Why have you cut off friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had to cut off anyone who remained friends with my abusive ex.

Oooh, yeah. Also a great reason to cut people off. If we're only "friends" so you can report back to people who don't have direct access to me, we're not friends at all. GTFO!

[Anonymous]

I cant say here.

[Anonymous]

Yes but not for stuff like that. In that case I would just stop doing stuff with her that required reliability -- no movie dates or dinner dates. I'd make plans with her like "hey I'm going to watch a movie at home on Saturday and order Thai -- feel free to come by if you're free. I'm going to order food at 7 and start the movie at 8." If she comes, she comes. If she doesn't, I don't care.

I have cut off a group of friends after I learned that I had become the subject of an untrue and very hurtful rumor. Initially I just cut off the people who I know started the rumor but as I came to understand that everyone had been talking about this rumor and even people who later claimed to have never believed it and not spread it absolutely gossiped about it. So eventually I just decided I was not respected or valued within the group and decided to move on. I had other friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recently cut off a friendship as this friend is unreliable and cancels at the very last minute a lot.


Other things I have noticed

Seems to create or attract drama with other friends. A lot of the time we spend together she speaks about people who have wronged her. It’s exhausting talking through it. I get stuff happens but we’re too old for this. I have two children and only so much time to talk and get together with this person.

Seems to be irritable a lot and it’s uncomfortable.


I’ve tried giving her the benefit of the doubt as we have been friends for several years but her situation hasn’t gotten better. She also spends a lot of time blaming her parents for the way her life turned out.

My husband thinks I could be helping her by pointing out some of these things and says she needs to grow up. The last time she canceled last minute was the last straw for me and I told her I can no longer be close to her if she’s not reliable. She told me I need to be more understanding of her situation and let’s just say reacted very badly. She also de friended me on Facebook the same day. I have a feeling she will come around and apologize eventually. She’s a very sweet person and has good qualities but it’s hard to be around someone who isn’t reliable and negative. Her mind is very scattered as well. Sometimes she says there was a misunderstanding with plans even though I confirm with her the night before. The next day she will claim she told me she couldn’t come a few days before. This has happened twice now… I was thinking maybe she misread messages but it’s happened two times now. She texted me saying yes see you tomorrow as we originally planned.

OP, at this point, you're a crappy friend. A lot of people hang on WAY too long, don't speak their piece, harbor grudges and resentments, but think they're "a good friend" because they're still around. If you don't want to be around, don't be. If your friend bails and it bugs you, say something and stop making plans until you can handle the possibility of them bailing.

Your husband isn't wrong. If you're not communicating your upset, you're not being a very good friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to cut off anyone who remained friends with my abusive ex.

Oooh, yeah. Also a great reason to cut people off. If we're only "friends" so you can report back to people who don't have direct access to me, we're not friends at all. GTFO!

I take a hard line on this too. I have had friends who I later realized were just collecting info on me to share with other people I'm not friends with (but who for various not great reasons are very interested in what I'm up to). That's a hard no for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes but not for stuff like that. In that case I would just stop doing stuff with her that required reliability -- no movie dates or dinner dates. I'd make plans with her like "hey I'm going to watch a movie at home on Saturday and order Thai -- feel free to come by if you're free. I'm going to order food at 7 and start the movie at 8." If she comes, she comes. If she doesn't, I don't care.

I have cut off a group of friends after I learned that I had become the subject of an untrue and very hurtful rumor. Initially I just cut off the people who I know started the rumor but as I came to understand that everyone had been talking about this rumor and even people who later claimed to have never believed it and not spread it absolutely gossiped about it. So eventually I just decided I was not respected or valued within the group and decided to move on. I had other friends.

Solid answer, PP. Control the thing you can: your reaction. Don't invite flaky friends to things that really matter to you.

Sorry to hear you were the target of full-group gossip like that. That's probably my number 1 "bye" button. Someone who will talk to me about other people is probably talking about me to other people behind my back. I'm too old for that nonsense.

Glad you have other, better, actual friends.

[Anonymous]

Voted for Trump in 2016. Cut off in 2016. One was a long-term friend of DH. Sad.

[Anonymous]

I mean we cut them off, lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have never cut off a friend or family member. Nor have I ever blocked a family member or friend. The idea of 'cancelling' people in your life isn't a value I hold.
As an adult there are many ways to manage conflicts without the flouncing and announcing and going high drama about it.

In general I agree -- the mature thing to do is to just draw your boundaries and hold them, and if that's unacceptable to others, they can make their own choices.

However I have effectively "cut off" some people because their behavior was so unacceptable to me that drawing boundaries with them basically meant we never saw each other again. Like I had a friend who gossiped about me so much that I just stopped sharing anything of any value with her and since the only reason she was friends with me was apparently to collect info, she lost interest.

I think this is often what people mean when they say "cut off." There are obviously also people who dramatic tell people "I'm never speaking to you again" but IME people who say stuff like that are looking for attention and don't actually wind up cutting anyone off.

[Anonymous]

Op just cut them off why do you need to be support from strangers?

[Anonymous]

Haven' had to cut off female friend. All have been male acquaintances with serious money problems stemming from just about everything.

[Anonymous]

Ended two friendships in my 20s.

One was extremely high drama, many suspected BPD traits. On a girls’ trip to Atlantic City (I know, trashy), she felt the group was “disrespectful” to her (for daring to have a different opinion on what activities to do), cursed us all out and threw us out of a hotel room comped by her grandmother at 1AM. I said sayonara after that, lol.

Second was a college friend who clearly had not grown up around any POCs and made constant micro and macroaggressions around me (a BW). Stuff like saying “can you show me how to twerk?” and “You only got a higher grade than me on the exam because the TA’s Native American.” And not a great friend either - I always had to visit her, not vice versa. Took a few years post-college for me to come to my senses, sadly.

Otherwise I’ve had a solid group of reliable friends, mostly from college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Voted for Trump, different values

This - different values. Whether it's voting for a rapist for president, or doing cocaine as a single mother (hell, even if she weren't a parent), or severely poor money management (six figures of cc debt but continuing to go to concerts, on trips, getting tattoos), etc. Just wildly different values.

I don't care if you love cats while I can't stand them and am a firm dog person, or you're vegetarian while I'm not, or one of us has kids while the other doesn't want any - those are all just different life choices.

[Anonymous]

One female friend in high school for competing with me incessantly. Compared every test grade and bragged when she got a better possession. It just wasn't fun to be her friend...insecurity made her boring and mean-spirited. She wasn't even nice when she won a lot.

One male friend whom I helped a lot. Tried to get him a job. Helped him and his wife find a student apartment. Drove him and his wife on a 7 hour one-way trip to drop him off when I had to return alone. Financially helped them to join me and my husband on a vacation because we enjoyed their company and they were broke. He just became too much of a taker. The last straw was when he called out of the blue asking me to buy an air ticket because he found a deal. He would have paid me back for sure, but at that point I felt valued only because I made his life easy and not because I was a good friend.

[Anonymous]

For being high maintenance, I did slow fade.
I called you, how come you didn't answer ?