cutting people completely out of your life

So weird this gets bumped. I'm regretfully in the process of doing this to someone.

yeah but attrition isn't the same thing as deliberately cutting people out of your life

oops that was xp

A number of the people who disappeared on me do fall under the category of cutting out.

I don't want to make too big a deal out of this. If there's good reason, cut them out. With me, it was often a case of a friendship that was dying anyway, that didn't seem worth saving even before whatever triggered the final break. I'd probably make the same decisions again. All I'm saying is that when you get to be my age, you look back and realize it does add up.

i'm almost too good at doing this. it makes me wonder if there's actually something wrong with me? i just find it so easy to ghost people once i realize that aren't bringing anything positive to my life.

and yes, that does mean i have fewer friends at 35, and it also means the older i get the more cautious i am about making new connections. but the friends i do have are amazing people, they're family, and i love them so much. many of them i don't get to see or even really talk to for months or even years at a time. but every time i get sad about the lack of people in my life that are accessible (i.e. live in my area), i try to remember that quality is superior to quantity.

I'm a Cancer, and my sense of loyalty is killing me during this process. I also know I'll backtrack and have to be forgiven when I, right now, feel totally justified in doing this.

i try to remember that quality is superior to quantity.

No one would argue with that. Unfortunately, in my situation, what quality friends remain are all married with families. Sometimes I wish I had some quantity to fall back on.

eh. never forget, we all die alone

i was on the receiving end of this recently---and to my mind, somewhat confusingly---and i can assure you that it feels completely awful

So this dude I've been cutting out had some stuff at our office space, and wanted to get it. Tried to arrange it, but the facebook-thread of him asking for it devolved into him yelling lies and abuse at us. Once again. Then all of a sudden he just gets another guy, whom he'd given a key, to let him in, and rips the place. Found out today he even stole a book of mine. Fucking asshole.

https://www.the-pool.com/life/life-honestly/2015/25/sali-hughes-on-shedding-friends

some of my best friends I've only gotten to know this past two years...you can add as well as subtract even as a decrepit 30+

i'm a bit like justin3, i have ghosted quite a few ppl

i think part of it was after I immigrated i went through a period of thinking "any friend is a good friend" bcz it was so hard for me to make new friends as an adult - all my friends back home in Oz I'd gained over 20+ years

But then I was like, well half these ppl are kinda shit/making me miserable, and i figured who cares if i only have a few friends - i'd rather have a few good quality friends than put up with stupid bullshit

my mum had a corny saying:
true friends are like diamonds
precious & rare
false friends are like autumn leaves
found everywhere

if darragh is decrepit then I'm a goner

Making new friends is another thread! It's an art imo. Maybe a lost one but some things about meeting new ppl after 30 don't change.

like anything else it's a lot less intense than when I was sixteen but yeah you're right- another thread may be wiser

rip mh

I'm doing a *lot* of inadvertent ghosting lately (cf the post I made on FB the other day, cos this is weighing heavily on me at present).

It just sort of snowballs, like you think "i havent emailed this person in months/I didnt go to their last 2 parties/they probably think I'm a shitty flake now and dont WANT to see me anyway".

Having a sudden "family" also means I'm adjusting to part time being a sort of parent with no free time, and I'm not good at pacing my (increasinly limited) energy and positivity as a result.

I mean, one of my bandmates defriended me on FB a while back after also suddenly ceasing any jams or contact about the band. He's denied defriending me (which is fucked up - its right there on the page! It doesnt happen by mistake!) but I think he's basically Lou Barlowed me. Meh whatever.

Jerky ex best friend update: still fucking nothing and it's been over a year. I still have no idea what the real reason behind all this was and I think now more than ever that the way he handled this was appalling and just plain cruel. That said, I'd forgive him in an instant if he contacted me with an apology and an explanation.

I totally get how you must feel :( So frustrating.

Months ago, my best friend of 30 years changed his profile picture on Facebook to a picture of Eve Plumb and i wrote something like: You Wish! and he unfriended me and I haven't had any contact with him since.

...

