Longtime friendships that have ended

I had a stroke and they never called, even when visiting my city from overseas.

Most adult friendships don't end for any dramatic reason. They just fade away because of changes in circumstance. People move, they focus on their partners and families over their friend group, or they just realize that what they had in common at one time doesn't really apply anymore.

There's rarely a definitive end, and sometimes traces of the friendship still remain. They'll still like the occasional post on Facebook or send an occasional Happy Birthday text, but the relationship is no longer a viable, current thing.

It depends on the situation but you can always reach out. I'm a friend that doesn't require daily touches. If we get together once a year I'm good.

I had a friend who I knew since Kindergarten. Our mothers became good friends as well. We didn't become good friends until our middle teenage years. Sometime by our early thirties he started playing head games and guilt trips with me, often making up stories just to make me look or feel bad. Although I would call him out one his most blatant stuff, I would mostly ignore the nonsense part because we had a long history and I mostly enjoyed his company. But eventually it reached the point where I had trouble believing most of what he said and where his gaslighting started and ended. So one day I decided I had enough and told him I didn't want us to be seeing him anymore. I said we should take a long break to see if I felt differently, but at that space in time I had enough. He was flabbergasted but never acknowledged that he had an integrity problem. I never got back together as friends again. I saw him a small handful of times in my neighborhood over the years but outside of quick small talk that was it. I miss the old days but I know our friendship had ran it's course primarily because he wasn't the same person anymore.

Yes. In fact several.

Some over politics, those were clustered right around 2016 (not just Trump supporters, but Stein voters who bashed Hillary even though they were in swing states, the motherfuckers). Those were, to me, unforgivable sins. I cut out a few relatives as well... aunts and uncles, a cousin or two.

My best friend in High School, College, and post college essentially ended their friendship with me a long while ago. They got married and his wife didn't want him hanging with a gay guy. Or something. We haven't had any contact in the last ten years.

Another best friend in the same category (in fact, she used to date the guy mentioned above) is someone whose friendship I just let go a while ago. Late in life she went to law school and became a lawyer, and once she passed the bar, basically turned into her awful father (whom I've always hated, who was also a lawyer)... and became a hyper judgmental, utterly humorless, tediously high maintenance person to even try and have a conversation with (or even post back and forth on social media). She also quit facebook and twitter for "moral reasons" (the latter the moment Elon bought it) so it's not like I even have a communication channel with her anymore (she lives two thousand miles away). I didn't ACTIVELY break things off, but I stopped replying and won't put any real effort into it. I just can't stand the person she's become.

SO yeah, my circle of friends has shrunk dramatically since I turned 50, the last 8 or so years.

Yes, a younger guy who worked for me for a dozen years and who I thought was a great friend. We hung out after work, we liked the same people, we hated the same people, he was in my office all the time, he was always up for a drink or five, he had one of my guest passes for parking because he was at our house so often. He thought my partner was great. Back then I had so many FF miles and certificates I'd secretly upgrade his flights just to fuck with him. He couldn't understand why he was suddenly so popular at the airline check-in counters. We went with each other, a couple of years apart, to the dealerships to pick out cars we bought. He'd borrow my truck and nobody borrows my truck. We hosted dinner for him, his girlfriend, and a dozen other people the night before they moved to Detroit and their new jobs in August 2019 and it was a great sendoff. I thought we parted on a high note. Back then he was probably the closest straight friend I had.

And then I didn't hear from him (or her) for four years, almost to the day. Unanswered messages, texts, Christmas cards, even a book written by a mutual friend. Amazon says they delivered it to his office. In December of 2020. Nothing in reply after that and so I gave up trying. I had no idea what happened and neither did anyone we knew in common that I spoke to: they hadn't heard anything either. At first you wonder what happened, then you're pissed off - thinking "Why did I waste the time?"

Anyway, Monday I heard from him via an invitation to his wedding in late October. I know they've been busy: from the wedding website I can see they picked up a kid and a dog somewhere along the way, have been at the very least to Dubai and Rome (backgrounds I recognize) and they live in LA now. They're both working. The reception's in Beverly Hills, so they're presumably OK with money. And I have a lot of questions and really no good idea how to ask them. Somehow, "Nice to see ya', now where the fuck you been since 2019?" just doesn't seem to work, especially when asked of someone on their way down the aisle.

