To end this friendship - but HOW?!

[Woofbloodywoof]

I have been friends with this woman for twenty years but, as so often happens, in that twenty years, we have both changed quite a bit and our paths diverged. Not a problem as for a few years we didn’t see much of each other and lived in different parts of the country.

She now lives ten minutes away and regularly sends me messages for coffees (when they could happen) and dog walks. I always end up saying yes and being all light and breezy while dying inside.

The thing is, I really don’t like her anymore. I find her utterly materialistic, self obsessed, she makes sweeping pronouncements that women with children lose themselves/their looks/their husbands, definitely never wants kids etc. It leaves me feeling a bit ‘eh?!’ I am dreading keeping our arrangement for later today, it’s literally making me a feel a bit ill.

I just feel like it would be a shitty thing to tell her the truth and I’ve not had an excuse to avoid seeing her this year because it’s not as if we’ve all had raving social lives. How do I end this friendship? I really don’t want to ghost her because that seems so mean and childish but this can’t go on.

Those of you who have extricated themselves how did you do it without hurting someone’s feelings? Thank you.

I had a friend who became increasingly critical and pessimistic but we lived a distance apart so seldom met.

She came to stay one weekend and by Sunday I realised that she had completely lost her sense of humour. I spent the whole day trying to make her laugh but didn't even raise a smile. She said a lot of derogatory things to me too.

After she'd left I rang my parents and told DF "She's got zero SOH and I don't think she even likes me!"

DF roared with laughter and asked why it had taken me so long. He'd known for 20 years. Said she'd always been jealous of me but I just hadn't noticed.

I really don't think I had any choice but to ghost her. I couldn't possibly tell her what I really thought. Sometimes just fading away is your only option.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

You should use her to practice your "standing up to people". You don't want the friendship to continue, so just test yourself. Use her as a guinea pig. Push back on her comments a little. See what happens, see hownyou feel about it.

I also agree with this. You don't have to make big arguments back, just little things like 'people like me you mean?' or 'that's not how I've found it' or whatever. Just - stop pretending. If she's being a dick, why should you be embarrassed? Reflect the awkwardness back to where it came from, and maybe she'll opt out of the friendship first.

Or (unlikely but possible) she'll turn into a more thoughtful person, which I'm guessing would also be a good outcome?

I think the question is for you and if you want to keep this friendship? If so I would start to challenge her on her views that you don't agree with. She may surprise you and at least be able to see things from your point of view.

If not I would keep telling her you are unable to meet for ne reason or another. She will eventually stop messaging asking to meet and get the picture and the friendship will just fizzle out.

Sometimes friendship just grow apart and our lives go in different directions. That's life isn it.

Good Luck

This is a tricky situation. I had something similar. A friend who was in a bad place herself was constantly quite hurtful about children, mothers, black people, gay people, you get the picture.

It was very unpleasant and uncomfortable being in her company. But she was ill and has since passed away. It was complicated by the fact that she was ill and I wanted to support a seriously ill person so I did a lot of what has been suggested.

I didn’t take her hurtful comments personally, I recognised that she was a hurt person, I only had anything to do with her when I was in a place mentally to deal with the emotional impact she had on me. And I recognised that there were things about how she was making me feel that were more about my own vulnerablilities and past difficulties in life that she was triggering in me than about her —I mean why should I care what she thinks she is particularly nice anyway— and dealt with those deeper more difficult issues rather than dealing with her. I couldn’t help her but I could learn from her and why what she said hurt me.

I've found myself in a fairly similar situation in the last year with a couple of friends (different reasons). It got to the point where I realised I was dreading every time I saw them and feeling drained afterwards. I did the following and I'm in a better place now with them...

Stopped seeing them so often and for so long (e.g. rather than a 2.5 hour coffee every week it was more like a 45 min walk every two weeks). Put some effort into planning my response to certain, predictable, behaviours - including pre-planning possible topics of conversation to move on to. Being more honest in places. Reviewed how I did/how I felt afterwards. I think I've 'grown' as a result too.

