Would you walk away from this friendship? How?

[TotalLlamaQueen]

Hi,

In a bit of an awkward situation and could really do with some advice.

Noticed quite a few threads about ghosting on here recently. Mainly from the POV of the 'ghostee'. It always sounds so brutal and most posters seem outraged on the OPs behalf. I do understand. When you're only presented with one side of the story, it sounds massively unkind and rather brutal, but we don't know the other side do we?

My situation is, over the past couple of months, a friend of mine of only a couple of years has done and said some things that have really questioned whether I want to remain friends. Don't want to go into too much detail for obvious reasons, but basically, she makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. Feel a bit swamped by her tbh. Right from the beginning, she was acting like we were best friends, rather than just letting the friendship grow over time. I just sort of slowed things down - would leave it a bit longer between meet ups, not message quite so much etc, but I didn't want to cut her out. I just wanted to send a bit of a signal, without being unkind. We do get on and I do enjoy her company, just not really regularly. I'd be happy with a monthly meet up, whereas she was messaging me most days, asking when she could come over next.

She's also asks quite inappropriate and personal things, has invited herself and new bf over for dinner. Not just turning up, asking if they could come, but in a way like she's already planned it, iyswim. "Saving money darling and your cooking is so good, we'd rather come to yours anyway. Hows x date and x time?' type messages.

Pisses me off tbh and actually, I think I've made it clear, as I have said several times that it's just not convenient and quite abruptly. I thought she'd picked up on my annoyance and maybe would back off a bit, but she's ramped it back up and I feel suffocated again.

I really am considering walking away, but I don't want to hurt her feelings. Phasing out contact is basically ghosting, which does feel really harsh, but I don't know what else to do.

Any advice?

TIA

Either tell her straight that you don’t want a full on friendship as you find it too much.

Or, drop her and either be vaguer all the time and don’t commit or just cut off and block.

I’m an old person and life is too short to spend with people you feel uncomfortable with.

Just say sorry flat out busy at the moment. Then ignore.

"Saving money darling and your cooking is so good, we'd rather come to yours anyway. Hows x date and x time?'

It sounds like maybe she's a user. Think about it, is the 'friendship' pretty one sided and it's all about her and her wants? If so you have nothing to feel guilty about if you stop being available.

Just be honest.

Say 'hey, no I don't want to host dinner here, happy to come to you or meet at a restaurant?'.

Or 'I'm really busy between now and Christmas, maybe we could meet in January'.

Ghosting is the cowards way out. Be honest.

I don't want to hurt her feelings.

Whereas she forces herself on you when it's not convenient. She sounds like she has quite a thick skin, I wouldn't worry too much about her feelz and think more about yourself. You owe her nothing.

Thanks for the replies.

@Gymnopedie not really one sided, she can be very thoughtful and considerate but there's no doubt she can be a CF! I think she probably sees herself as bold, a go getter, when she's actually just being incredibly rude. I suspect she's of the mind set of 'if you don't ask, you don't get'. You'd think by now though, that she'd have learnt 'you can ask, but you don't get....because you're being such a CF!'

@NuffSaidSam but that kind of is ghosting isn't it? Either you're up front and say you don't want to be friends anymore or it's varied degrees of ghosting/phasing out. That's how I see it anyway.

‘Saving money here too darling! Sorry, won’t be hosting for the foreseeable!’

She sounds very userous ( is that a word?) and I’m sure she’d drop you if she found someone else she could use.
Always reply with already have plans, sorry so busy right now, can’t meet up right now tied up with family or work things. She’ll get the message and move on.

No, ghosting is just disappearing, not responding to messages, no explanation.

I'm suggesting that you reply honestly to her messages. If you don't want to host a dinner, then say 'I don't want to host a dinner'.

Have you fully understood what ghosting is?

Saving money so wants to be hosted by you? Honestly, when I go to someone’s house for dinner, I take very good wine, chocolate, flowers, I probably spend nearly as much as them!