I want to go if only to find out what happened but a wedding's not the place, time, or the way I want to find out. They're young. I made mistakes when I was younger. I still do, so it's no skin off my nose but I'll admit my pride was wounded: WTF did I say or do, to him or to her, to make 'em disappear? And maybe more so, why reappear now? It's not like they need the gifts. If nothing else, should we go, I suspect conversations with them will be stilted and even stranger at the table. "We used to work together but I haven't heard a word from them for a couple of years" will make me wonder why I'm there. The wedding is in LA, so on top of those questions it'll cost us to pay for the tickets and hotel and bar bills and a gift.

Should I stay (home) or should I go? And if I go, should I just smile serenely and silently or should I get hammered and start a fight?

WWDLD?

R6 Nah, don't do it. He ghosted you for 4 years and now expects you to go this his wedding? Yes he was a friend, but he's not anymore. He may have thought to include you in his invitations because he probably doesn't have too many people on the grooms side of the invite menu and you were in his address book or something. Unfortunately most friendships do have an expiration date. Remember the good old days, don't try to relive them. And at the wedding you'll just be among a group of people, you won't have any meaningful interact anyway.

Yeah don’t go to the wedding. Sending a gift would be okay.

R6 it sounds like your friend is clueless. I would go. They were probably so overwhelmed and trying to put their favorite people back in their lives

Give him a call. Ask him what happened.

A decades-old "friend" from school days asked me to spy and misrepresent myself to facilitate some real estate dealings he was undertaking. Eventually after I just plain didn't do it he apologized humbly for making such a request; but to learn that he was even capable of such a thing, and thought so little of me as to put me in that position, meant the friendship was over.

I and my partner moved overseas and during that time let a good friend rent our place, fully furnished. He got in a housemate, a friend of his we knew and we were ok with sharing the place.

Our friend then proceeded to move overseas himself (London) two years into this arrangement and asked us to let his friend stay on. Again, we were ok with this as the house was well looked after and rent was paid on time.

When we moved back four years later, the guy staying in our place moved out and took all our white goods and tv etc with him. Evidently our friend had sold these items (my items) to his friend to fund his move to London.

Contacting my good friend in London, (who I’d caught up with at least twice a year over the four year period through travel and had never mentioned this fun fact), resulted in him telling us to calm down and he’d pay us back. The stuff was old and easily replaced. He wouldn’t engage in any further discourse about it and told us that it wasn’t important. I told him to go fuck himself.

A year later I received an email telling how things in his life are all shit and no one is there to talk to or rely on and that by now we must be over it. I responded and agreed that we were over it, the friendship that is. Never spoken again and I know of other acquaintances that have dropped this guy as friend because of his actions.

He told me I had changed, that there was too much estrogen around him, and it was over. Out of the blue.

He had a pretty extended casualnetwork of gay men who, I gathered, all saw one another at the bars all the time, but for me he was the only long-term gay friend I had, so it was wrenching to be cut off from that level of communication.

I considered trying to give him a call when my mom died, just to tell him I was set for life now, because that might have been enough to bring him running, but I didn’t.

Money.

Over men. As usual

I had an off-campus apartment. I was 19, roommate was 26. As a young gayling, older guy mentored me. After graduating, I moved out of town but we remained in touch, seeing each other every 2 or 3 years.

The dynamic of a 19 year old protege and 26 year old mentor was fine in 1972, but to the older guy, the dynamic never changed. In 2020, I was still the naive 19 year old and he was the wise old 26 year old.

I simply got tired of the bullshit and ghosted him. Haven't spoken to him in over 3 years. One can only take so much condescension.

I ended a friendship that became too much work. For a few years, we were super close. Slowly he got more needy, time consuming, whiny about his life, and in need of therapy. I'm not a therapist, and I said it repeatedly. He slowly became a weight around my neck, so I stopped inviting him to stuff, started declining hang-out times, etc. We had a rough conversation about getting back on track, him seeking therapy, and so on. Then one day he texted me something like "I've decided I can't have people in my life who won't make time for me when I need it." I was quite relieved. I haven't spoken a word to him since. He's early 30s, I'm early 40s - not worth it. I think about him often, but can't risk all that negative energy again.

