I get your predicament here, I’m in a similar situation myself.
(My story won’t help you in any way, but just sharing as you may find comfort knowing someone else is in a similar situe!)
My oldest friend changed so much during lockdown. He became friends with other people in his small block of flats and they all created one large bubble and just drank throughout the whole thing. He became quite patronising to me saying things like “I don’t know how you’re coping on your own, I’m so lucky to have so many people around me to ease the boredom” and “I don’t envy you having to have a birthday in lockdown, that’s so rubbish, so glad I’m not alone.” I rode this out, but then when you could meet up with people again, I found he just wanted to talk about himself, about all the fun, boozy flat parties he’d been at etc. Don’t read this as me being jealous as that’s my idea of hell (despite his assumptions of my lockdown life, I actually really enjoyed all the zoom quizzes with other groups of friends, zoom art clubs, zoom book clubs etc), I just found it intolerable that he just went on and on telling stories about all these people I didn’t even know and how mad their parties were, and he showed zero interest in me and didn’t ask about me. Anyway from initial lockdown to summer 2022 (two years, obviously) our meet ups became so much less frequent, as I just didn’t enjoy his company anymore. I would try and tell him stories about my life and he would either interrupt and start telling his own stories, or have a vacant look on his face, or even whip his phone out whilst I was talking. I felt 90% of our conversations were him just talking about the SAME THING- wild parties with people I didn’t knowC how drunk he got, how hungover he was. So I started pulling back a bit and not wanting to meet as much. As I just didn’t enjoy our time together any more. The final straw for me was August 22 when I had a first date upcoming, and my friend and I were out for lunch and I tried to tell him about my date, how excited/nervous I was etc, and he just wasn’t interested at all. Fast forward to our next meet up in November when my date was now my boyfriend of three months and I was really blissfully happy, and wanted to tel my friend all about my new man, and yes, you’ve guessed it, he wasn’t interested at all. And it was then that I realised he was just using me as a sounding board to brag about his amazing, wild, drunken parties, and he had zero interest in me anymore, yet HE was the one who always wanted to meet with me. But he was just using me.
So anyway, in the two years since, we text occasionally and he often tries to meet up/suggest lunches etc, and I just always swerve it. I’ve not seen him since that last time in November 2022 but every couple of months he tries to meet and I just make excuses in the hope he will stop. But really, what I need to do is find some gumption to nip this in the bud, and I love some of the ideas people hve suggested on here, for simple texts that make it clear I don’t want to see him again.
Basically I have found the advice given to you, OP, really useful to bring forward into my own life, and have found it quite cathartic to write all this out!
Thanks everyone!