Five Ways To “Unfriend” A Friend
Posted by: Annika Harris
Filed in:
relationships
10:30AM, Wednesday May 6th 2009
Recently, a reader asked “Dear Prudence” how to “unfriend” a friend:
How do you “unfriend” someone, not on Facebook, but in real life? This is a person who is also friendly with someone I know well, so it is not unlikely that we might all get together through our mutual friend. However, it might seem odd to the mutual friend that I no longer wish to associate with this person. I see both of them at work and we often eat lunch together. How should I handle this? My main reason for unfriending this person is a serious lack of boundaries on their part (constant evangelizing me to her religion, constant “invitations” which are hard to say no to, bad manners, etc.).
Once, I had a flaky friend. Whenever I’d call her or make plans with her, she’d have one of three excuses: she was too tired, she was sick with a headache or a stomach ache, or she would have to call me back, which almost never happened. I got the hint. Either she didn’t value our friendship or thought her time was more important than mine, and I decided she and I didn’t really need to be friends. While it’s hard to end a friendship, a bad one can be as destructive as an abusive relationship. Here’s the best way to “unfriend” a friend if you find yourself in a similar situation.
- Be rude. Ignore her phone calls, emails, and texts.
- Erase her numbers, as you would after a bad breakup. You don’t want to do any vulnerable texting.
- Don’t make plans with her, or, if you can’t avoid her completely, limit the amount of time you spend socializing with her.
- Start referring to her as your “former friend.” Your emotions will catch up to your logic, and you’ll begin to understand the friendship is over.
- If you happen to miss her after the breakup is complete, meet up every three months or so. The friendship will feel fresh but familiar. And you won’t be completely cutting her out of your life—just downgrading her to friendly acquaintance.
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moriah
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 10:44 am: [report]
AMEN!
joyy
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 10:58 am: [report]
Uh, yeah, this doesn’t work nicely. Ever. I’ve tried to do it twice, doing the passive thing the first time and being direct about it the second time (with a different person) after the passive thing was an epic fail. Moving is the only thing that has worked so far (it wasn’t the reason for the move, but it just erased those problems). Just be more careful about who you *really* let into your life and watch out for b1tches. They’re everywhere.
PinkRanger
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 10:59 am: [report]
None of these work if he lives two apartments down from you and just walks in when he knows you have company….we invited him to a pary once and now he is always over whenever we have a closest friends here. Feels rude to just say “we only want to hang out with these three people. not you.” but as rude as it is its the truth…...long story, but trust me he sucks. and is awkwardly racist.
becktasm
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 11:05 am: [report]
Man, this passive-aggressive sh*t don’t fly with most people, especially if they really care about you. Honestly, it sucks, but just like breaking up with a significant other, you just have to be honest and rip off that band-aid. And maybe if you’re lucky, they’ll listen to the reasons you don’t want to be friends with them anymore, and make an effort to be less offensive/annoying/whatever. I’ve had this happen to me, and it has resulted in some of my strongest and closest friendships. When I told one of my friends “Andrea, you’re a slut and you drink too much, and I think you’re a bad influence” she basically responded with, “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been going down a bad road these past couple of months, and I love you enough to be willing to change that to stay in your life.” Now she’s my best friend. See how that works? People deserve the truth.
EarthGoddess
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 11:18 am: [report]
I am horrendous at calling people back, so I guess that makes me the flaky friend. It’s not that I mean any harm, or don’t want to keep the friendship alive, I just have so many other things going on that I legitimately forget to call. It’s a horrible habit, I know, but I’m not trying to be malicious at all. Sometimes people are just busy and will call when they have the time.
joyy
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 11:19 am: [report]
@becktasm - small scale friend interventions sometimes work if there’s something you’re concerned about with the person. I did “hey, I never see you anymore and when I do, you’re all zonked out from pulling drugs up your nose - are you ok? I miss you - and I’m worried!” and that worked. <3 that girl, and she got herself cleaned up quite a bit after that. Still close friends years later.
