To not speak to this old friend

[OwwwMuuuum]

Old, old friendship group, held
together these days by sporadic group chat messages. Whole group hasn’t met up since pre-covid, splinter groups have met up since. Men and women all in middle age, some with and some without DCs.

One friend (let’s call her Angela) has always been on the awkward side, as a person. Quite snarky, “shy”, never warm or kind. I liked her for other reasons when we were younger, we fancied the same pop stars and had similar dress sense. Obviously none of that still bonds us now we are 40. Her parenting style, her views, everything is just awkward and irritating to me. She removed herself from the group chat a year ago by not responding to anything. You could see by read receipts that she was still reading everything and every now and again she would interject with a damning or snarky comment but we all just left her to it as she was going through treatment for a bad illness and we put it down to that.

I started to find it really uncomfortable that she was snooping on the group chat but never participating unless to say something unkind. I contacted her 5 months ago to ask why the long silence. She said “I am stepping back from things that feel hurtful” by which I presume she meant me. I left her to her own devices at that point as I thought she was being completely ridiculous.

Since then she’s recently swanned back into the group chat, starts making full posts. No apology, no explanation, just as if her months of silence and her blaming me didn’t happen. She’s also met up with my two closets friends in the group over Xmas, I’m not geographically close but this was obviously all arranged off the main group chat so I had no idea. She’s the kind of person that always silently gets their way.

Getting to the point, my issue is that I really don’t like Angela any more. I don’t want her in my life. I don’t want to see her again. I don’t want to share info about my life on the group chat for her to potentially snark about. But I do want to stay friends with the others and for that reason I don’t want to flounce off the group chat.

What should I do?

YABU - carry on with the group chat as normal and just pass over Angela’s mystery absence like nothing has happened
YANBU - leave the group chat and start a breakaway group chat that doesn’t involve Angela

@OwwwMuuuum, say what you'd say if she weren't there. Let her make mean comments and don't respond. Other people are not dumb. They'll judge her and will likely be careful around her. Don't get sucked in to responding to her or hurting your relationships with others in the group by pulling back from the group.

Did she behave differently towards you than others? Are her snarky comments directed at you? Have you asked her if you have done something to upset her?

YANBU
You did not leave, so why should you now?

You can see it how you want I guess, it in no way makes it true though.

But starting a new group and leaving her out would be childish and pathetic. You're the only one in the group who doesn't seem to like her and she obviously doesn't like you either.

Deal it it like an adult woman, not a child.

Well if you don’t care, then stop bothering with it all. Problem solved.

Do you mean she made a nasty comment in response to your message about the concert?
You need to just rise above it, ignore the comments, reply to all questions worthy of an answer.
"How are you, have you recovered from the flu?" A reply.
"Did you ever manage to lose the fat?" No reply, and your next message should introduce a new focus/subject.
Let the others discover for themselves her true nature. In may be that in a few months you'll find yourself invited to a new group started by a couple of them who are fed up of her style of message.

This.

Such drama.

I never feel guilty for not replying to a group chat question or taking part in the group chat in the same way I might feel bad for not replying to a personal text. Group chats are for dipping in and out of as real life permits. Imagine if you were all seated in a restaurant - you might pop to the loo, or outside for a smoke, or end up in a 1:1 chat at the end of the table.

I think she sounds snarky. I agree with the first post though, you can't start up a separate group as that would make you the bitch.

Don't post anything you wouldn't want her to see, remain distantly polite to her. If she's snarky, try and ignore it. Others will see her snarkiness. Perhaps that is her personality, perhaps she's unhappy and struggling. Either way, you are not close and don't have to be involved.

Anything "meaningful" you don't want her to know about, either set up a separate more intimate chat with 1 or 2 of the others closest to or most relevant, or have individual conversations (calls or chat).

Don't let her push you out of a group you want to be in.

Nah, she's a member of the group as much as you. It's not snooping just because you now don't like her.