I lost a “friend” since high school , because of knife in back almost since inception betrayal. I wish I had the self esteem and confidence to end it earlier with some verbal confrontation

Yes. One became a major David Downer, another walked out of Priscilla Queen of the Desert because she was offended (and she’d never heard of a Thesaurus) and another would loudly swear like a trucker at inappropriate and/or silly things: ‘You mean to tell me you don’t have salads tonight because it’s burger Thursday?! Fuck that shit! Who the fuck doesn’t serve salads? This is bullshit!’

I've had at least 2 end since the pandemic. And several a few years before, that we had grown apart from.

One turned into a complete psycho with ESTs galore about his mental health. I think he's on drugs. Has gotten divorced since so I'm not the only one who thinks so.

The other turned into a complete "yeah yeah"-er and didn't ever listen and was a fair weather friend, never asked anything personal and just turned up to ask about me for a second, so that they could tell me all about THEM. I'm done with both.

Had a high school best (female) friend I remained close with post college.

She got engaged to a horrible guy who was asshole around me so I bailed. That was 30 years ago.

I’ve realized the friendship had already been on life support… I’d outgrown her… and the asshole fiancé forced the inevitable.

I realized his little needling jokes and constant criticism and belittling wasn’t actually a joke anymore. It was my own fault for not realizing that I was forcing a friendship that wasn’t there and not only did he have no respect for me, I’m not even sure he gave a shit whether or not we were friends. I don’t miss him at all. I just feel stupid that I didn’t see it sooner.

I had a group of friends I'd always hang out with at the bars. For 15 years we'd get together several nights a week and bar hop, a couple of times a month (well, at least once a month) one or another of us would host a dinner party and we'd all come over to whoever's house or condo or apartment it was and have dinner and drinks, and at least once or twice a year we'd all travel together to another city to explore, party, etc. We celebrated each other's birthdays.

But they were bar friends... and I generally got the feeling that I was an 'add on' to the core group and that many of them basically tolerated me (one or two of the guys did most of the inviting of me to things, and most of them never came to my place for dinner or drinks because I lived further out from downtown and the bars than any of them... at least so I thought).

Eventually I got to the age where drinking on "school nights" didn't really appeal, and frankly, neither did the noise and crowdedness of the bars. When I more or less stopped drinking (not out of any overt desire to be sober or anything, just a loss of desire) I found out that I really didn't have much in common with them. When I stopped going to the bars, I noticed all the invitations dried up. And it all just ended without really a word. It was kinda sudden. Not a single one of them has tried to contact me in any way (we used to text and email all the time). I think after the first year, ONE of them emailed to say "How are you doing" on HIS birthday because that was the first birthday I wasn't spending a ton of money on him and stuff. I didn't respond back and eventually unfriended everyone on Facebook (not that most of us actively used it much anymore). I haven't seen or heard from a single one of them now in over 8 years.

Never mistake "bar friends" for "real friends".

R22, don’t blame yourself! He was the narcissist insecure asshole and you are kind and he hates you for your light!! Heal up brother 😎💪

The first was my best friend in high school, who I had been close to for 6 years. He knew me better than anyone, and I was absolutely convinced that we would be friends for life. However, one day I was in his house, and some cash apparently went missing. It wasn’t much, £10 or £20, but (without saying the words) he made it very clear to me that he thought I MUST have taken it (I was the only non-family member in the house). And because he didn’t directly confront me, I didn’t feel able to defend myself. I left the house that day hurt and angry, and although we met up a few times after that, I just felt really resentful, so I stopped answering his calls.

A few university friendships ended after graduation, and I think that’s pretty natural. One friend married a man who really did not like the fact that she had apsuch a close male friend. And, to be fair, I can’t stand the husband, so we drifted apart.

Much more surprising (and worrying) is that I realised recently that I have gone nearly a year without talking to a really close friend. We started our careers working in the same place, and supported each other through my parents’ deaths, his wife’s miscarriages. He moved away a few years ago and I think his life just got busy because he and his wife finally had the kid they had yearned for. I’m really happy for them and want the best for them, but haven’t made much of an effort to keep our friendship alive. I feel bad about it, but I hate skype/whatsapp/facebook, which makes long-distance friendships a bit difficult!

I am friends with a straight couple who I have known since high school. They really are good people from a small town. They became friends with a group of other straight couples who take up most of their time (NO issues with that- I don't ride motorcycles and all the shit they do) Anyway, one couple is mega wealthy (truly kind people- and salt of the earth) but seriously wealthy. That couple buys the friend group MAJOR gifts, 100K trucks, motorcycles, ect.. My friends did not change, but the entire thing creeps me out. i am not jealous, but I guess judgmental. And I feel really weird about them now. It makes me sad, but I feel the way that I do.

