When is it time to let go of a friendship?

So yeah, I have nothing helpful to say - only that you're not alone.

bnw said upthread that he's seen people try and stop friendships from changing - if the extent to which two people treasure their friendship becomes imbalanced, can (or should) anything be done to salvage it or is that usually a waste of time? Do people really change that much over time? Is it normal to drift or grow apart? Is it unreasonable to expect friends to make an effort to nuture the relationship, or should things just be allowed to change as they may? Is it a mistake to have any expectations of other people?

Too many questions, I know.

In this case there were a few incidents that widened the gap, but overall we were already kind of moving further apart, lives going different directions. Don't think there's much you can do about it, esp when one person has shown through action (or inaction) that she's adverse to continuing. Much like a break up, really.

And Alex, I like to keep my friends a little closer than your post seems to suggest. Obv not everyone else wants to be in this kind of relationship but what can I say? I like things kind of intense.

laurel, i am with you on liking things intense, and on coming to terms with the endings of important girl-best-friendships as well.

this is the correct approach to these things.

Hmm Christmas seems to be the time for realising that you've been completely dropped. And I have been.

1) Friend of 30 years - what I thought was a minor disagreement turns out to be a showstopper and I am being cut dead.

2) More recent, but very dear, friend. No idea what's happened but clearly I am persona non grata.

A bit of a gloomy start to Christmas.

I'd say try not to think of either state of affairs as permanent (or any state of affairs as permanent!), leave the door open but don't look at it. sometimes you never find out

I've had this happen quite recently, but more sort of a mutual unspoken letting go I guess. Friend got married and I didn't go to the wedding but went on holiday instead, when I told her this she was a bit put out and didn't respond, we haven't spoken since (3-4 months ago). She's the kind of person to throw herself very much into a new thing (and the marriage involves moving away and they'll be completely self-contained). I suppose I don't really think of this as either of us letting go of it, sometimes circumstances make a natural end. I'm not sad though, it doesn't invalidate anything.

I'm sort of annoyed with a friend right now over something quite silly. Some friends were being kettled at the student protests and I told her and she was all kinda "they deserve it, shouldn;'t have gone there! troublemakers!", I said i dunno don't really think my friends are troublemakers, but I found her dismissiveness kind of difficult! She never asked if they were ok. I'm sort of finding it difficult to look past, right now.

Probably annoyed more with myself for mentioning it, as I sort of knew what her reaction would be. I don't need my friends to have the same outlook as me or anything, but the lack of any kind of empathy about it I'm still finding too jarring

It's strange. I hit 30 and suddenly I seem to be losing lifelong friends in droves. One guy has gone travelling around South America. Another guy has aspergers and has decided he basically doesn't want to speak to me or my girlfriend or any of our friends for reasons only he seems to be able to understand. Another one has serious seasonal affective disorder and won't leave the house in the winter months. Another is moving to some deadly dull gated community village somewhere because the rent's cheaper. And another one has gone overnight from one of the most laidback funnest individuals to an overdefensive crank who snaps at people all the time and then blames them when they don't call him anymore.

These are my best friends, and I don't see myself being in regular contact with them this time next year unless something pivotal happens. This is quite upsetting to me as I've known none of them any less than 5 years (most far more). Plus where I live, common interests aren't exactly abundant in the populace.

I'm sort of annoyed with a friend right now over something quite silly. Some friends were being kettled at the student protests and I told her and she was all kinda "they deserve it, shouldn;'t have gone there! troublemakers!", I said i dunno don't really think my friends are troublemakers, but I found her dismissiveness kind of difficult! She never asked if they were ok. I'm sort of finding it difficult to look past, right now.

Probably annoyed more with myself for mentioning it, as I sort of knew what her reaction would be. I don't need my friends to have the same outlook as me or anything, but the lack of any kind of empathy about it I'm still finding too jarring

― colby, Friday, 17 December 2010 16:38 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

I'd have trouble with this to be honest. Not wanting to derail this into the political protest thread, nor to diss your friend, but I find that people with this kind of attitude grate on me so much and if a good friend were to express that opinion, I'd be tempted to get pissed off with them. A better man would brush it off, or challenge them in a jokey way "oh you and your police state", but it's too easy to get disgruntled by something like that.

Wow, dog latin is 30 - I feel old.

I do have trouble with it! Its someone in another city as well (this was on chat) - and it has lead to me re-assessing.

Hey, Doc!

I can relate to what you're saying.

Give me a buzz if you'd like!

I'm curious to find out how other people approach this problem.
I've known this guy a year now and the first few months I had some good times but now I'm not sure how much I like him.
He can be okay but I feel like there's always some smug comment coming round the corner.
And I get that some of that stuff is meant as a joke, but it's not funny at all, and he has a tendency to say things that are genuinely insulting, joke or not.

Anyway, on to the dilemma. I just haven't been able to bring myself to answer this dude's last couple of text messages.
And I'm thinking maybe I should call him up to explain how I feel, but it's just so much easier to just stop contacting someone, though perhaps less honourable.
The dilemma is, I'm not sure how worthwhile it is to explain this stuff to him. I feel there's a large chance that these things I don't really like might just be ingrained personality characteristics that probably won't go away very easily.
What do you do in this situation?

