how and when to BREAK THE BOND BETWEEN US,,

[antemortem]

[/sasuke]

apologies

have you ever realized that you don't like one of your "friends" and don't really want to associate with them any more but have no idea how to push them out of your life? if it's someone close to you that can be some pretty difficult shit, especially if you have others that are peer pressuring you into not being their friend or if you find yourself sometimes liking them (but it ultimately doesn't outweight the dislike/jaded feelings you have toward the whole situation)

if you're one of these people that've successfully phased someone out, please learn us your ways because i'm sure there's people abound that would benefit from your testimonials.

if you're one of the people TROUBLED BY THIS, well, sit down and listen to the experts

i'm asking for a friend {D:}

 

[Sirfetch’d]

Never done this to anyone because I couldn't stand the thought of hurting someone who cares about me. I have had this done to me though. I've had friends(one recently) basically just straight up tell me that I make them miserable and that our friendship isn't as special as I thought it was. It sucks and it hurts but I guess for the sake of the person who isn't happy it's the best thing to do.

 

[bobandbill]

Yeeeeep.

This happened a while ago with a (former) friend in a group of rl friends. It was just a steady decline of attitude on their part, basically getting upset about all sorts of stuff, and at the same time managing to annoy everyone else for various reasons (e.g. negligence, money, rudeness/insincerity), which I won't go into detail about.

It ended up that we had to, during what should have been a better part of the trip, exclude her for a night and then have a frank talking to the next morning that stuff was absolutely not acceptable and needed to change. Sadly not long after that stuff reverted back and they did not appear to be trying. Some of us kept giving her a few chances afterwards, but they also reached their points after further events.

What we did was just... drop contact. It really just got to the stage that it was a toxic relationship, so blocked on messagers, stopped talking to them. They did not push for contact afterwards, I think they got the message. It's sad because while the friendship wasn't like that it was nice. But well, shit happens, and it clearly was not getting better and had gone long enough, and if anything went on longer than it should have considering some of those events. When it causes distress rather than happiness, you ought to just step in and try some sort of action even if it's talking to them, because otherwise I feel you're just hurting yourself/others by prolonging it. There's always other people out there that can offer a friendship without so many negatives after all.

 

[Omicron]

you stop when they try to outdrink other friends, everyone hates that

 

[Percy]

Nope. I've never phased someone out of my life. I value my friends.

 

[Altairis]

I've had this happen to me multiple times this year (!) so basically what I wish I had done was made a decision and stuck with it. I tried to drop contact with this one girl, but she was in my classes during the day and she would be nice to me so I would rethink my decision and say to myself "Well... she's being nice to me now so there's no harm in doing this one thing with her" but that would turn into another bunch of things and we would fight AGAIN so I wish I had just stopped everything and stopped being so anxious about it. I also felt bad for her because she lost a lot of friends, but she wasn't very nice to me to the point where other people would comment on how the way she treated me wasn't like a friend.

If they're someone you're close to, I would suggest talking to them in some way and then dropping contact... it doesn't really have to be never speaking to them again (which can be hard if you see them irl) but just letting them know that you won't do things with just them anymore (like I wish I had said I was busy when I wasn't or not hung out with her during breaks).

 

[Melody]

Honestly I'd sit down with them and just talk to them. Honestly I feel like the silent treatment is just wrong unless you've actually spoken to them and emphasized why you're not talking to them.

Now I understand that people may not always want to hear it; and they may be just too stubborn or headstrong to hear you out, but I think it's always worth a try to talk to them one last time before one resorts to radio silence. I will however say that you need to enter the conversation willing to hear them out too though; it won't do any good to go in emotionally charged and completely ignore their perspective.

But I have been there before; in a place where a friend's behavior was just toxic to the point that I could not stand it. I took my stand to them and explained why I felt they were being toxic and why I felt that way and I heard them out. I then simply blocked them and made no further attempt at contact.

But my point is simply that you should definitely try to give the person at least a notification; if only so that they understand you want nothing more to do with them and that you are stopping contact. This should hopefully discourage any harassment from them later; or at least give you basis for a legal complaint or action if they do harass you somehow.

 

[Skip Class]

I've had this too many times, especially in the past few years - notably 4 recognizable cases both rl friends and online ones. I'm one of those types of people who are just genuinely too nice so I tend to make friends with almost everyone I talk to ... including some people who's deeper waters I haven't walked on yet. There's just some people who I've become friends with, which start of okay or even pretty good, but over time I spend or talk to that person I get various feelings resulting in "Why am I friends with this person again?"

