cutting people completely out of your life

Yep, yep. Sigh.

Anyway, I didn't make any effort to keep in touch, and thought that as 18 months had passed, that the friendship was well and truly dead. In the last month however, I received one email from her that she sent to a general email address at work, looking for me, and when I responded to it, she sent me another, which I never got round to responding to, and then two chasing up ones, including another to the generic work email.

Now do I just go on ignoring the emails, send her one and then just let it drift off again, or tell her that I was purposely cutting her out and do it again?!

you don't see a qualitative difference to what? yr girlfriends or the friendship cut?

I have to agree. I cut an entire clique of people out of my life in the past year and I've never been happier. Enough said.

change your life then? it's not as hard as it sounds.

i believe there are times when it just doesn't make any sense for two people to see each other anymore, because of simmering disagreements or differing expectations. but i've never been party to a decision such as the one suggested in the thread title, i.e. i've never cut anyone out of my life who was trying to stay in, and have never been in the position of calling or emailing someone who would adamantly not call or write back in an attempt to cut me out of theirs. i imagine that i'd find such a circumstance more puzzling than anything else, just a melodramatic version of the "we shouldn't see each other so much" that probably pretty much everyone's been party to.

this was an interesting comment, tracer, because this happened to me recently... where i ended up at the same event as someone who evidently did not want to see me, or had considerable anxiety about seeing me. (because they felt they had seen me too often recently, and because they had something to tell me that they hadn't yet worked up the courage to say.) this person was, almost literally, shaking like a leaf ... voice quavering ... eyes fixed firmly on her shoes. at the time i simply felt snubbed and frantically confused, although within hours that changed to a sympathetic contemplation of her own anxieties. what bothered me most, however, was that when we did eventually talk she didn't seem aware of the extent to which her own anxieties manifested themselves in her appearance and in her snubbing me. or else she just really didn't want to talk about it. anyway i expect to see her again --i mean, run into her--and told her so.

i was a weird kid.

OMG! Am I a sociopath?

Scott, you are NOT a sociopath. It takes effort to keep up with people when they're not around. But you've always managed to do it with the people who really matter to you.

Anyway in the last month I've met someone else, whom I really like, it seems quite serious so far, serious in that it's so much fun.

It's odd, now I look at my close friend and I can see what my friends were saying, and I feel she was probably stringing me along. Now that I no longer fancy her I just see the ugly parts of her personality and feel a certain amount of animosity for her selfishness in messing with me for so long and the way she was able to manipulate me.

In the meantime she's broken up with her boyfriend and as I see it, is now boyfriendless and lapdogless (no me anymore, I mean) and is acting extremely clingy with me.

I feel now that we were only friends based on my fancying her, and I don't want much to do with her. She rings me and asks questions about my new girlfriend and feebly tries to wield her old power over me by saying things like "I won't embarass you will I, if I come out tonight?" and I just think "no but you'll fucking embarass yourself".

It's odd how the tables have turned, I guess I feel now that I am justified in cutting her out, because of the way of led me on. At the same time I think it might be a bit mean.

The only reason I feel like being normal with her is that we were friends once I suppose, and also perhaps because I don't want her to mess things up with me with the new girl.

On the other hand, on a night like tonight she rings and asks if I'm going out and I just think "I have a new girlfriend, it's going really well, you had your chance, now leave me alone"

"Breaking up" with a friend

Friends Breaking Up

I am also really bad at keeping in touch, too. Some people think I am ignoring them when in fact I am just in a funk most of the time, and don't think about much beyond the next hour.

And even if said person made it impossible for me to deal with as a friend, I would still never consciously cut a friend out of my life unless I was forced to.. everyone defines differently what "forced to" means, of course... but it has happened to me a couple of times, and frankly, I haven't regretted it -- only because I gave the people in question more chances than they deserved.

Nowadays I have generous, thoughtful friends and I really do wonder why I allowed myself to put up with the other kind for so long.

My advice: cut cleanly and without acrimony.

Whatever you do, DO NOT actually act upon this impulse. You will regret it in the long run.

Friends start to slag the other person off, because they think it will make you feel better, but in reality you just get more and more bitter. So even the mildest of bitching, or the smallest of negative traits, you are tempted to run and run with so they seem bigger and bigger to you and eventually you just have this monster of your own creation. In time, you'll regain perspective realise that maybe they're not the goddess you originally made them out to be, but they're not the villain either.

As it happens, I'm still friends with the assumed stringer-alonger and all these issues are in the past. I'm very glad I didn't cave into the self-imposed pressure and burn my bridges entirely.

-- Amateur(ist) ([email protected]) (webmail), March 3rd, 2005 2:34 PM. (Amateur(ist)) (link)

Well, it's not like I issue ultimatums or anything. "I close the iron door on you," etc. What I meant was, the only people I have "cut out" of my life have been people I broke up with, in which case the cutting-off was at least partly mutual and wholly circumstantial. I can't think of anyone I hate. Maybe there are people out there who hate me -- I don't know.

i've never had a friend (i.e. not a lover) cut me out of their life (or vice-versa). the worst that's happened is i've stopped talking to someone for a few days or weeks. i guess i've been lucky never to have a close friend take advantage of or abuse me.

"i forget sometimes that a cooling off period is necessary..."

You'd be far from alone.

It's funny this topic came up because there are two people who have really been plaguing my thoughts lately. One is someone I had a serious falling out with last year, and the other is someone that I need to cut out of my life STAT. Interesting times, these.

I had a policy of deliberately cutting exes out of my life. And every time I went against that policy, such horrible things would happen as to only remind me why I had the policy in the first place.

For the first time in my life, I went against my instincts and decided to maintain contact with an ex. And it was the best decision I had made all year, he's proved to be a source of support and strength and has done a lot to restore my faith in humanity and the male of the species. Then again, that says a great deal more about him than it does about me, perhaps.

So pick your cutting out decisions wisely, and not on the spur of an immediate emotional reaction.

Way I see it, there's a couple of people who were in my life who could stand to learn from this and stop using excuses and half-truths to escape this.

(More thoughts/experiences later)

yeah, my life would be so much easier were it not for people. i should do this!

I had someone stand me up for a date and apparently do this out of the blue.

she hate you