How do you unfriend someone in real life?

[MenaMecca]

Have you done this? Like a friend you've outgrown -- how do you approach this?

You can do the nice mature thing and be honest with the friend or you can do the slow fade, or the cowards way out and ghost them.

There's no real good way to do this. I've been on the receiving end of ghosting and an email and they hurt like fucking hell. Years afterwards.

Can you just slowly stop contacting them?

Depends why. I did a combination of both when a female friend of mine absolutely battered her partner with three kids in the house. The way she told me it was her was so casual it was chilling. Told her it was unacceptable and domestic abuse then never contacted her again after deleting her off everything.

I told her she was upsetting me. I said I would not ask her to charge for me and I didn't have the energy to list every thing she'd done as she wasn't aware of any of it. I told her I just didn't enjoy her company any more.

I get the occasional email and the door is open but still everything she says fills me with rage so I ignore it.

Unless someone has done something awful there's no need to be ghosting or sending emails. Just stop inviting them to things and decline any invites extended to you. They'll get the hint.

I’d just make noises about being really busy when they suggest anything. Hopefully they will believe you and won’t be too hurt.

I stopped texting him as I was making all the effort. Any time we met up it was because I'd arranged it. He would then sit there and have no chat at all, there was nothing. So I thought that if he wasn't bothered then nor was I. And I haven't heard from in a year and a half. And I'm better off without a friend like that.

Phase the friendship out gently, it is the kindest and least confrontational route. Although it takes time.
If there has been a specific event or row then you could use that to end the friendship more abruptly. But if friend hasn't really done anything wrong and you've just outgrown them, then take the kinder and more gentle approach.

I’d look at the reason I was wanting to end it and try and resolve that/ force an end.

So if the person wanted to go out clubbing all the time and I didn’t, I’d hold firm on that and ask them to go on long country walks instead.

Might be a bit manipulative, but it might end up with a friendship that works, or if not, almost give them a chance to dump me!

You get more and more vague about making arrangements to meet up and take longer and longer to return messages. Ive been ghosted and it's shit but I don't understand the mn crap about "telling them" being preferred. What's better about your alleged friend sitting you down and telling you all your shortcomings and how much they dislike you? I'd wager this almost never happens irl and would only result in either a big vicious argument or the dumpee being destroyed and heartbroken.

**What's better about your alleged friend sitting you down and telling you all your shortcomings and how much they dislike you? I'd wager this almost never happens irl and would only result in either a big vicious argument or the dumpee being destroyed and heartbroken.

I agree with this. Last time I had to end a friendship, it was because I realised that the woman in question had an appalling hair-trigger temper, she forced me to walk on eggshells all the time because she'd completely lose it if I disagreed with her about minor things (e.g. liking a writer that she didn't like), screamed at service staff for no reason, emotionally and verbally abused her husband in front of me, and was incapable of having a conversation that wasn't about her and how fat everybody else was compared to her. There was absolutely no bloody point my telling her all that, so I just tried a gentle phase out using my (genuine) pregnancy-related illness as an excuse to meet less often. Didn't work because she ended up screaming at me anyway, but it was worth a try.*

• She also tried to make our shared friends and acquaintances dump me on the grounds that I was an abuser because I'd chosen to end my friendship with her - when they didn't, she told them that staying neutral in our friendship break-up was the same as blaming a rape victim for being raped, so they've mostly lost touch with her too.