I have a friend I met 3 or so years ago who lives locally. She is quite an intense person, in that when she’s friends with people she’ll want to see them frequently and tends to have a “flavour of the month” best friend. I was this for a while. She also can be a bit mean about others, a little in the vibe of “united against a common enemy”.
ultimately I’m not this type of intense friendship person. I need my space, and I have 3 kids and work full time and quite frankly don’t have time to be seeing the same friend on a weekly basis for dinners / walks! She is very fun, but I found it too intense.
I stepped back a bit but in September 5 of us went to London for the night, which had been arranged about 6 months before.
it was boozy, and I made a passing comment about someone in the group. She totally misinterpreted it and thought I was bitching and was very horrible to me. I was drunk and very upset by it - specifically because this was a person she had previously been quite mean about herself.
after that night I massively distanced myself. She apologised for her misunderstanding but I was still hurt. She keeps trying to arrange stuff and I’ve said no about 5 times now and without being very dramatically explicit I don’t know what to do.
I don’t want drama on my life and officially “ending” the friendship is too much drama in a small community where ill
bump into her - our kids are at the same school (in diff years). But is my only option to carry on making excuses?
I am so much happier having distanced myself from her and it’s made me realise it was a bit toxic, but with her it seems to be all or nothing. It I see her she’ll want to “talk about it” and I don’t want to do that and “make up” as I’m quite happy as I am in my introverted way!
anyone have any advice from similar?