Friendships You have Decided to End or Not Pursue (father, drifting, kiss)
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I know there are certain people who I meet who I don't click with which I consequently don't really build a serious connection.
There are also people I know who I may have lost touch with over time usually due to long distance moves or life events.
Yet I can't remember a time when I wanted to consciously end a friendship.
Same with me.
I have a few close women friends who have made the conscious and very deliberate act of cutting off a close woman friend (most of whom is a mutual friend of mine, which makes it awkward sometimes) over some perceived slight. Like, very close friends. Frankly I find this baffling. Maybe it is the intensity with which women sometime hold close to the friendship that men often don't share with their men friends that makes it more emotionally heightened and therefore expectations of behavior are different. Guys are mostly like, whatever, I guess he was preoccupied or in a bad mood and be fine with each other the next time they get together. Or they just drift apart but not with all the emotional baggage that some women carry about their past relationships.
But now and again my husband and I (I'm a man) will be visiting with these different women friends and their husbands or boy friends in the same week and we have to be discreet about avoiding mentioning that visit with the other. Obviously we will have heard somewhat of the story about the reasons about the breakup of the friendship and later my husband and I will be looking at each other asking "now why exactly are they now not friends and can never be again?!! We just can't get it. It seems so petty nothingness to us- but makes us always be a little cautious with some of our gal friends, thinking that that could be us next, even as we love them to death as our very close friends.
Friendship is rarely super easy but I just try to be there and supportive when I can, I'm sure I've let people down with my behavior or lack of contact when expected but we all live busy lives and I think it's best to give your friend the benefit of the doubt.
I have a few close women friends who have made the conscious and very deliberate act of cutting off a close woman friend (most of whom is a mutual friend of mine, which makes it awkward sometimes) over some perceived slight. Like, very close friends. Frankly I find this baffling.
Ever see the movie, "Mean Girls?" It's based on the book, "Queen Bees & Wannabes" It might provide some context and understanding. Sad that it happens, it happens all the time and at all ages. Starts in childhood.
I dropped one woman who was a good friend because I was so taken aback by her callousness to her husband. She flat-out said, "I'm divorcing him, but first, I'm gonig to finish my college degree and get my teaching certificate. Then I'm going to find a teaching job, and then I'm dumping him." There was no adultery, no wife-beating, no drugs -- he was starting out as an architect, and was having the usual struggles of a start-up business. I tried to talk to her about it -- suggested marriage counseling, since they had three young children -- or if she was really that miserable, just going ahead and getting a divorce now instead of waiting three years. I simply did not understand how you could use someone that callously. She stuck her to three year plan, but I could no longer be around them and look him in the eye, acting naturally, knowing what she was planning.
I barely see some of my friends who have kids and I know for a fact that I have done nothing. If I did little to no maintenance (i.e., decided it wasn't worth it, or fun for me to show up to their kids' birthday parties, etc) that would pretty much be the death of the friendship because they are too focused on their family to even think of friendships.
Outside of kids, I also have wondered why people would let someone who was a loyal, nice person just slip away, but you have to realize that people do not all want the same things in life.
You want loyal, nice friends. The next person wants exciting friends, or good looking friends, or wealthy friends. Etc.
The only solution really is to make more friends, which I find a difficult endeavor at my age.
Agreed, jojaba. I find the same thing. And like you, I have been amazed that someone wouldn't take advantage (in a good way) of the opportunity to have a loyal, nice persona as a friend, but as you say, not everyone is looking for the same thing.
This has come up before---about it being difficult to make friends after a certain age. I'm going to start a thread about it---thinks it needs to be discussed more.
In my younger days, if I would have any problems within my friendships/relationships, I used to try to be honest and tactful with the person I was having difficulties with. This would more often than not, backfire on me though.
The person would immediately become defensive and would try to shift the blame back onto me. They would reply to me (annoyed) "How about you then - you do x, y & z and I have to put up with it!". It became hopeless trying to explain problems with someone because they just didn't want to hear about them.
So these days, I make a conscious decision to do a 'slow fade' on someone I'm having problems with. I contact them less and less, until the friendship just fades away. I find it less hassle than trying to explain to someone what they are really like, only for them to have a go at me back.
Quote:
I have a few close women friends who have made the conscious and very deliberate act of cutting off a close woman friend (most of whom is a mutual friend of mine, which makes it awkward sometimes) over some perceived slight. Like, very close friends. Frankly I find this baffling.
Amen.
There is the slow fade, I get that. I've had a goodly number of those having spent a lot of time in AK where people tend to do relatively short stints and then go home. A lot of times these are work (or old school) friends or neighbors where one of the parties has moved on and the things that you held in common are no longer pertinent or distance has done it's work.
The above quote though? I also am flummoxed over this and I'm female. I've seen this too and once I was the one cut without warning and without a word. I'm usually very circumspect, even tempered and wouldn't think of putting anyone out for anything but I do have a rather direct way of communicating which may have been the problem. I might have dinged a touchy nerve. Even so I don't get trashing an entire friendship over an inadvertent word or action and I'm not talking about hate speech or unethical behavior.