What doesn’t work is trying to pull the plug after you realize someone is selfish/narcissistic/violent/insane. That’s just not pretty. Especially if they have strong ties to the rest of your social group and you’re just not up for the abuse anymore.
sklut
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 11:42 am: [report]
I’m breaking up with my best friend. Since she started dating her current boyfriend she has become a total flake, I started dating my boyfriend roughly around the same time she did but some how I have maintained my friendships perfectly fine. Every time she says she wants to get together she falls through on actually making plans or coming up with some excuse to get out of it usually involving her family and it’s total BS. Her birthday was yesterday and I waited till 10pm to send a crappy text that said ‘Happy Birthday’. Best friend my ass. So I shall try this technique and hope it works well enough because she is driving me crazy. My mother suggested I do to her what she does to me all the time and make really big plans and then leave her hanging.
dianamarie810
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 11:47 am: [report]
Awesome! Be careful erasing the number… you might answer when she calls. 1 simple solution is listing the number under “DNPU” - Do not pick up! LOL
AgentBeryllium
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 11:53 am: [report]
As cheesy as this sounds but sometimes the best thing to do is walk away. I had a BF that at first we were wonderful together then over the years she became very abusive verbally and emotionally. Always putting me down. To make matters worse her husbands advances on me where horrible.
I tried telling her I don’t want to be alone with him. But I guess things just get turned around. Eitherly, basically what happened was she was cheating on her husband(but he was cheating on her too, open ended relationship of some sorts) and I didn’t approve, at the I had lost a dear friend from Leukemia and my grandmother in the same week. Plus I rear ended someone at a stop light and totaled their RAV4 at a dead stop. I was not doing to well and she was rattling on and on about her stupid lover who’s wife found about them, via too many texts and I just lost it. I told her to clean up her life and to take responsibility for her actions. Since then we have never spoken since.Her husband will occasionally text me and ask me what’s up. But I refuse to respond.
Sometimes we need a clean break. Other times it gets drawn out. Drawing it out only makes it worse.
I feel that being honest with that person ( not screaming like I did) but truly being honest and tell that person I’m sorry we were cool, but things have changed and I feel like we have out grown each other.
That’s my 2 cents.
zefron8
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 01:53 pm: [report]
I have used this type of ignoring method with a former roommate and I also deleted her number from my phone, but then the other day she called me and since I didn’t recognize the number but knew the area code and I answered and it was her!.. it sucked!
It’s hard to tell someone you don’t want to be friends anymore, but hopefully by ignoring them long enough they’ll get the hint.
retro chic
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 02:48 pm: [report]
It’s always a good idea to ID what kind of friendship it is to begin with, then expectations are reasonable:
* The lifelong true BFFs, esp from childhood—unbreakable.
* Work friends that become social friends—can fall equally into 1 or 2
* Friends from specific activities/interests—can run their course
Nature has a way of sorting things out, and honesty is the only way to go for any last-ditch unfriendings. The fade is wrong for romance and friends alike.
wild-ting
wrote on May 6 2009 @ 05:05 pm: [report]
I had an acquaintance, that was about to be upgraded to new friend. However, in less than one week’s time (now two weeks) she has become a bona-fide stalker. A few days ago I told her straight-up that she didn’t fit into my life as a friend. The email, texts, and voice mails increasef as did her begging to be my friend!!! She’s a certified NUT. So now “the fade” seems to be oh so appropriate.
sugamartini_the_1_and_only
wrote on May 8 2009 @ 02:13 am: [report]
I have recently ended a friendship and it was very hard. I tried the so called fade but she just got upfront with me and asked me what the hell?!?! so I layed everything out on the table and she got upset and ended the conversation. We haven’t spoken since except Merry Christmas and Happy New Year texts. Since then I have deleted her number from my phone but I do fear the day she calles and I don’t recognize the number and I pick up. Yikes!
mommajam
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 08:52 am: [report]
I had a disagreement based on a stupid misunderstanding with a 10 year friend a year ago, and did everything I could to fix it. I tried for 5 months to get her to talk to me, meet me either with or without other friends present etc..—nothing worked. Then I found out that while she wasn’t talking to me, and I was working on fixing, she was going to our mutual friends, sending them nasty emails about me etc.. to try to destroy my friendships with them. Unfortunately, I lost one of these people as a friend who chose to believe her crap. Some of the other friends now think she is crazy. Apparently though, she is STILL (yes, a year later!) going around town bad mouthing me. I have never done this to her, and don’t want to stoop to such immature high-schoolish behaviour. However, I don’t know how to make her stop. Any Suggestions??