Reply to s/o How do you politely, but without lying, reject overtures of friendship?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not OP, but hits home a bit! I've done this A LOT. I'm so surprised by the responses here.

A couple years ago, this wasn't a hypothetical for me! I was having an extremely difficult time. Stressful job with long hours, both parents were diagnosed with terminal illness (one has passed, one got lucky with cancer). I had to travel often to visit them, as they weren't local. We were also planning a wedding. It was a busy time, and my week days were work, my weekends were work / travel, and I was pulling together a wedding with my partner.

I'd go to parties, happy hours, etc. to see people, and get asked "we should hang out more! Let's grab coffee/drinks/hang out." And I would tell them something like "I would love to see them, but I'm completely swamped these days." I don't want to talk at a party about how both my parents are dying, my mom can't remember my name, and isn't getting the care I want. Or that my dad is forgetting to pay bills, and I've started doing that for him. The whole point of going to the party was to get away from that.  For some people, I didn't want to talk about the wedding. But I also thought it was disrespectful to lie to them and give them false hope that we would hang out soon. I had enough on my plate that the party was all the social events I had time for.

So I used the line a lot, and then we would move and continue the conversation. But based on the responses here, I shouldn't have done that? I feel like I'm missing something here. [/quote]

"I'd love to, but I'm swamped these days" is fine.  "I don't want to be your friend," or any variation of that ("I'm not in the market for new friends," "I'm not looking to take on any new social commitments," whatever, is rude.  [/quote]

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