With one I am back up to enjoying seeing them for longer and the other I've decided I want to see even less (I would say that is mutual now that a few boundaries have gently been put in place) but I still think there is value in the friendship on a more superficial level.

Those of you who have extricated themselves how did you do it without hurting someone’s feelings?

In my experience you can't. You would be saying 'I don't want to spend time with you' which translates into 'I don't like you'. No one wants to hear that about themselves.

Just say no thanks every time she says an invite. Don't offer any reason or excuse. After a few refusals she'll stop bothering.

There are some cruel people on here. She's been a friend for 20 years - of course the OP needs to have the basic respect to be honest with her.

There are some cruel people on here. She's been a friend for 20 years - of course the OP needs to have the basic respect to be honest with her

I think though a lot of people are having trouble judging which will cause more hurt ghosting or hurting her feeling by telling her that her behaviour is upsetting the OP. Very often people who behave in the manner set out in the OP do so due to their own self esteem issues. If so telling her what is wrong with her behaviour could actually really upset her.

I've recently had to block an acquaintance on all social media, thankfully didn't have my phone number.

Similar in someways to OP, acquaintance had different views to myself and was quite negative which brought my own mood down. I live in a small village and we had an informal arrangement that we would meet once a week for socially distanced exercise (walk) during lockdown as we were both in single households and they had seen me out walking and had tagged along.

Lockdown ends, I'm able to return to work full time, the walking arrangement ends, or so I thought.

I was receiving messages almost everyday asking when I could go for walks, explained no time now back at work, replied saying busy another time, etc. I would either be direct and say no not convenient, no I'm no longer going out for walks, or just say I was busy.

Then the acquaintance started knocking on my door, and sending messages (FB messenger) saying I saw you were doing in your sitting room. They would monitor my FB activity and message when I was online.

I ignored the knocks on the door (because they are an invitation to answer not an obligation on my part), and then started the late night drunk messages after closing time as they'd been to local village social club bar. I ignored these too.

In the end I have had to block them as it became so weird and made me feel really uncomfortable in my own home.

I thought I was doing the right thing by allowing it to end naturally with the end of lockdown, but the acquaintance wanted to pursue the non existent friendship.

In hindsight I think a more abrupt end would have saved me stress and worry, and made it absolutely clear I was not interested in maintaining a friendship.

Sometimes people are really thick skinned when they don't want to hear the message you're sending them.

My advice to OP would be if the friend is making you uncomfortable let them know, if it continues just end the friendship as it's not likely they're listening to understand what you're saying and will carry on doing exactly the same things.

There are some cruel people on here. She's been a friend for 20 years - of course the OP needs to have the basic respect to be honest with her.

I think telling someone you don’t want to be their friend anymore is very cruel.

It’s not like relationships, where it’s really only socially acceptable to have just one on the go at a time.

With friendships, you can have as many on the go as you want.

So for someone to say they don’t want to be friends with you any more, that’s confirmation that they find you so awful, they can’t and won’t find even the tiniest space for you in their life. Cruel.

I honestly think I would prefer to be phased out than be told in black and white that I’m so intolerable my friend can’t bring herself to be around me any more.

"I honestly think I would prefer to be phased out than be told in black and white that I’m so intolerable my friend can’t bring herself to be around me any more."

I definitely wouldn't. I'd rather know. I can never learn or improve otherwise, can I?

But how much can you learn from a polite, ‘look, this isn’t really working for me, I just don’t want to hang out / be friends with you anymore’?

It’s not like you’re going to get a constructive critique of where you’ve been going wrong...

I find these threads really odd. Most people seem to be of the opinion that if you are no longer getting anything out of the friendship you either ditch them openly by telling them you dislike them or you ignore them. She is obviously an occasional coffee person not a close friend. Personally I would give it less importance, meet if you feel like it, don't if you'd rather not. But remember that she could be lonely. I personally would rather have the occasional coffee than intentionally hurt someone for the sake of a cup of coffee and a chat every few months. I would also be more honest in your chats. If she says something you disagree with, say so.

Tell her you’re broke and ill. Amazing how quickly the materialistic and self-obsessed will drop you after that; you won’t have to do anything.