Xpost that's insane!

weird

I'm sorry u lost a pal but that's a great story.

things seem to be getting pared down to me and the cat, whether by choice or neglect or other

sorry about eve plumb!

found out through only remaining mutual friend that a dude i cut out of my life years ago because he is a dickhole (was explicit to the ex-friend about this) and dont think about much/at all still apparently talks about me a lot to the only remaining mutual friend? like, a lot, as if we are still friends. it feels...weird, but also kinda funny because it is perfectly emblematic of what a loser he is

also a friend i cut outta my life because he was gross and misogynistic has had some kinda breakthrough about it recently and wants to be friends again as a result - which its' great that he's changed! but i kinda just feel like, why bother now at this point reconnecting? like, what are you bringing to my life? doing fine without your friendship. feel like it is mostly just that he wants me to "sign off" on him, and i have no time for issuing blessings atm

Somehow Facebook + NYT know I'm doing this right now.

I only knowingly cut off one friend. We weren't ever that close, and he was a jerk a good portion of the time. I actually kept it up much longer than I wanted to. I'm pretty sure I was his only friend at the time, so I felt it would be shitty to just end it. I was 20 when I ended it; I'm 36 now, and I realize life is too short for that shit.

I only have a few close friends now, all of whom are married (I'm single atm). If any of them were to cut me off I'd be an emotional wreck for years, so I'm crushed by many of this thread's posts.

you just gotta do this sometimes. it's a big world. i probably advise other people to do this more often than i should. though.
https://31.media.tumblr.com/396e336b48323bf111527329d414521f/tumblr_n4ttusukhh1ta3x8fo1_400.gif

cutting people completely out of your life

Pretty much exactly 10 years later, he emailed me. To say he is OK and hopes I am but he shouldn't be writing me and we still can't talk.

._.

Wow way to dredge things up for you instead of just letting things stand, if there isn’t going to be any change to the situation. What a selfish prick.

jeez that's lame as hell

i posted on the 77 "what's happening now" thread about a friend of about 15 years who cut me off last month because i wasn't quick to respond to a text about fantasy baseball. he had a tantrum and called me a couple names and then has been radio silent since. i couldn't do anything more than send a text offering an explanation that i was kind of busy and spread thin, without really apologizing because i don't entertain people getting dramatic over allegedly broken social decorum anymore and a delayed response on a text is not the same thing as staring at someone with blank disinterest, some folks still don't get that. plus i've been dealing with more serious private shit in recent times and my focus is therefore more hazy. but fuck it, i'm not explaining that to him. good riddance tbh.

That seems so weird and extreme! I'm sorry though. It is never a fun experience. That reaction really seems disproportionate. O, you might have worked this out but this is the person we both know irl. Anyway full disclosure - I messaged him on linkedin about a month ago because I saw he had viewed my profile and I missed him. I just checked and before that I last messaged him in 2019. He didn't respond to that and I didn't expect a response to this. When I saw the email I got so excited only to see that we still can't talk. It is what it is but it sucks and I hate it.

yeah it was really extreme. he seems like an angry guy in a lot of ways, which was another reason it might be good riddance and another reason i replied calmly.

i thought it might be that person but didn't want to pry about it. i'm vv sorry that occurred.

lol if my close friends got mad every time we didn’t immediately respond to a non-emergency communication, we’d have no friends. My bff and I have been exchanging “yeah I’ll call you this weekend” messages back and forth for several months and still haven’t gotten around to talking.

it's very disorienting to be thrown into a situation where people who were part of your life are suddenly completely and totally gone. when the band i had been playing with for 3 years sent me a text last monday cold-dumping me with no prior discussion or warning, i was stunned. the band shaped hole in my life will hopefully close up before too long, though it remains perplexing to me how people can decide to excommunicate someone completely (I haven't heard from 2/3 of them at all! not even a "thanks" or "no hard feelings" however insincere).

with a little more thought, it feels like a blessing in disguise for me -- i have no idea what they will go on to do (or not do since they removed their drummer) and it's no longer any of my concern. bye!

i do not f/w people who guilt trip about response times (or anything tbh)
maybe i failed to read some signs or properly interpret a silent treatment i didn't realize i was receiving; ultimately, i think when people can't communicate in a mature fashion, they resort to these controlling and unsavory tactics.

LL, this reminds me slightly of how one of my favorite bands broke up (a noise trio I won’t name): the drummer texted the other two saying he just didn’t want to do it anymore. And that was that - a decade or so of amazing explosions ended in a text.

They put out their last full length a year or two after that, resisting the urge to call it “Break Up By Text Message”.

full disclosure - I messaged him on linkedin about a month ago because I saw he had viewed my profile and I missed him. I just checked and before that I last messaged him in 2019. He didn't respond to that and I didn't expect a response to this.

no offense but as someone (weirdly!) who has actually met this dude, you are just fucking with him

he had a crush on you, which you egged on because you enjoyed it, and he cut it off to save his marriage. you may miss him as your friend but you have no respect for him, and you have absolutely no right to complain about it as if you've been done wrong

you succeeded! he finally responded! now fucking leave him alone unless you're willing to back it up by fulfilling his dreams, which you aren't

Wow.

