How to respond to this bizarre fb message?

[Anonymous]

Backstory: I was best friends with a girl from 1st-5th grade. We basically did everything together, shared family vacations, etc. we were not of the same socioeconomic class (my dad worked on wall street and hers was a gas station attendant) but I don't think we ever really noticed as kids or cared. In 5th grade both of our dads died of cancer within months of each other. We both moved. All of a sudden, my friend started being mean/catty to me, and her mom called my mom and said she didn't want us to see each other anymore because it made her daughter feel badly about all of the stuff we had and they didn't.

At the time I was pretty crushed but got over it. She looked me up right after I graduated from college and asked if she could come to my city (hr away) to have dinner. It was super weird and awkward and it became clear that this girl had major major problems. Since then she commented on my fb occasionally and I just ignored.

Well, last night I got this rambling long fb message from her about how beautiful my newborn daughter is and how sad she isn't in my life, and literally going on and on and on about every good time we had together as kids and how she is so sorry for what happened back in middle school and that letting our friendship go is her biggest regret.. Blah blah blah. I literally have not talked to the girl since that weird dinner 6 yrs ago so this caught me off guard! What do I say back? I do not want to be heartless here but I think she has serious problems and I do not want her in my life.

[Anonymous]

You are a grownup now. You can either forgive and forget and speak to her, or you can just ignore her.

[Anonymous]

You know, people do change somtimes. Perhaps she found love and has happiness and now is at a place where she can be a good friend. You could talk with her a bit and if there are red flags, just move on.

[Anonymous]

In my response to her, I would include the following elements:
it was so nice of you to write
thank you so much for complimenting my daughter
no need to apologize about middle school - we were both really young kids, no harm done..we had some great times together back then
hope everything's great with you!
great to hear from you

[Anonymous]

If she gives you the creeps, ignore her and block her on fb. Seriously.

Alternatively, write back and say thanks for the sweet message, you cherish the good memories too, you don't want to rekindle the friendship but you wish her well. THEN block her on FB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my response to her, I would include the following elements:
it was so nice of you to write
thank you so much for complimenting my daughter
no need to apologize about middle school - we were both really young kids, no harm done..we had some great times together back then
hope everything's great with you!
great to hear from you

I think this is perfect.

[Anonymous]

OP, what are you afraid of? That she will stalk you? Ask for money? Harm your family? I'm not sure what you are afraid of or how much of a threat she could be, seriously. Tell us.

[Anonymous]

Maybe she has had a hard life and is remembering back to the time when she was a kid with a good BFF (you). And wants to be friends again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my response to her, I would include the following elements:
it was so nice of you to write
thank you so much for complimenting my daughter
no need to apologize about middle school - we were both really young kids, no harm done..we had some great times together back then
hope everything's great with you!
great to hear from you

I think this is perfect.

Also think it's perfect. It sounds like instead of drunk-dialing, she drunk-Facebooked.

[Anonymous]

Op here: I think I'm going to go with 21:09's advice.

I'm not sure what I'm afraid of or if I'm afraid of anything, I just find te whole thing weird. I'm probably not explaining the message well but it was really just over the top, super super long and really just so strange.

And to pps, I certainly am not mad at her anymore about what happened! That's not why I don't want to be friends. I just think she has serious problems. Not a healthy person at all and honestly I do not have room in my life for that.

[Anonymous]

I like the advice from 21:09 as well. But sometimes reaching out may invite the person to write more. So she may write again, hoping OP will want to re-establish relations.

[Anonymous]

This happened to me! Minus the one dinner date in the interim- my ex friend (7th grade) wrote me a long rambling email about how she was so sorry she dumped me and that it was so hard for her to look at my life and see all the things she didn't/couldn't have and on and on and on... She also apologized excessively for random stuff...

I replied how the PP is recommending you to do... Vague email kind of saying "we were kid's back then; no offencw taken. Enjoy you life!" (in short, not exactly) and thus thread is reminding me I should make sure I blOckes her!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my response to her, I would include the following elements:
it was so nice of you to write
thank you so much for complimenting my daughter
no need to apologize about middle school - we were both really young kids, no harm done..we had some great times together back then
hope everything's great with you!
great to hear from you

I think this is perfect.

Also think it's perfect. It sounds like instead of drunk-dialing, she drunk-Facebooked.

I got totally drunk-Facebooked by this chick I used to be on a sports team with in high school, it was kind of hilarious! She messaged me about how I was always "up in her bizness" when she posted on the wall or commented on the posts of a guy we both know from back then. Who is married to someone else. She wanted to know how well I knew him (i.e. had I ever hooked up with him) and her message got increasingly incoherent until it just ended mid-sentence in a bunch of typos. I cracked up imagining her passing out after closing out a bar and then typing this (time stamp was 3am).

Anyway, I think this is good advice for the response to your drunk-dial. And I'm sorry you lost your father so young, that must have been really hard. The end.

[Anonymous]

When I was a kid, my grandfather lost touch with us for several years and then I got a letter very similar to this, but never heard from him again. I bet this will pass for her as well.

[Anonymous]

This thread made me smile because several posters are young enough to have had FB friends in college. Yes- I am old.

Anyway, it's pretty likely that the girl is seriously depressed. It's the desire to find some kind of connection and believing that you have made some deep inner discovery about the past and needing to share. I remember when I was younger and being depressed and doing weird things that I thought were really deep and meaningful but looking back realize they were just attempts to make my life feel less bleak.