Yes. Without going into great detail, I realized my best friend of many years was behaving in an abusive manner toward me. It turned out he was on drugs. I heard he got sober eventually. He tried to engage with me again, and when I wouldn’t, he started trying to turn one of my oldest friends against me, and behaved cruelly toward my partner, in an attempt to hurt me further.

My life took a turn for the worse after this — I was very ill for a few years. I’ve come out the other side and have never been happier. He’s never apologized for any of the shit he did and said to me when he was using. And I have no regrets about kicking him to the curb. I did not need someone working against me when I was battling my illness. I mean, I don’t need it in the best of times either.

I had a friend from high school and college. He lived out of state and would come in town and want to spend it with me. He had family (brothers) in town. He just dropped by one day unannounced. I had a heart bypass about 5 days before. He stayed with me 4 hours trying to get me to ask him to stay with me. I was sleeping all over the house due to the incision which makes you have to sleep on your back only (I found out at that time I was a side sleeper). Then he didn't speak to me for 4 years... Then he was back. I told him to shove it.

I have had a few. It largely had to do with realizing that the relationship was uneven.

I confronted a best friend of 30 years about blowing off plans with me/our friend group repeatedly, and she went scorched earth and responded with a bulleted and dated list of offenses committed by me that went back decades. Funny thing is, she had done plenty of things that created problems for or bothered me over the years, but I definitely did not keep a dated list, WTF?

Anyway, that was the day that I realized it wasn’t worth it. She was always kinda impossible and most people were just surprised we stayed friends as long as we had. I don’t miss her which surprises me a bit.

I had been slowly ending a friendship with a couple of friends I've known since high school. One friendship ended mainly because of the constant negativity and him always having to be contrarian about everything. A lot of passive aggressive comments and indirect putdowns. The less I was around him, the more he would annoy me the next time I saw him or heard from him again. It just got to be too much, so I simply stopped returning his calls and texts. The other friend, who is female, had moved away and I just got sick and tired of reading all the mundane drama in her life on social media. It got to the point where I didn't bother calling her anymore because I didn't want to hear about everything I had already read on her Facebook page. I felt that continuing both of these friendships was a waste of time so I just ceased communicating with them any more.

I'm old enough and have moved around enough to have lost many friendships to pre-internet reasons. One friend I was sorry to lose, happened in more recent years and is the only one that smarts a little.

Through professional interests I became friends with another gay man nearly 30 years older. Having had older gay friends before, it wasn't an odd thing, and we had very similar interests and tastes. Each of us had tiny circles of acquaintances with whom we could geek out on any of these academic interests, and almost no one who shared more than a couple. From my mid 20s we saw each other once a week on average for more than two decades, at professional events or maybe just shared a dinner. We travelled a bit, and had many friends and acquaintances in common.

In my late 40s I moved a couple times, from a few blocks away to a few hours drive away. That put a strain on things, obviously, and I tried to maintain contact and visits and the occasional travel plans, but never well enough it seemed. If I called him to suggest getting together in his city for dinner or some common interest he would make an ordeal of it, teasingly suggesting I was making some sacrifice for his benefit, or feigning that living in the country made me too good for city people -- odd and ridiculous things, but I continued on bring the one to instigate contact and travel one-way (mostly) to see my friend.

He maintained this odd, jokey stance for a few years and then I suggested a long weekend trip to see some common interests. On the trip he was petulant the whole time about the extortionate cost of the hotels I had picked and my inattentiveness to which gas station had the cheaper fuel by a couple cents per gallon. I tried to laugh it off but that only made things worse. I pointed out the obvious, that he was vastly richer than me and that our entire trip would cost each of us barely more than one expensive dinner out. He wanted to cancel all the "fancy" lodgings and turn around and drive 20 minutes back to the cheaper gas stations. Things never fit quite back into place after my spendthrift tour that cost each of us not more than about $350.

I did see him after that but more infrequently. When I told him I was getting married to someone I had dated for a year he turned a bit harsh and scoldy, warning me that clearly I was being stupid and being taken advantage of and being set up for a fall, etc, etc.

Knowing his own strange history of guarded dating and relationships and even a blackmailing, I wrote back calmly and said I hoped he might in time change his mind toward what he as much as called my idiocy.

