AIBU to think a friendship fade-out should not end badly?

[OneDeepBrickAnt]

Vague on purpose and some details changed for anonymity.

I recently was on the receiving end of a friendship ending and felt like it was uncalled for, but AIBU? Was I the asshole?

I was close to a friend from college and we regularly messaged and met up. Life changed and I went through a very rough/isolated patch with health issues in the family, and wasn’t able to keep up with socialising, especially meeting up later at night for drinks, or for longer periods of time away.

Possibly one or two things happened when they ignored me in a difficult moment, or couldn’t understand what I was going through. I realised I was relying on our friendship too much, and did not want to be in that vulnerable situation.

Gradually, we grew apart. I stopped making plans or actively messaging them.

Every so often, they would message, asking to meet up. I’ve politely declined and the very few times we made concrete plans, life happened and I had to cancel with notice. At the time, I wanted to meet and honour those plans, but was slowly dreading getting messages from them as it felt more like extra responsibilities rather than something I looked forward to.
I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. I was always very polite and replied to messages. I never left them hanging. Nothing happened and there wasn’t any betrayal or anything that went very wrong.

One day, (relatively out of the blue), they messaged and ended the friendship by saying that they felt I was disrespectful, disappointed that I had put in no effort into the relationship; they wished me all the best. I politely messaged back and also wished them well, thinking that was the end, but after a period of time, they continued to message me, and expressing a lot of unhappiness and anger, and perhaps I was wrong for replying, but I felt like their reaction was completely unwarranted and wanted to justify myself (mistake). Eventually I had to say I really didn't think continuing the conversation was a good idea anymore. I am worried they will continue to message me or try to communicate with me in other ways, as I have seen this happen in other relationships they had been in in the past.

This definitely felt more like a relationship breakup between lovers, rather than friendships. I feel that with friendships, being polite and civil/slowly fading is acceptable, as when circumstances change and if people’s paths are to cross again, friendships can be rekindled, and I’ve definitely been on the receiving end of this, and was never offended by this.

I think my people pleasing trait and keen to avoid confrontation conflict led to this unfortunate situation.

Are you always upfront with people you no longer want to maintain a close friendship with?

This made me realise I perhaps should have been more clear earlier on if I feel like the friendship is no longer bringing me happiness.

Equally, I feel like I shouldn’t have been on the receiving end of quite harsh words, as I remained polite and civil throughout, and never ignored messages or asked for conflict.

Any thoughts/feelings greatly appreciated as I want to learn from this.

I am upfront if I don't want to remain friends, it doesn't have to be nasty, just honest. I'd rather someone was direct about what they want, better than me wasting my time and effort into a friendship that isn't reciprocal. I'd not rekindle a friendship with someone who did a slow fade on me.

I think I’d prefer if a friend was honest with me.
Last year I was phased out by a friend and I found that really difficult as it seemed all good when we did meet up.
I found the whole thing as difficult as a romantic relationship.

The other person sounds very hurt

What words have you used and so you do it face to face? How has it been received?

“I’ve politely declined and the very few times we made concrete plans, life happened and I had to cancel with notice. At the time, I wanted to meet and honour those plans, but was slowly dreading getting messages from them as it felt more like extra responsibilities rather than something I looked forward to.”

This might be the problem. You made plans just enough times to give the impression that you were interested, but then you cancelled on multiple occasions, and I’m guessing you didn’t reschedule.

How long, after college, were you two close?

I think slow fades are really difficult on the receiving end. It's confusing and can lead the faded person wondering if they are imagining the cooling off, and what has happened to instigate it, without even knowing if it really is happening or if they are imagining it.

For that reason, if I'm too busy to meet up I make it clear that I don't want to be. I said to a newish friend this week 'I can't make that date work (after turning down a couple of other dates) but please do keep letting me know when you're free because I really do want to get together, it's just a bit difficult right now.'

It's interesting that you say you were on the receiving end of the friendship ending, but it was you that was fading her out.

You said yourself you consistently declined plans to meet up or cancelled at the last minute. You didn’t want to invest time or energy in this relationship and your friend is hurt and upset. Now you just need to be blunt and honest and say you aren’t interested in maintaining anymore ties and put the poor person put of their misery. A slow fade is fine when both parties aren’t that bothered but it seems you actively want an end to this friendship so you just need to be upfront.

I suppose my wording would depend on the situation. But usually I just tell them that I feel the friendship has run it's course, I let them know why and wish them well. Sometimes it's badly received, I once had a former friend get rather nasty about it (but I was ending the friendship because she'd turned into a bit of a bully, towards myself and others) but I have also had ones that it's been appreciated and some of those have rekindled later as when we did cross paths again we were able to speak about why the friendship wasn't working and how we could resolve that.

I very rarely or never 'close' friendships officially because it seems to me that if circumstances were different, you moved closer or something happened, you might connect back in with that person. I don't want to hear about how the friendship isn't quite what they want right now, so I must be the person who doesn't appreciate bluntness. Friendship is a bit more fluid, surely, it's not like a relationship and I wouldn't want official breakups as such.

I have drifted away from loads of friends. It wasn’t any particular reason, just that whatever circumstances made us friends were no longer the same for one or both of us. No one needed to make an announcement or break up with anyone. It was just life. Personally I’d have found it a bit rude/abrupt if one of them messaged to end the friendship. Sometimes friends come back round again too because circumstances mean you are back in touch.

Recently in my long term friendship group, one of my friends (A) felt they had to do this with another friend (B) for very similar reasons.

To give some wider context, A has been in therapy for some wider issues, and part of that has been realising that to some extent, we are in control of our own happiness. A feels that they have several "close" relationships with family, friends and partners which werent reciprocal and they exacerbate their feelings of low self worth. That is why they have felt they need to take some control and discontinue those relationships and only invest where the effort feels mutual.

I personally feel that A is being harsh to B specifically, but I do see that this is somewhat of an issue in A's love life. I see why they need to set some boundaries overall.