The word ' presume' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

You obviously don’t like her and she doesn’t like you, it happens.
However if your two closest friends met up with her over Christmas, it sounds like others in the group are fine with her, so I wouldn’t withdraw from the group.
As other posters have said just ignore the snarky remarks and if she is that bad others will cotton on.

Im not sure how you reached the conclusion that she was blaming you? Maybe she found a lot of things hurtful while she was going through treatment for an illness? It doesn’t sound like it was aimed at you. If the others still like her it’s unlikely they’ll join you in a splinter group. Just contact them one to one

I have a WhatsApp group chat with some old female friends. Some contribute more than others, all have their different personalities. I also have sub-chat groups with members of the group for when we e.g meet up for dinner just 2 or 3 of us. That way it doesn't overload the group chat with pointless chat and plans. I probably have 4 or 5 of these sub chats and we do use them outside of the main chat occasionally to discuss a point on the main chat. I don't think this way of organising friendship groups is unusual and I don't see it as snarky or underhand. I'm sure there are groups that exist without me in and my name is probs my mid on those from time to time too.

We have one friend who sometimes is all over the chat and other times we don't hear from her ages, despite knowing she's read the texts. Doesnt bother me in the slightest.

'Presume' means you haven't heard anything for definite, either from Angela or your other friends. Unless there's a drip feed that Ive missed, I would just let it go for now. Youve been a good friend and checked in on her, kept in touch. If this is her 'style' of communication there's not much you can do other than reduce direct contact with her.

• probably mud. Bloody typos!

If she's been having treatment for cancer (you don't specify),you don't just get over the treatment, side effects and trauma in a few months. It makes you look at the world and the people around you in a whole new light

That’s basically what’s she has said, it was cancer and it’s caused her to reevaluate things. She didn’t specify how, so I’m just left to conjecture that it’s resulted in this situation.

Exactly

If you’re reading and not responding for months, I see that as snooping.

Of course it's not!

What an odd thing to say.

There's no mandatory requirement to post on a group you are a member off.

Gosh OP, you sound really horrible.

You two don't gel personality-wise. That's fine.

But you have made a huge amount of presumptions about her motivation & actions, at a time when the woman was dealing with a cancer diagnosis. That's incredibly harsh, and reflects poorly on you.

You mention some comments she's made about your DH / family. Of course that's not ok, but you don't specify what they are

I don't see why you need to do anything 🤷🏻‍♀️ keep going with the group, don't arrange to meet up with her specifically.

"She said “I am stepping back from things that feel hurtful” by which I presume she meant me."

Why did you presume it related to you? I'm not doubting you...just asking.

You really are sounding worse and worse the more you post OP.

It's all very 'me, me, me' and if you're not careful your other friends who all seem to like her will realise that. That's if they're not starting to already.

It wouldn't surprise me if they've already made a splinter group, to avoid your drama.

I really don't think she needs to apologise for being quiet on a group chat, especially since she was seriously ill! She's not snooping by reading messages on a group chat either.

I imagine her reply to you was defensive because you were accusative in asking her why she was quiet. Unless you were checking if she was ok it's just an odd thing to ask anyone.

I don't really see the big issue here. The worst crime is she was snarky occasionally when she was going through a serious illness. You said yourself the group has splintered off and isn't close anymore so just don't share personal information on the group chat. Create a separate group of your actual friends.

It sounds like she doesn't like you either so there's no big deal just meet up with friends you do like.

Yeah you’re sounding worse with every post OP. She had cancer!

I really don't get what Angela has done wrong. She had cancer, therefore she didn't engage much with the group chat for a long time.

You feel that as she is not participating she is "snooping".

I don't understand why you think her comment about stepping back was about you. Maybe it meant that she finds it difficult/stressful to engage much in large group chats when she's having a hard time - I'm the same.

Without you saying exactly what bitchy comments she's specifically aimed at you it appears that she's done nothing wrong and YABU.