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I can give you unlimited advice about breaking up with the person that you’re dating. When my friends need help breaking up, I’m the go-to girl, and if you’re one of the unlucky people on the receiving end of these breakups, you can thank me for making my friend break up with you ASAP instead of stringing you along. I’ve got that shit down to a science. But when it comes to breaking up with a friend, however, I’m fucking terrible at it.
To me, the only time it’s straightforward is when the person has brazenly wronged you in a way that makes it impossible to mend the friendship, such as stealing from you or fucking your significant other, or even when they’re just a bad influence/ general force of negativity in your life. In these scenarios, I think an, “I’m sorry, but this friendship isn’t healthy because [x], and I can’t continue it,” will suffice. I’m not saying it’s uncomplicated, but when it’s justified, I don’t feel as bad about it.
The challenge that I find to be absolutely insurmountable is when the friend hasn’t done anything wrong, but you’ve just figured out that you don’t want to have to hang out with them, preferably ever again. I wish it was similar to dating where when you realize you don’t have long-term compatibility, the best approach is to be straight-up and say something along the lines of, “Sorry, I’m not interested” or, “I just don’t think we have a connection,” but can you really get away with that with a friend? Even the thought of it gives me immense anxiety. I can’t exactly put my finger on why, but it just feels so much meaner to reject a person you don’t have a romantic relationship with. So what do you do?
Can you ghost? I’m not a fan of ghosting in general because I find it to be cowardly, but honestly, it seems less harsh than directly conveying to the person trying to be your friend that you would rather not reciprocate. In the days before smartphones, this was definitely the move. You could ghost, hope to never see the person again, and if you did, you could blame your lack of response on a glitch in technology that just happened to block this specific person’s messages from reaching your inbox. Pre-smartphone was the wild, wild west of technological communication. Anything could happen.
But in the modern era of “delivered” notifications and social media making it extremely difficult to go off the grid, nobody is falling for that shit. Everyone knows that repeated ghosting is the passive-aggressive form of rejection. But is this still less unpleasant for both you and your friend than blatant rejection? Possibly.
What about the “constantly busy” method where every time the undesired friend asks you to hang out, you can’t seem to make it because you’re just out in the world hustling? It’s less shitty than ghosting because at least you’re acknowledging this person’s existence. And then, hopefully, the person just gives up on you after a while, chalking it up to strenuous demands of our modern society. Truthfully, this is the route that I usually take, and I’m not proud of it, but I can’t think of any better way.
Because when I’m stuck contemplating these types of social dilemmas, I try to ask myself the age-old question, “How would I want to be treated?” Nobody has ever told me that they just plain and simple don’t want to be my friend, so I can’t say how I would react. Depending on the person, it could range from being immediately thankful to not have them in my life to eventually thankful after I processed it in therapy for a week or two decades.
But I might prefer that a person be “busy” the couple of times that I try to initiate a hangout, which will then prompt me not to initiate a third time because I’m not a stage-5 clinger. Even though I’ll have a fleeting thought that it’s personal, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I’ll continue on my merry way thinking we’re all just on our grind.
Or there’s always the option of reluctantly staying friends with the person for the next 60 years out of fear of hurting their feelings, which I also definitely have the potential to persuade myself into doing.
All of these roads are admittedly rocky, so please help a girl navigate. When y’all no longer want to associate with someone, what is the best way to break it to them? Can you really just use the same painfully honest technique that you use in dating? Or do friends, bless their hearts, require a different approach? .
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hannahrose
Excuse me, but I've got some shit to say. @xohannahrozay on IG and Twitter.
@xohannahrozay
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There will come a time on a Saturday night when you want to go out and all of your current friends are busy and you’ll wish you still had that B list to call. Don’t burn bridges.
Just a decade ago it was as simple as just moving them out of your myspace top friends
Wait, you were still on myspace 10 years ago?
At this point 10 years ago i was a sophomore in HS and i think i was still on MySpace
The top 10 was MySpace’s best feature.
MySpace Power Move:Keeping your best friend 1st on your Top-8 in favor of your girlfriend
Only cut someone off when they’re interfering with other relationships or messing with your livelihood. Otherwise, keep doing your own thing and cultivate new friendships.
What happens when you’ve cultivated new friendships and that friend who was a close friend during your single partying days wants to be included in everything you do now, despite their inability to commit to most things?
Let their feelings be hurt then? They need to grow up and realize you owe them nothing but maybe an occasional invite. It is not your fault that he or she is lacking in social intelligence and boundaries.
Biggest issue I face now is that I’ve made new friends in my post-grad city and my roommates are a little less social/outgoing. There’s definitely some resentment that I have my own new life now and they don’t have much going on outside of their gf’s. I kind of feel bad, but I have way more fun with the new group now so I don’t think I should give that up to make them happy
You just gotta make a Friendship Power Rankings and tag everyone in it so they know whether to up their game or take a month or two on the bench.
I had a friend stop being friends with me about 2 years ago. We got into a stupid fight and the friend just straight up told me that he didn’t think we should be friends anymore. He wasn’t (isn’t?) exactly the brightest bulb on the street and all our mutual friends thought it was the dumbest thing ever. But 2 years later, we are no longer friends. So honesty is always an option. I mean, if you don’t really want to be friends with someone anymore, does it really matter if you temporarily hurt their feelings?
Get them really drunk, knock them out with a heavy, blunt object, wrap them up in a nice little area rug from Urban Outfitters, throw them in the back of your Subaru, and dump them somewhere random in the woods or behind a Wal Mart….disclosure: The contents of this message do not condone the act of murder, I am not liable for any party’s actions that are not in accordance to United States Judicial Law….a Delaware Company lol
You gotta buy a flip phone and go dark on social media.
Everyone views friendships differently. I have a lot of people I’m very friendly but aren’t super close with, and I also have my core group of girls I know will lifelong friends. Some people like their friend groups small and closed, but personally I think that creates a lot of pressure. Friendships come and go and that’s okay. And you never know when you may need someone or when an acquaintance may turn into a close friend. I don’t really ever “break up” with a friend unless there’s a legitimate problem and it’s unhealthy like you mentioned above.
Don’t hang out in solo settings anymore? Maybe only see this person when it’s with a group of friends to help ease your guilt, but stick with the constantly busy otherwise.
Where’s volume 2 of The Nashville Chronicles?
I have had to end a friendship because the person I was dating was not a fan of them, and so therefore, I couldn’t be friends with them. It was hard, but he finally understood, and we are like kinda friends now, we just like stepped back from being really close friends.
That’s definitely not a good sign about the person you were dating.
Sounds like extreme jealousy.
Yeah I lost a friend this way his gf was and still is a psycho everyone said you should get out of this especially after the first time she smashed all his shit. He never did and lost our entire group cause of this and over half his stuff since. This is a major relationship red flag.