Thanks for the hot take and extremely hostile post! Clearly you are an expert after meeting someone once for two hours max iirc but you are wrong here. I don't consider messaging someone once every 5 years fucking with them. I think ending a 15 year friendship with absolutely zero explanation but then proceeding to look at the person's linkedin profile every two-three weeks for the next TEN YEARS is the fucking with part and if you can't see that then I don't know what to tell you. Also, and I sorta thought this was clear though I guess it wasn't, but my main issue wasn't even the friendship ending (tho obv I have feelings about that) it was the way in which it was handled.

Mookie wtf man

hi -- i very much regret certain word choices and the overly hostile tone. probably should have written it privately or simply not at all. honestly sorry about that!

but i don't think i was wrong

So you wish you had called me a piece of shit in less hostile tone? Thanks. You can think you're right. I don't. We can disagree and end whatever this was because I'm too angry to discuss it rationally any further.

I have rarely deliberately cut people out of my life, because I am endlessly forgiving and carrying grudges makes me feel horrendous. The one exception has been a cousin with whom I was extremely close during childhood through early adulthood; we started to drift at some point, and then many years later I learned that he had been exceptionally abusive to another family member. I saw him briefly after his mother died (he refused to come up for her death; I was there instead) and it was chilly, and then never heard from him again, likely because he assumed (correctly) that I'd learned about his past abuses.

My entire paternal family has cut me out over politics and facebook. I used to feel bad about this but they are frankly horrible people.

The best man at my wedding has decided not to speak to me; we were very close for a number of years, but he was an active alcoholic who periodically went on the attack for no reason. He has sobered up and is better, and we were again on speaking terms until I learned he came to town and didn't contact me and also told mutual friends not to tell me he was here. Bizarrely he requested to follow me on instagram several months ago; I let him but didn't follow back or engage with him in any way and then he unfollowed after a while. This is just narcissistic dumb behavior and I've come to accept that I don't want people like that in my life going foward.

xp ok

agree with akm

I'm old and can remember many times when I deliberately cut people out of my life. Mostly I've regretted it, with friends who offended me (I now see the offending incidents as so ridiculous), and when I was in love with someone who was well meaning but who could not return my affection because it was too painful. But also friendships that ended because someone was in love with me and I couldn't return their affection. I wish I could repair those relationships. I feel shitty about all of them

But not for most. In my 20s and 30s and even into my 40s I was trying to understand my friendships, and most of the time when a friendship ended I was thinking 'this is not a good person' and was happy to see the end of it. But also anyone who was addicted to too much drama in a personal relationship was not for me and I steered clear

I think you have to trust those instincts

Just had to do this with an old college friend, a deeply unhappy and self-righteous person, estranged from her family and most of our mutuals acquaintances, and prone to sending wildly out of pocket text messages. (Our last big fight included her saying "I'm ashamed to know you"; this one ended with her wishing death on my cat.)

We used to have a lot of shared musical and literary tastes, which is why we were friends (that, along with an unrequited crush I had on her). But somewhere along the way, she turned into an anti-woke complainer who calls me up to rant about people on Goodreads giving high ratings to a book just because the author is a disabled queer Black feminist. Her world seems to get smaller and more hateful each day, while I have been on the opposite journey.

Fittingly, the conversation that led to me blocking her number began with her gushing about Lauren Oyler, another person who spends too much of her time thinking about Goodreads. (To be clear, any amount of time is too much.)

Whatever, they deserve each other.

I cut someone out of my life maybe 6-7 years ago because she got super mad that my best friend of 20 years, who lived out of town, came into town and we went out for the night without her. I had introduced the two of them shortly after meeting her 5 years before.

I have her blocked on everything. I guess she is a newspaper obituary reader (friend thinks she has a Google alert on me) because when my Grandma died in December, within a day of the online posting there was a note saying she was sorry to hear of my Grandma’s (& Dad’s, mentioned as predeceased) passing. Then she signed it as just two initials so I could never be totally sure.

I was weirded out but thought the message was sweet enough - hate the just vague enough initials bit - the other friend is less charitable and was very much “why is she so fucking obsessed with you and weird about it”