@MerchantOfVenom

But how much can you learn from a polite, ‘look, this isn’t really working for me, I just don’t want to hang out / be friends with you anymore’?

It’s not like you’re going to get a constructive critique of where you’ve been going wrong...

I think there should be though. There should at least be a chance for a discussion.

I'm firmly in the camp of not wanting to be sat down for a chat on my shortcomings. I know that I have drifted away from friends over the years because they became wealthier than me and moved in circles that I didn't fit into. Imagine how shit it would be for someone to sit me down and say 'we've had good times in the past but now that you can't afford to go to the same restaurants as me, I think I've moved on'. I'd rather they just stopped inviting me and continued to stop for a quick chat if I run into them in the supermarkets than the humiliation of that.

"Imagine how shit it would be for someone to sit me down and say 'we've had good times in the past but now that you can't afford to go to the same restaurants as me, I think I've moved on'."

I'd prefer that to not knowing and always wondering what it was.
How do you know those people dumped you because of incomes? Might have been something else...

Just say' I can't next week I'm busy' and ithe week after and so on. If she dares to ask what you're so busy doing, tell her it's life admin. Keep declining and it will fade away. If she challenges don't give her details, just bland responses.

@Gwenhwyfar

"Imagine how shit it would be for someone to sit me down and say 'we've had good times in the past but now that you can't afford to go to the same restaurants as me, I think I've moved on'."

I'd prefer that to not knowing and always wondering what it was.
How do you know those people dumped you because of incomes? Might have been something else...

I very much doubt that it would be for any other reason, because we still have a really good laugh over WhatsApp and if we run into each other out and about, and nothing about our relationship changed apart from our incomes.

But in any case, it really doesn't matter to me what their reasoning was, the bottom line is that we used to socialise a lot, now we don't. The reason doesn't matter.

This is really interesting actually because while we can and do end romantic relationships for any reason and often to the great hurt of one or both parties involved, it does seem that friendships are trickier.

I personally don’t think it is particularly healthy to continue a relationship for evermore if it is not a good relationship. For me a good relationship is one where both parties are still enjoying each other’s company and aren’t unduly constrained from speaking out due to perceived or otherwise sensitivities.

I don’t think I’d be up for the cups of tea for all eternity just in case the other party is lonely but that is me. I was willing to make an exception in the case of a seriously ill person but I don’t think allowing a relationship that is not serving us to fizzle out is a bad thing. But then people hold onto all sorts or relationships that don’t serve them for all sorts of underlying reasons.

The other side is people really have to work hard to change themselves and it is far more likely that can person told of why they don’t fit a particular view of friendship is going to feel defensive rather than make changes. And being honest maybe it is not about them anyway. It could be about issues with the instigator.

Can I just say I HAVE been dumped for the restaurants thing.

Thanks for the great advice and different perspectives. A lot of food for thought.
So I did not cancel and went along for the walk. I hadn’t read all the different posts by then but I went thinking about what a poster upthread had said, that it was time to be more assertive. I am definitely guilty of quiet stewing and I need to stop this, I’m too old for it now.

It was ok. We didn’t touch on anything too inflammatory and I thought a lot about why she might make certain comments. We have known each for a very long time and started out in a notoriously tough industry (especially for women) and have both been, I suppose, pretty successful in it. I am still working but since becoming a mother I have definitely not been as ambitious as I was, and that’s a good thing really because my 20s/30s were an unhealthy level of intense. And maybe part of me is touchy about that and so her comments about mothers sting more than they might. But then, she’s not silly, I think it’s a fairly knowing thing. And I used to be assertive. Maybe this is also part of it; I’m projecting something onto it and not standing my ground.

I refuse to ghost anyone. So I won’t do that.
But maybe until I get my own professional mojo back I need to keep a little more distance.

Thanks for all the feedback. I was worried I was overthinking this but am encouraged (although a little sad) that this is not uncommon. I also think that if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to try to get along as best we can.

I'd tell her the truth. You don't have to be nasty, but, why not just be honest?

You can’t do it without hurting people
It’s impossible !
And life is too short , so interim be always always busy