What's the worst that can happen if you explain the problem to him?

i have some friends who will never respond to emails in a timely way. then out of the blue, 6–12 months later, i'll get some lengthy, heartfelt update on how they are doing/feeling. when i reply by similarly opening up and explaining how i am, it's curtains for another 6-12 months (or longer, maybe 2 years) before i get another update. should i just assume they are drunk when they choose to write me?

there are definitely some friendships of long standing that i just kind of figure are dormant now. it makes me sad sometimes but it's better just to make use of it.

make peace with it... i mean

haha

What's the worst that can happen if you explain the problem to him?

― cardamon, Thursday, June 6, 2013 12:12 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You are of course completely right.

Unfortunately I am the sort of person who is not good at confrontation.

The pathetic thing is, I actually did call him up a couple of months ago with the intention of telling him how I felt, but in the heat of the moment I couldn't do it and just found myself saying "yeah, I'll meet you at 8" etc. instead.
I guess I have a mental block about that sort of thing.

What's the best that would happen if you did explain the problem? Do you think he would change? Do you think he would understand? Do you think your friendship would restart on more equable lines?

If this is a friendship where you've "had some good times" but you're not mutually important to one another, what's the point in holding on?

There are friends in my life where, if something went wrong in the relationship, I'd bring it up as a point of discussion in the hope that things would change. But these are either very very close friendships, or quite shallow acquaintanceships where our mutual commitment is to having it remain easy and noncommittal. "State of the union" discussions about an everyday friendship are the kiss of death, you're bringing huge scrutiny to something that previously neither of you thought worth looking at. Many friendships aren't worth that kind of attention, and won't survive it -- and bringing up what's wrong with that person's attitude to the relationship becomes nothing more than an act of spite, an "i can't continue with this friendship because you are a person who is unreasonable". Telling someone else what is wrong with them is very rarely an honourable impulse.

If you want to hold on to the friendship, and you want the friendship to involve less of a behaviour you don't like, why not focus on cutting down on that behaviour in the moment?

and she is on a student visa or something?

sorry to say this crimonhexagon but i feel like you might have been exploited and deceived here by someone whose apparently good natured company is nothing more than a crude wish to exploit your extravagant capabilities with the english language

Ya

What do you make of it, doc?

yeah this sounds like a low-level catfish con, CH.

I know! She's trying to switch it around!

sometimes you just have to accept that you play the good samaritan and snakes will just use you crimsy

http://i.imgur.com/KGfexPu.png

81u35ph3r01d

snakes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_VdSCMJhx0

At work so I'll watch that viddy later

really gutted to find out that there are people out there in the world who would use other people in the manner that is happening to crimsonhex right now. Fucking awful. Hope you can pull through this man

THE SUFFERING ARTISTE SHACKLED BY THE UNWAVERING HAND OF THE MAN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWZTwXq9CGo

sexagon you're a bad friend

really gutted to find out that there are people out there in the world who would use other people in the manner that is happening to crimsonhex right now. Fucking awful. Hope you can pull through this man

― 乒乓, Friday, November 1, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If ever I needed the guidance of a higher power, it is now.

It's strange, but when I sometimes feel I am down and out, there is a sudden urge to connect with her or something that embodies her as a concept.

Brothels seem to be out of the question, because I am a very hygienic human being. I do it for the love I have of myself, yet contemplating all this amongst the metaphorical trash around me, I can but look at the stars unwontingly, hoping for a better tomorrow as I have grown accustomed to do.

sexagon you're a bad friend

― diarmuid o'gallus (imago), Friday, November 1, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hot

hawt

you know you can pick up syphilis if a prostitute even solicits you

http://www.treat4you.com/ebay/FishnetPH/LA9706/blklong.jpg

suckie suckie

two dollah

I hope you can plough this one too

Jesus Christ

here's what you should do, btw. write her a note! in the note it shall read 'I am only interested in you for your cunt and my ingress thereof'

suckie suckie??????

leave me out of this dayo

you know you can pick up syphilis if a prostitute even solicits you

― diarmuid o'gallus (imago), Friday, November 1, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wouldn't use any language that he might be required to translate xp

Oy??????

Do you mean Oi?

oh gr8 hexy see what you did you woke up waterface

actually I've got a better solution to this. force yourself on her sexually. that will solve both of your problems.

i can't do this any more. you're too awful. you write your own best zings. i can't. sorry everyone.

when is it time to let go a fp

We have to draw the line somewhere, Mr Miyagi.

xp

hi will you liveblog jackin

jackin you blog will live hihihi

hott

Cool it, Mr Forbes.

hottt

crimhex, what kind of english homework was it

It's the most basic English class she can take at a community college. She has to write a bunch of essays.

The thing is, I actually enjoy doing that, so I sneezed out her first essay, and I had to curtail my eagerness, because I'm a keener by nature.

It's cute, though, because her mind is still so young and tender. She is very good at math but her sense of logic in terms of real world problems is still very primitive.

Maybe you should rub out
another essay for her

What, precisely, are we participating in here

This is the English department, darraghmac--not the Computer Science faculty.

So, I just blew her off to go out this weekend and she asks if I am going hiking. Ugh.

why, does she want to push you off a cliff or something?

lol.

sarahell, this is not a troll, actually.

http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

the friendship hex http://www.geeknaut.com/images/halloween_emoticons/witchpot_6VRF6P.gif?03609c

i'm hanging out with her on friday