For me, I get like this with certain people. There are some which just talk to me too much that it gets painfully annoying. This is quite rare since I love talking to people - even if it's every day/ every hour or whatever, but there's just something bout the way we converse that gets just too suffocating about talking to that person. There's also the other case when certain people try to talk about things that I just can't get into or just can't converse back no matter how much effort I tried. Those conversations just tire me out greatly especially if every time you converse with me it's the exact same outcome.

I feel somewhat rude and selfish myself explaining it like this, but there does feel like a point where things begin to feel so toxic being near that person to the point where I don't want to associate with them anymore.

In most cases, I've done what most people above me have done. Just stop all contact or work that silent treatment.
I do make a somewhat effort to block people off skype without saying something prior, or just ignore them constantly by saying "I've been really busy" which isn't a complete lie. On facebook, I do change all my settings so that they can't see me online on chat, nor see any posts that I make.
I'm kinda a wimp in these sorts of circumstances that I can't really stand up against other people/ nor hold an argument with them. I hate hurting other people's feelings even when I know I should be confronting them.
Honestly 3/4 times I still want to be friends with them, I just need air or space from them since I feel they're too much for me at that point in time.


... okay the 1/4 is a complete asshole who throws tantrums like a 5 year old and threatens to throw me off a 4th floor building - and I have talked about him before

Spoiler:

Like persay, there was this rather larger guy in my class last year who kept coming to my friends and I last year telling me that I was a loli and that he had a loli fetish in the most creepiest and somewhat pedophilic sounding manner and kept comparing me to his favorite 2D girls in his personal harem... kinda creepy.
Please stick your anime to anime and please don't treat real people like we are anime character who can be part of your personal harem (especially since I think he's done it to a few other girls too).
Well there's other stuff he does, but this is just one of the worst.

He actually just somehow ended up in my friend group somehow, but i never spoke up about how uncomfortable I was. Apparently my friends were all uncomfortable about him too.

Honestly there was a bit of a confrontation and a bit of back story, but it wasn't really worth it tbh. I should have just ignored him and forever if I had the chance to earlier.

 

[pkmin3033]

Not...really?

I mean, I've had this a few times before, but it's never been particularly difficult...I just tell the person in question how I feel. I think it's better to be honest with someone rather than allow them to labour under false pretences; they're going to find out eventually, so it's best just to come right out and say it right at the start and deal with it. I think it far less hurtful to have the courage to tell someone to their face that you don't like them rather than lead them on and pretend, which is draining, often unconvincing, and can lead to some very nasty and explosive arguments. It's going to be unpleasant regardless, so it's best to just grit your teeth and get it over with.

I've successfully phased out multiple people in my life. Peer pressure isn't something that affects me, as my friendships are all separate. I make friends with individuals, not with groups. If my friends know one another, good for them; it has nothing to do wih me. If people phase me out because I phase someone else out - which has happened before - then they're obviously not very good friends and I'm better off without them. It doesn't bother me what others think of me; it's none of their damn business and if they're going to make it their business, I'm going to do the same to them. I don't have the patience for playing those kinds of games with people.

If this attitude makes me a prick, so be it...at least I'm an honest prick.

 

[Lucid]

I just stop answering their text/calls/email and eventually they get it. I've never done this to a close friend though, mostly causal ones or co-workers.

 

[Megan]

I never got to the point where I had to break up with a friendship of mine, but I experienced someone pulling of the silence treatment once. I absolutely hate it, when people do it. If there's anything wrong, then just tell me, because how can I improve as a person when people are afraid of telling me what I need to improve. If you don't tell them directly, people don't progress and while not being able to make progress, they just repeat their mistakes over and over again.

It's basically a choice between "telling them and making that part of their life hell", or "not telling them and making the rest of their life hell". Tbh., I think, if you're too afraid to tell the truth, you're no friend, anyway.

 

[Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer]

Ive just not contacted them anymore. If a friendship has no value to both parties its not worth having.

 

[Candy]

Hmm... I've never actually experienced this myself. I'm too nice of a person to just break contact with someone.

However, there was one time when someone in my group of VGC friends was displaying quite the bad attitude in our group's chats. He was pissed when our topic deviated from the Pokemon topic to Digimon, and promptly left the group. We thought something happened so we reinvited him back, but he wasn't responding. Eventually, we learned from one of us who lives nearby his place that he doesn't want to be in the group for a while.

