I want to let a friendship go, how do I go about this?

[SoleSource]

Just want to disappear as people have done so myself in the past but that felt awful.

to myself*

How often and in what circs do you see them? I think that's the clincher - if you'll bump into them at school gates or whatever I would think it'll be v awkward.

If not, then just be elusive - if they ask you to meet up just say 'oh I'm not sure, I'll let you know' and repeat til they give up! There's no kind way to do it TBH.

Out of interest why do you want out of the friendship? If there's a strong reason then you could consider ending it formally to avoid stringing them along.

We are incompatible, all about her, pushy etc

I used to see her quite often but I have distanced myself from her within the last month and I feel better off for it.

She is on my B page and I can't update my status as se'll know I'm ignoring her.

She uses me as her taxi.

Feel a bit spiteful but she has abandonment issues as she was raised within the care system, that is why she keeps coming back to me I think...

Can you put her on that restricted thing on FB? That way she sees only a small amount of what you post in her news feed I think.

I'm afraid if you're worried she'll 'think you're ignoring her' then it will be tricky to wriggle out of - but if you've managed to distance yourself over the last month then you're part way there.

There's really only two ways to end a friendship IMO:

a) 'Dump' her by text, then block her from phone and FB
Pro's - quick, no faffing about
Con's - overly dramatic, mortifying for her

b) Continue with the distancing but post on FB as normal - the whole point is that she realises you're pulling away from her and gets the hint!

I've done this in the past with an ex work friend who I was finding it increasingly difficult to spend time with - but it helped massively that we had no mutual friends. Does that apply to you?

Her abandonment issues are not your responsibility. If she's not behaving like a friend then she deserves to be dropped. You can gradually drift away, be unavailable or do the no-contact thing and tell her why. Fuck it, you can also do the no-contact and not tell her. Your call.

Thank you BigArea, you are helpful :)

No mutual friends phew!!

I didn't know there is a FB restricted posts setting.

I'll look now

She has many good qualities too but it is stressful being with her.

It may be harder than you think. I tried the 'well it may be a while before I have time to meet' I tried the 'I find your comments quite hurtful' nothing sank in.

She camped outside my house, called my mother several times. I really knew then enough was enough. I wrote to her to leave me alone. Nothing worked. She waited outside my house, cried for ages, asked me over for dinner. I think she burnt so many bridges with people and it only sank in.

I hope it's not like ths for you.

You may find if you stop the lifts and other favours she might back off anyway, that happened to me with my leech friend. I said I couldn't jump to her tune so she "dumped me"

Ohhh gawd littlegreen .. she may visit me but little chance of it, most likely to bump into her at the shopping centre.

Ledkr good for you, better off!

Bitter you're right!

You can let someone drift off - Be polite when in contact but don't return calls, be busy at times she asks to meet etc......eventually she'll realise it's one sided and drift off.

She has called me six times since Friday, left FB message and three answer machine messages.

She is in my area tomorrow, hope she doesn't come here. Just get the hint!!!

I'm in a technical field where people don't always "get hints". I have found that sometimes, exaggerating the hint that most people would get helps. For example: friend who will not stop talking about printers even when others start looking at their fingers, fiddling, exhibiting signs of being done with printers -- he responds when you physically turn your upper body away or start leaving the room, or say "that's enough about printers for me" (!! it feels very awkward). He gets body language eventually, it just has to be very explicit.
If you're going to leave the friendship anyway, would you consider either exaggerating the "hints" or simply being direct? eg "calling 6 times since Friday leaves me feeling very pressured" or "I feel like I have to give you a lift for us to hang out" or even "I am not happy giving you a lift every time we see each other" or "I see friends usually once a month or so and this is too much for me".
I had one close friend who did this - called 20 times a day, tearful if I ever said no to anything, would turn up outside my flat, etc. She had many complex needs and issues, but one thing I think would have helped earlier would have been for me not to respond "politely" - ie "sorry for calling you..." "that's ok ... um.. what is it?" should have been "sorry for calling you" ... "um, yeah, you can't call me every 5 minutes because I have to get some work done. Let's talk next week". I think she was not detecting the unhappy tone in the "that's ok .." and thought I actually meant that it was ok. I had another friend who did the lift thing -- would always suggest that we get together but could we stop by at xx shop and do an errand first? made me feel like I was just a taxi.
For what it's worth, I concluded that some of this behaviour (with both these women) was sub-conscious "testing" to confirm that people liked them enough, or to check that someone would be there. Very self-defeating.

Excellent post fussy some very good advice for you there OP and perhaps a bit of food for thought given the persistence of your friend (frenemy perhaps?!)

I had a 'friend' like this who I dropped (well tbh she dropped me in the end).
We had little in common, most of why we stayed friends was me being too polite to drop her earlier but in the end it had just got way too much.
She had no sense of boundaries and was 'dropping in' every day I wasn't at work for morning coffee and staying until bedtime. Requests for lifts, loan of cash, printer, computer were very frequent. I had no time with just my family and she could never get a polite hint eg yawn, yawn, it is really getting late now. You'd have to actually go put your pjs on and still she'd be yacking on the doorstep forcing you to practically shut it in her face.
In the end I wrote her a polite letter saying that I needed to rein back contact and that she was welcome to come once a week for either one morning or one afternoon. It sounds blunt and weird to write that down but nothing else was working.
She then went completely the opposite way and sent me loads of abusive texts and emails so that I had to block her.
So if you feel you need to then just do it but there is really no nice, kind way. Be prepared for a backlash.