Hey everyone! I had what I guess is a falling out with some friends who I used to spend a lot of time with. It's a stupid and long story so I'll spare the details, but essentially a pretty minor disagreement (which happened because I stood my ground and refused to be taken advantage of) turned into them ignoring and icing me out for weeks. After that, I decided that I want friends who will talk to me if I've done something to upset them rather than being passive aggressive or trying to make me feel isolated. After a couple weeks of being sad about it, I came to a really good place emotionally. With these friends, the dynamic had honestly become pretty toxic. The only activity we did together was watching reality tv, unless I came up with a plan and got them to do other things together. They also gossiped a lot, and I'm ashamed that I also participated in it. I realized that they were dragging me down and I want to instead focus my time on friendships that are mutually uplifting, with both parties putting in effort, caring about each other, and motivating each other to be better. With my extra time, I've been focusing on my hobbies and spending time with the high value people in my life.
Here's where I want some advice: I got a text from them recently saying they know I'm hurt and would like to talk about things "to get it all out there and see where we're all at." When I got the text (a couple weeks ago) I thought it could be nice to have closure and just understand what happened, so I said I'd be up for a conversation but towards the end of the month since I was very busy with things the last couple weeks. Now though, I'm feeling like I just don't want to spend the time on this conversation. I don't feel like I need answers and honestly don't see myself trusting these people as friends in the future. A part of me feels that I could go there and see what they have to say, and leave if it feels unproductive. There's a possibility they've reflected and plan to apologize. I have made up with one mutual friend who got caught up in the situation and she has apologized for her role in it and has agreed with me that the gossiping was toxic. I feel kind of bad not giving them a chance to talk because other than this, I have enjoyed their company and think the friendship was a positive thing in my life until recent months when it got a little toxic. Is it wrong for me to go back on agreeing to have the conversation and saying I actually don't want to? If I do say that, any thoughts on how to frame the message? Or should I just have this conversation and see what they have to say? I'm also happy to give more details I just don't want to bore people with this stuff.
I have also been thinking about friendships, and how in the past I've never been intentional about them. I've just chosen people among those that life placed in front of me (in school, work, proximity, etc). Some of these people turned out to be great, but some not. When I think about what kind of friend I am and what kind of people I want in my life, I feel like I need to search for them. Does anyone have advice on how to be intentional when finding/making friends? Do the friendship apps like bumble bff work?
Thanks if you read all this :)
Sorry but… are you me?? I had a very similar situation back in March. Having been through it all, I’d say your gut is telling you the friendship is already at an end. They didn’t meet your standards so you have closure already.
To share my story, I clashed with a friend of 10 years and then asked for 1 month no contact. During that month I realised our friendship was empty. I was the giver, she was the taker and I found out she WANTED our friendship to be this way so I wanted quits. After 1 month she gave endless apologies and lovebombed me about being her maid of honour but she also said things like “we need to meet now so we can air it all out” / “since you apparently want me to put in more effort I’ll pick the cafe” / “let’s just go back to being friends and pretend this never happened” / and even accused me of ghosting her because I reached out late (1 month and 3 days). I just texted her that my life's been great the past month and I’d like to keep it that way so we’ll just meet whenever our paths cross again. Ironically to this day she never opened this message (one of our arguments was about her constantly ghosting me) but I felt so FREE. I realized this “catch up” was probably more a “set up”.