A decade later I haven't seen or heard from him, we live in different countries, I'm still happily married and he is now in his early 90s.

It's not that I never put a foot wrong in our friendship, or that I couldn't have been a better friend, but I was a very good friend - as he was with me. I regret losing the lost ease of talking with him about all sorts, all the things we had in common and equally all the things we didn't. There are too few friends I have known well for 40 years, that the loss of one isn't felt. It's easy to guess at why he turned sour, but there's no prize to be won in that just as there should be no prize to be won among friends.

I had a friend of 20 years exclude me from plans with mutual friends for a long time. He was weirdly closed off and often hot and cold with me. Our friendship was very toxic (I know - that word is annoying).

Also, I was always reaching out to him, it felt very one sided. I decided to do a “test” of sorts and not reach out and see if he reached out to me. Well it’s been 2 years and I haven’t heard from him 😂😳

It was for the best. I made new friends who don’t treat me like shit.

It’s not good to cut people off, but if someone is making you feel bad for a long time - what kind of friend is that?

Alcoholic family and friends has left my partner and me lonely, concerned and detached. Now they're dying, on both our sides.

Thank you r24. You’re a sweetheart.

R22

R1 is correct. Past a certain age friendships just fizzle out, there's no big bang with fights and ultimatums. I haven't had a friendship "ugly breakup" like that since my early thirties, and even then it was the other person who made it into high school drama when we could've just stopped calling each other like normal grown adults.

R2 not R1^

LESS FRIENDS LESS BULLSHIT!

R6....ive decided from now on i'll ask What DO I Want to do? I dont like weddings but ive gone to many out of duty, but a weddng in Beverley Hills sounds fun, so i'd go. But if i then got into reasons why I should or shouldnt go, id be letting other things influence my decision. So do you Want to go...Answer Quickly!!!!!!? I actually think he has been terrible, but what if you Didnt even get a wedding invite? Then youd be crazy, questioning Everhthing....Go to the Wedding if its something youd normally have been happy to go to. Ps. Id say the fiancě stopped him having any contact with all past friends...ive known gay and str8 partners whove taken friends away from our group.

You should be able to just peace out of friendships or relationships without them going all Donald J Trump ("IF I CAN'T HAVE IT, NO ONE CAN!") on you. I mean, for fuckssake. Sometimes, it just doesn't work out between people for whatever reason, grow up and deal with it.

Haven’t completely lost the friendship but I am not nearly as friendly with a gay law school classmate that was a great friend for twenty plus years but then turned into a Log Cabin Republican/ pro-Trumper

They ate the last piece of my Boston cream pie, so I cut the bitch.

I definitely concur that many relationships end more or less naturally. I've had quite a few end solely because the friend got married (to someone of the opposite gender), had kids & moved to the 'burbs. One ended in rather dramatic fashion after I finally clued in to the extent to which she was abusing my trust: I tried to be as understanding as possible when she developed a "poly-substance abuse" – addicted to booze, coke AND benzos – but finally I realized I was only enabling her by loaning her money and staying at my house away from her boyfriend (whom I'd previously known from the clubs - he was the resident coke dealer for a while).

It all came to a head when I had to go out of town for two weeks and I received a text from her saying she "needed to crash at my house for a bit." (This wasn't a question btw; she simply showed up and texted me later, since I'd stupidly given her a key.) My mom picked me up at the airport after my trip & drove me home. To state the obvious, I was entirely mortified to discover my house smelled like a Philip Morris breakroom – she's a chainsmoker, and had been chainsmoking INSIDE my house the entire time; pathetically, she turned the A/C down to 55 in a lame-ass attempt to "cover it up" – and had over a dozen empty wine bottles on the kitchen counter. (All drunk by my now ex-friend.) I ended our friendship that very night, but decided not to tell my mom that I also later found my friend's "coke plate": an empty one in a cabinet, save for a straw and her long-since-canceled Neiman's card.

And yes, I had one end after someone I _thought_ I knew somehow got sucked into the QAnon absurdity. He was always a libertarian type (but always voted Democrat), and surprised the hell out of me in 2016 when he said he voted for Trump. Every time I saw him after that, he was griping about some sort of absurd conspiracy theory, including a lot of antisemitic bullshit involving George Soros "making payoffs" on behalf of the Clintons. He got so pissy when I countered his rants about Biden "stealing the election from Trump" that I ended up blocking him on all of my social media, as well as my cell phone. (Alas, I didn't punch him in the face before deleting his number.)