I sent the friend in question a few emails that were ignored and I called and left a couple voicemails and then I got it. I sent her an email thanking her for being my friend and apologizing for whatever I might have done to cause the cut-off but that too went unanswered. She's not ill or dead so I got the message and moved on. I would have liked to know what I might have done to cause the end of our very close friendship and been given a chance to make amends but to this day 15 or so years later I have no idea what happened. Zero. That woman was my last really close friend. Today it's my DH, some members of my family, my dogs. I have lots of friendly acquaintances but no real bosom friends.
In my younger days, if I would have any problems within my friendships/relationships, I used to try to be honest and tactful with the person I was having difficulties with. This would more often than not, backfire on me though.
I think Star has a point. I suspect for most people just starving out a friendship is easier than trying to rectify what often enough is just a tiny problem but harder to fix than just not. People are disposable because there are so many of us. Just move on to the next one. It's all good. Sadly I'm not built like that.
I met a woman about three years ago and we because friends. I decided to cut things off because she turned out to be a pathological liar.
In the beginning, of course, I believed one or two of her stretchers, but I soon discovered that she lied about anything and everything. All the time!
Her life was chock full of drama, too, with her SO in and out of jail like a fiddler's elbow. Everytime he got drunk, he'd find something to do which involved breaking the law, thus sending him to jail yet again.
Although there are numerous threads approaching this topic (mostly on the line of Why Don't I Have Friends), I am curious to know why you personally would NOT want to be friends with someone who is "nice", intelligent, well-groomed, etc. In other words, what are some of the qualities that make you decide that you just don't want to be friends with someone when there is not an obvious reason for that?
To be clear, I am not talking about meeting someone, finding out you don't have much in common, and then ending it before it really starts, or something like moving to a new state or new parenthood versus continuing a friendship with a childless friend who doesn't like kids, What I am talking about is ending a friendship after many get-togethers with no "issues" and which were apparently enjoyable for both.
For example, let me tell you about a friendship that I WANT to end, but I would feel guilty if I did. This person is ten years older than I am, well-educated, nice, etc., etc. -- BUT she is ten years older than I am but acts about 30 years older (she is in her early 70's). I know she is lonely, but all she talks about is her bad health, plus she is just not able to really do much of anything. However, as she has not treated me badly, if I were to just stop asking her out to lunch or to see a movie, I am fairly sure she would wonder, "Why doesn't she call me any more?" It is not like I feel like I can just say to her that I am bored being with her and that listening to her talk about her health more than any other subject is boring.
The same kind of thing has happened to me in reverse. A friendship will start and seem to develop well for months, and then the person stops calling me and won't return my phone calls, even though as far as I can tell, I have done nothing to offend them. In a couple of those cases, after receiving no reply to a few phone calls/messages, I have even written a short note asking if I had offended them in some way and apologizing if I had -- but, again, no reply. The only thing that I can think of that I might have done to offend those people is that I do admit that I am not very interesting or have a LOT of interests, although my life has been full of "drama", which I hate -- to the point that I will usually go out of my way to not overly share it with others. (In fact, that is why I post on-line so much because I would rather bore strangers than people I truly care about!)
So, why have you have ended or decided not to pursue a friendship for no obviously apparent reason?
I gave up an old friendship because she became an alcoholic. I can't abide alcoholics and don't trust them. I want nothing to do with them. She wasn't a good friend, anyway.
It sounds like maybe you're seeing your "older" friend too often. You're beginning to find her irritating. I understand her going on about her health problems...that's boring. And she doesn't do the same things you want to do these days?
Just start making excuses, I guess. And don't return calls. She'll get the message. If you would still like her under other circumstances, start asking her to do things YOU want to do. If she doesn't ever want to go, then the two of you may no longer have in common whatever it was that made you friends in the first place.
Outside of kids, I also have wondered why people would let someone who was a loyal, nice person just slip away, but you have to realize that people do not all want the same things in life.
You want loyal, nice friends. The next person wants exciting friends, or good looking friends, or wealthy friends. Etc.
The only solution really is to make more friends, which I find a difficult endeavor at my age.
I agree with this, especially with what I have bolded. I lost friends when I moved despite my best efforts to keep up the friendship (especially in this day and age--it's not the same as being in person but you can pretty much keep in touch all the time if you want to). I would say the biggest reason I have lost friends, including people I have been friends with for over 10 years, is that they get into a relationship and drop all their friends that they had before the relationship (they keep up the mutual friendships that they have as a couple). I totally get a honeymoon period, but unfortunately the friendship never really recovers until they are single again. I really don't get it. I've been in a relationship for a long time too, but my friends are very important to me. So that's another thing, you want nice loyal friends, but they only care about their s/o and they just want people they can socialize with together.
I'm not sure how old you are but i've had a hard time making friends too--although it's easier where I live now vs where I used to live, so I do think it has to do with location. Some places are less welcoming to transplants than others.
ETA: I get that having kids takes up a lot of your time, but if you don't maintain any friendships at all (even with other parents) I bet you're going to be pretty lonely in 20 years...
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