Then a VGC tournament came up last March, and then finally he accepted the invitation back. However, after he came back I finally learned about his true nature. He tries so hard to follow the conversation, but it just continues off without him. It's not that we ignore him, but he forces himself to follow a conversation without knowledge on the topic. On the other hand, the rest of us remain silent when we got nothing to add. After that, he became desperate, and started to forcibly add a certain meme that happened during the last tournament in all our conversations. We asked him to stop but he kept on continuing.

Eventually, after our topic deviated into Digimon again, he left, however this time he took out another member with him as well. That person was the one who made the group. We don't know whether it has by accident or not, but it really pissed her off. After that, in the group, we all agreed that we will not interact with him again considering the piss poor attitude that we've witnessed during the 4 months of the chat's existence... Well, aside from the guy who's going to the same church as him. We haven't talked to him nor talked about him since.

So far that guy's the only person I've ever break off all contact from. There were cases of me giving silent treatments as well back in the past, but eventually we made up as acquaintances.

Really though, the silent treatment is usually the best solution to me. But honestly, if you are able to properly explain to the person then by all means go ahead; it's much better than a silent treatment. However, if they're not one to listen to reason, then the silent treatment is much more effective.

 

[Centipede Chan]

Yeah sometimes I just stop talking to people because they stop talking to me. Usually it just stays like that, but I never forget the friendship, especially if it was a romantic relationship.

 

[maccrash]

honestly, at this point I'm only talking to my main friend group at my high school out of some weird social necessity to have some group to "call my own." I don't like the majority of the people in it. of course, there are some people that I also really, really like as well but they're few and far between. basically I'm just waiting out high school -- I'll tolerate them until then.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

I just simply just avoid and ignore him or her at all costs. I've done this before with a friend I use to have in high school until I learned what kind of person he is based on the various youtube videos I watched criticizing people like him.

 

[Sopheria]

The only situation where I would do that, would be if they already seem to have lost interest in me. In that case, it's just a matter of letting go. If they were still interested in being friends with me though, I can't imagine myself just not caring about them anymore D:

But if I had a "friend" who didn't want to be friends with me anymore, I would appreciate it most if they were up front about their feelings, or lack thereof. You at least owe it to them to be honest, and it could be really hurtful and confusing if you just drop them without even telling them how you feel.

 

[Bellsprout]

If you don't want to tell them then you pretty much go about it by ignoring their existence. Stop answering their texts, calls, whatever social media they use to contact you. If you want to start slow just start one wording them, but only if they have an important question. If they're just messaging you dumb stuff don't even answer it.

When they ask to hang out give them an excuse and make sure it's not flawed. When you see them around don't make eye contact. Act like you never even saw them. If they approach you and say something like "you walked right past me!" play dumb, "omg I didn't even see you!!" or take the pity approach "sorry, I'm just having a stressful/bad day, I wasn't even paying attention."

It's very easy to drop someone if you stick to that. Eventually they give up talking to you. Before that they may approach you and ask if you don't like them anymore or something along those lines. It's up to you if you want to be honest at that point or take the pity route once again. The pity route always works, "no it's not that I've just been having a tough time at home, sorry if I've been weird.." When you say something like that they're usually understanding if you don't want to talk about it and they give you even more space.

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

honestly, at this point I'm only talking to my main friend group at my high school out of some weird social necessity to have some group to "call my own." I don't like the majority of the people in it. of course, there are some people that I also really, really like as well but they're few and far between. basically I'm just waiting out high school -- I'll tolerate them until then.

I was like this sophomore year.

When I fell into high school I fell in with the geeks, and other social groups started interesting me more as I shaped up and started taking care of myself. They started feeling more and more dull to me with how internetty and nerdy our clique was. I understood all of it but started seeing it as lame.

That's when I started hanging out with people in ROTC. Tbh it wasn't that much better. Same obsessive teenage boys, replace memes with guns and computers with leadership theory, and gossip
lol

 

[Universe]

Have you ever realized you really like a friend but you can't associate anymore because of *insert reasons*, and yet you can't just let them go? That always sucks too.

I've had to force myself to "phase out" of both types of situations, and I have to say that it definitely gets easier the harder you stick to it. In a bitter situation I've always found it best to simply walk away from the person completely and leave it at that. Should I choose to associate with them again in the future that's my business, but for the meantime things need to cool off; including myself.

In the "crap I really care about you and don't wanna let you go but I have to" kind of situation, I've found distraction to be the only and best method of letting go. Basically doing everything and anything you can to not be around that person anymore for any given time. If it must be forever, then distract yourself until it no longer bothers you anymore. Coming to terms with the situation is another thing, but eh I'll save it since this topic isn't really about that.