COVID and Jan 6 put an end to many of my old friendships. You are who you vote for. You realize you have nothing in common with these people. It wasn't a friendship it was a habit.

I was close (thought so) with an indie musician before she was famous (indie famous). We partied but also did wholesome activities together and would have deep conversations.

I moved X country to take care of my father. I barely ever heard from her again.

After Dad died, (about 3 years later) I moved back to original city. She and I made plans, which she blew off. This time I ghosted her, after she texted a few random times.

Sometimes I torture myself and look at the slobbering cunt lapping comments her dumb fans leave on YouTube.

I hate that she’s (sort of) famous and popular! Ugh.

R45 - Are you talking about Billie Selfish?

Politics. Opened my eyes and broke my heart.

I know - Mary!

I had one long time childhood friendship end around age 25 and it was my fault. I behaved terribly around him and his new boyfriend (who I'd been interested in before they met). I own that one.

But my two longest term friends are still around, even though they're physically far away.

Everyone else.....they've either evolved into acquaintances I see occasionally, or neighbors (in one case) or we just stopped seeing each other. I had one falling out a few years ago with someone who, in retrospect, probably had feelings for me and I never noticed. I stopped hanging out with a few friends who were very undependable - both seem to have been engulfed by mental illness, and one is now in jail.

I say, water the flowers that grow. Sometimes it's time to prune the branches or put in new plants. I hold no ill will for most of the people I know that fall into this category, but I'm also not going to rend my garments and cry tears for people uninterested in spending even 1 percent of effort on maintaining our friendship.

I had a good friend in the Bay Area for 20 years (used to whore around together, have lunches/dinners in the city and elsewhere in the BA, go to classical concerts, do little road trips). I had to move back to the Midwest. Visited him a couple of times, once for a beach weekend on the central coast. The boyfriend of 10+ years was along. I like to be out and about (at least restaurants) when on vacation and some of the meals were prepared at the rented condo, which was on the beach but pretty isolated. Buddy's mother died about a year and a half later (he had lived with her). He inherited the house on the Peninsula and the boyfriend moved in. Dropped them after that. I could not bear their boring domesticity.

Death.

[quote] I could not bear their boring domesticity.

They probably couldn't bear a geriatric dilettante. Or as the kids say these days, a basic bitch.

I think there was a similar thread earlier in the year - in the spring .

I had 2 friends / workmates whom I broke up with recently. The pandemic laid everything to bare. I have known both for a little over 10 years. One of the friends I broke up with because our friendship was centered around alcohol, weed and hanging out in the parks around the neighborhood. In the beginning it was fun but I later discovered this girl was a lush / pothead she lived and breathed alcohol and weed- even at work. She had no boundaries. Welll..... the pandemic posed the perfect opportunity to squash this friendship. 👌 she incited me out a few times after lockdown, this year she insisted on hanging out. I told her I was sober . She would not give up, -" we don't have to drink" which I knew was a lie. Weeks later she called, I ignored her. Then she texted a few times, Easter, etc. I ignored her and the that was the end of it. When I think back I'm a bit sad our friendship ended like this, we had some good times but I had to let it go. I want more for my life than smoking weed, drinking and hanging out in the park.

Covid killed so many of my friendships I don't know why but it goes both ways. The things we had in common just don't exist anymore. It's sad and makes me cry.

I had two friends for many years since highschool. One of the friends was married for many years but then got divorced. She naturally leaned on us. Then she starting dating a new guy and he kinda joined our friend group. I found him a pest at first…but then I started to like him too…then I started to kinda hate my friend. The whole thing kinda fucked everything up and now I feel like I don’t have any friends.

I had a friend from college days, so we had been pretty close for some 30 years. But I hadn't seen her in a year or two and she called me and said I should come visit. I said I was embarrassed because I had gotten so fat. That really ticked her off and she said, "That's why I have you as a friend, because you're skinny". She never contacted me again (it's now 10 years later). I mean, she's right, that was a stupid thing to say, but I didn't think she'd cut me off forever over it.

R6, do you think you might have had a crush on this guy? Using your miles to upgrade his plane seats "just to fuck with him"?

