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

What happens in terms of group chat if you block Angela? (I genuinely don't know but does blocking someone mean you can't see what they post in the group and vice versa or does it not work like that?). Cancer doesn't mean you have to forgive awful behaviour but has Angela been awful or just reacting to her illness

The OP hasn't given a single example of Angela being 'awful'.

I think I’ve been awful haven’t I. I do find her smarminess and bitchy comments wearing, and the silence was difficult to bear after nearly 20 years of daily contact. BUT reasonably she was ill, as PPs have said, and I should just step off for that alone.

I genuinely did start this thread for consensus/advice and I’ll take it on the chin, it sounds like I’m behaving like the teen I was when I first met these people. Perceptive yes I probably am jealous of her and the friendships/ geographical closeness she has with the others if I’m totally honest with myself.

I don’t want to reignite a friendship, but I will stay on the group, and try not to make everything worse.