum I kept quiet when she voted leave despite the fact that she knew it would massively affect our community and some friends and family.
She was on the side of the disenfranchised working classes that we grew up with.
I got that.

But other things started to niggle me, such as we both had friends of our own separate from each other but I always introduced her to my friends but she kept putting off introducing me to her friends - which hurt.

The final nail was a drunken row in which I pointed out that the ref had brought out some of the unsavoury opinions and actions towards certain minority groups. She basically shouted me down and implied it was bollocks and I was imagining things.

She has changed so much in my eyes and despite our mutual friends and family thinking we were the most solid friends ever, I can't help but think that we are on different paths now.

I am heartbroken tbh.

attract not attack.

@MrsKipling1980 I have aspergers so might be related but I tend not to fuck about and I can be quite direct. Oddly enough though, For some reason I tend to attract very needy people who seem to suck the life out of you but never give anything back. I have a very stressful job and quite honestly enough problems of my own without absorbing other peoples issues. Friendship has got to be a two way thing or you would be better changing fifty quid an hour for offering a counselling service...sometimes I wish I had a female pal to bounce off but I am lucky I have my H who I've been with for nearly 20 years. Loyal friends who take a bit and give a bit back are hard to find, I don't have the time these days to go through all this socialising carry on either.

I feel hurt several years later when I concluded a friendship had ended. We met when our dc were babies and used to go to playgroup together, go out for coffee etc. I considered one of my best friends.

She moved away at the same time as another close friend, but both live with in half hours drive or so, so I made the effort to visit. However, I suddenly realised that when I phoned friend one, she was suddenly had her sister was visiting, was going out, etc. Our monthly visits dwindled to nothing. Several years later, I still analyse the friendship and wondered if I did anything wrong. However I heard the same thing happened to another mutual friend. I think ingrieved that friendship for a long while, and having two close friends, I suddenly had no local close friends (although still meet up with friend no 2).

Sorry for the long post. Still feel hurt by it.