[quote]Covid killed so many of my friendships I don't know why but it goes both ways. The things we had in common just don't exist anymore. It's sad and makes me cry.

Same, same, and SAME. SO fucking depressing. I'm still not really back to normal even with my *best* friends (and they still live nearby!).

I'm fortunate that I only had a couple of not-great friends lost to politics, but no love lost there. I cut the truly toxic people from my life over a decade ago.

I’d posted this in the “epiphany about a person that redefined your friendship” thread —

It is true that people often grow apart, or it now seems to me as you get older you tend to become “more” of whatever you already were. I noticed that with my dad as he turned sixty, and now amongst me and my friends in our 60s. I had a very close friend of over 30 years who was always very different than myself, especially politically, but he was interesting, fun and kind in many other ways; so the political sparring didn’t really matter.

Then Trump happened. He went all in; which frankly surprised me somewhat, because he’s extremely intelligent. My one other republican friend left the party as soon as Trump was nominated; but this guy just became gleefully viscous. I didn’t ever confront him or even say anything - you’re not going to change anybody’s mind - I just stopped all communication. I doubt we miss each other, but I do miss the guy I was friends with in the 90s.

It was a lot of little things that added up. My friend (woman) criticized things about my looks, never complimented me about anything (even outside of looks). When my grandma died, I got some money and treated Friend to dinner at restaurant of Friend's choice. Friend's reaction afterwards: meh. During Covid lockdown, I realized how inflexible she was about her time - as far as phone calls. We were in lockdowns (in separate towns) and she still somehow was inflexible about when she could talk on the phone.

Basically, she was just disrespectful of my time. Everything revolved around her schedule, never mine. I was spending more money on travel (to spend time together). She never traveled.

Also, we had grown apart and just didn't have much in common - not for a long time.

I realize it's not an explosive blowout, but sometimes you just drift apart.

My childhood best friend of 36 years. We both just turned 40 but it's basically been a token friendship since our mid twenties. I was always loyal but she's more of a social butterfly...which is a generous euphemism. We'd hang twice a year and could at least keep up the pretense. But somehow we've stopped speaking to each other- no birthday wishes, etc. She has kids (I don't) and now thinks that being a mommy is an acceptable excuse to continually flake...while always getting a pass. Her hubby is decent enough... but she inherited his college friend group of lemmings who all passed the bar, got married and had babies at the exact same time. All of them felt like creepy DINOs to me- they all crow loudly about being Dems but live like total conservatives- church, nannies, bluegrass music festivals, jokes about 'mommy's special juice' etc. Very Trump adjacent. A year ago she and her family moved to from New England to Colorado and she never even told me. Oh well.

Yes - I had a friend that I had known since elementary school. We had been through a lot together. We lost touch during high school because we moved to different towns and attended other high schools.

About a year after high school graduation, we got back in touch. It was nice to reconnect and catch up in our newfound adult freedom. It was a fun and carefree friendship at first.

I think the friendship went from being healthy and supportive to co-dependent after a couple of years. She used me as a therapist more times than I was comfortable with. I also realized that she had a dependency on pot and alcohol.

She also seemed to dwell on high school way too much for someone in their mid-twenties. High school was literally all she ever talked about. She was popular while I was always bullied, so I could not relate to her nostalgia for high school.

The friendship really went downhill when she introduced me to one of her high school friends who was also one of the "popular" girls. This other friend (to put it nicely) was "special" as in she seemed somewhat mentally retarded and/or autistic but my friend could not stop gushing over her. During the encounter, my friend pretty much ignored me the entire evening and fawned all over her other friend. All they spoke about were their glory days of high school. We were all 25 at the time.

I distanced myself from my friend after that. I could never look at her the same. She could sense something was wrong and she reached out to me asking me why I was so distant. I told her the truth about how I really felt. Well, she could not handle the truth, so she sent me AND my mother hateful emails listing out all the grievances she had with me over the years. She claimed that the friendship was "over" in those emails.

It was very hurtful and still hurts to this day. This happened five years ago. She is now married with 2 kids.

I often miss my best friend from college, but I’m resigned to the fact we’ll never hang out or have a meaningful conversation ever again.

The last time I saw him was 13 years ago. I was driving across country and I met him, his wife, and his newborn son at a Mexican restaurant (after dinner I had to get back on the road). We were supposed to meet up 5 years ago, but at the last minute he had to cancel because of a child’s birthday party.

