Friend issue

Acc72

tryingtocutback wrote: »

Anyway, I have basically decided to let the friendship fizzle out

Sorry to hear of your situation, however I am glad to read of how you intend to handle this.

You are not alone ! - there are many similar threads on this board, and I recognise the situation from my own life.

The only thing that surprises me is that almost exclusively, this is the approach adopted by men, however women usually seem to feel the need to tell the friend that they are now an ex-friend rather than just letting the friendship fizzle out and just moving on.

I don't know why, if anything this can give the other person an opportunity to turn things around to make you feel or look bad, or things degenerate quite quickly into a worse situation - particularly if this communication is by text, e-mail or facebook.

j.e.j.

Acc72 wrote: »

The only thing that surprises me is that almost exclusively, this is the approach adopted by men, however women usually seem to feel the need to tell the friend that they are now an ex-friend rather than just letting the friendship fizzle out and just moving on.

I'm not sure men let their friendships get as convoluted/complicated as the OP scenario. Do they do birthday cards, birthday lunches and: I-spent-this-on-him-but-he-only-got-me-XYZ?

tryingtocutback

Ognum - thank you, I think it's the first time in my life I have been debt free! Not that I have much in the way of savings or assets but I am now starting to save etc. It's a wonderful feeling.

Acc72 - Yes, I think she could turn it round to being my fault - actually I'm not sure there is any real fault, we have just moved in different directions I think.

Lily_Mars

Hi OP, you’ve been far from unreasonable.

Like others, I understand where you’re coming from. I turned 40 at the end of last year and my friend had also turned 40 earlier in the year. We met through work about 7 years ago and when I left 3 years later we would still meet up each week for lunch. She has a very “drama” filled life, mine is comparatively humdrum. A week or so before my birthday we meet up and she asks what I’m doing to celebrate and I say that I'm just having a meal with my immediate family. The conversation flips back to talking about her latest “crisis”. My birthday arrives and I don’t hear from her and so I’ve assumed she’s emailed my work address instead. Nope, nothing. I have replayed that lunch many times; we didn’t part on bad words, we had a laugh and everything was fine, so I find myself questioning if I’ve been over-sensitive that she blanked/forgot my birthday.

Of course it’s not about the money spent, I bought her a card, made presents, paid for my own lunch/drink/taxi when we all went out to celebrate her birthday. It’s now been 9 months since we last spoke. As a mutual ex-colleague has said, if she was that concerned that you hadn’t spoken in some time or if you are ok, wouldn’t you have thought she’d have contacted you by now to find out what’s wrong?

scooby088

j.e.j. wrote: »

I'm not sure men let their friendships get as convoluted/complicated as the OP scenario. Do they do birthday cards, birthday lunches and: I-spent-this-on-him-but-he-only-got-me-XYZ?

Me as a bloke doesn't do birthday cards or presents from my friends, often my OH say's I have no friends but many men don't feel the need to know the ins and outs of our friends. It could be months before we make the effort. We realise we have got a family and that is more important in the whole scheme of things.

seven-day-weekend

I don't know when any of my friend's birthdays are, other than the one that is on New Years' Eve.

I wouldn't rush out and buy a card either, I would do exactly what the OP's friend did, offer to buy them a lunch at a later date.

I don't think the friend has done anything wrong in this respect.

(ETA: I have just seen that the OP's friend expects a big fuss made on her birthday. The answer to that is simple, don't make one, just let it go by unnoticed like she does).

Don't always travel to see her and don't always pay for her, that is not friendship.