Ending Friendships - Page 2

Where's Brad when you need him to pontificate on the underlying meaning of the above story?

Heh. That was a great thread. And, as a rule, I've never been a supporter of being friends with ex's. I'm a big believer in the clean break.


Except....

I am currently friends with someone I (briefly) dated this fall. We went out all of three and a half weeks, were never really serious, and it was a very amicable ending of the romantic relationship. We've remained FB friends, have exchanged a few emails and texts, of the "how are you doing?" variety. But nothing that would make any potential romantic interest blink or worry. I think it's worked because the dating relationship never became hot and heavy, and because I treated her very well during and afterwards. It's a new thing for me, but I remain very wary of any woman with a lot of guy "friends" who are all or mostly former flames. Been burnt in that area too often to think it's all innocent or there aren't hidden motives going on.

Man, this thread is depressing. I'm in college right now and have a good social circle that I hope to hold onto as I get older, but reading this stuff has made me more wary of that happening. Still, always good to hope.

Anyway, the only time I've more-or-less ended a friendship (most of mine have been the "drifting away, but still able to chat when we see each other" variety) was with a guy I knew in middle school. He was cool and personable at first, but he started getting jealous and possessive when I started making more friends, and things got very ugly for a while. I tried to make it work for a long time, but eventually I got wise to the repeating cycle: he would apologize, I would forgive, he'd start crap again, repeat. Nowadays the rare times that I see him are incredibly awkward for me.

That's understandable, but I don't think I've ever identified with an anecdotal post that much. It's given me the push I needed to really say something to my friend, so thanks very much.

Same here. I was involved with a girl who lived with her ex-boyfriend. I mean, it was dumb of me to date her for many reasons, perhaps the most important being that this guy apparently hated me, wanted to be with the girl, and he tried to ruin my life and got me and his former girlfriend/roommate in a pretty fucked up situation which got the police involved.

And I was totally naive to it. I mean, I didn't like the thought of living with her ex, but I thought he seemed like a nice guy and she only seemed to live with him because she didn't want to hurt him (which was just a symptom of her extremely twisted and, as it turned out, manipulative and abusive pathology).

So, anyways. I think it's really funny how Louis CK says that you can't break up with friends, because it's kind of true. I mean, there aren't the same emotional ties to cut as there are with a girlfriend or boyfriend.

I kind of don't get what the deal is with problematic friendships. I never cared that much about my friends. I mean, if I suddenly didn't talk to a friend for five years, it was no big deal to me. And if we did meet up again, it would have been like nothing at all changed, which happened in one case. Lost touch with a high school friend, then we met occasionally years later, and now we live in the same neighborhood.

I I guess I don't feel I have that much to share with friends and deliberately keep my distance because of that. It also makes it easy to ignore someone who has some trait that bothers me.

I did tell a guy who I was a very good friend throughout my second year of college to never talk to me again after he repeatedly disappeared for weeks at a time while constantly telling me that we would go into business together. We didn't talk for fifteen months until meeting again, and every time we did he was insulting and manipulative. He was/is a total sociopath and only shows interest in others when they have some kind of concrete achievement that is better than his, like having more money. It's disgusting.

Even making simple plans was a huge pain because he would constantly be late, change his mind, insult me, insist on working on his laptop (he's a mortgage banker), and basically making me sit around in a bookstore while he browses the business section because he often "gets headaches" which make him not want to go to dinner or see a movie.

Another guy I haven't seen in a while because he became boring as fuck after college. All he does is work, play video games, and go to bars. He has no ambitions outside of those things, which I can't understand.

Other than that, I don't really have any money to hang out with people, and I'm pretty busy with film activities, where I'm uncomfortable becoming closer than sort of a friendly acquaintance with someone. I really don't care to get involved in these people's personal lives.

And I don't give a fuck if someone I know gets a drug/alcohol/emotional problem. The moment they do I don't deal with them and I don't care what they do after that.

When I was having relationship and legal problems with that girl I mentioned earlier, no one helped me, and no one should have.

So take it easy people.

Stay strong, Stunt Poop.

I'm pretty much the same as Stunt Poop. Whenever I lose touch with people, it's usually time to lose touch. Remember, there will always be new people to meet, and also to lose touch with! Sometimes you're even on good terms and there's nothing left to say. Sometimes their girlfriends become less attractive and you become less interested in screwing this friend of yours' over. Or they have less money to spend on crack. But nevertheless, being stuck in a social vacuum is a fucking drag.

I though horrid brought the goods in that thread as well.