I genuinely believe he has the life he wants (wife, kids, job in academia)…but he really is a shell of his former self.

I’m a pretty good listener. I had a friend who just wore me out, over the years. Just stream of consciousness, by phone and by e-mail. Texts were not crazy long, but full of abbreviations that I never heard, before. If I forgot one detail of the word salad, friend would snap: I *told* you — I’m off work every other Tuesday until November! How the fuck was I supposed to keep track of that shit?

[quote]If I forgot one detail of the word salad, friend would snap: I *told* you

My sister is just like this, R63. At the same time, she thinks it's okay to ask me the same questions over and over again. Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind that but it's a little hard to swallow given that she takes such exception to any minor lapses on my part.

Yes! That word salad friend asked me the same questions multiple times. Ugh. So dense.

I became friends with an older woman that rented out a room the size of a studio in her NYC rent controlled 3BR apartment. I found her through a senior organization that matched people up. I was paying about half market rate for a doorman apt with amazing views. It was great, but when I moved in, I thought she’d be in Florida half the year. She lied.

An older Jewish lady, she had a few sharp edges, but we meshed really well, and I learned a lot from her friendship. I also learned I didn’t want to grow old in NYC. She really was an archtype Jewish grandmother, and I was one of the very few people she confided in or let close to her.

t really was a great situation up until I met my husband, who she “tolerated”.

I realized somewhere along the line I was paying the entirety of her rent, she was collecting SS, unemployment, and was having a large portion subsidized by NYC senior housing for low income. I am all about a great scam as long as I’m on the right side of it, but then she raised the rent, and knew once we married that I was intending to leave.

She tried to bill me $6000 from my deposit and my husband gave it to her right between the eyes in the lobby what a terrible person she was.

In the end, the argument was all about money, (she had already bought an expensive mattress expecting me to pay), he threatened to expose her scam to the authorities, and she refunded everything but $600. As I left the apartment with the last of my belongings, I commented how she destroyed a perfectly good relationship, and said to the conniving cunt,

“THIS is why all your friends let your call go to voicemail!”

I have kind of an opposite problem. I have to hold onto a friendship since middle shool because for many decades she has been a most thoughtful dear friend helping me in practically impossible situations. One can rarely have such a friend.

The odd thing is that she is straight but was for many years a strong feminist. The problem which I find so disconcerting is that there is an issue that she brings up and I keep my mouth shut for not hurting our relationship. She is very pro trans and I most anti trans and it and my feelings become stronger every day. Getting rid of things like Ladies and gentlemen, denying bio sex, chopping up children and insisting that men are women and women are men which is literally impossible. For her to support men invading women's spaces and for her to have been such a feminist shocks the hell out of me. Like considering somebody like Dylan a woman when he is just a man in drag defies all understanding.

Well this is just not another diatribe against the feverish illness overtaking the world but it involves a very dear friendship and there lies the twist so I have to try very had to keep my mouth shut. Even the lesser sin of becoming a trumper would not make me hurt our relationship.

I met a guy as a first year at a Wall Street law firm in 1995. I had been a summer associate but he wasn’t, so he didn’t know anyone. I befriended him. He had a very droll sense of humor.

I soon learned he was very conservative. We would sometimes spar over politics. He left the firm after about a year and a half but we kept in almost daily contact via email.

Trump killed the friendship. 2016. I think you all know what I mean. Shame because I enjoyed our correspondence and the fact that it had lasted for two decades.

Ghosts reappear for a reason and that reason will be always be about them not you. I wouldn't even bother responding to the invitation, R6, let alone go to the wedding. Let this one go; life's too short to deal with shit people.

If ya want a friend get a dog.

Yeah, people who are getting married are not dying to reconnect with friends. They want wedding presents.

If I were R6 I would have returned the invitation in the mail unopened (or resealed) with "No longer at this addressed" or "refused" written on the envelope.

Or even "Deceased."

I lost a friend when he became rich. Knew him from kindergarten. We talked endlessly, traveled together , lived together, sharing the same bedroom(he was straight) and then his father died leaving him a multi millionaire when we were in our 30s. Stopped answering my calls.

Called him many years later just to leave recorded condolences when his mother died. He picked up the phone. I was very surprised. And we began to talk like the friends we had once been with such ease and comfort as if there had been no break in time. It's the last time we spoke.

That’s sad R73. ☹️