Thoughts.com Blogs - What is the Best Way to End a Friendship?

Hi everyone! I'm sorry about deleting my introductory blog-post as at April 16th, 2008. I thank other users for their comments though. I had to delete it to maintain anonymity. And for various reasons I have decided to delete my user ID as well. I have quitted the idea of blogging; primarily because I tend to write what I feel and hence end up revealing a lot of personal information which I wouldn’t want to otherwise. I would still reinforce the point I made in my previous post (if you have read it before I deleted) – that writing is one of the best ways of relieving yourself from stress. It is much more productive than sulking, feeling depressed; and has a more soothing/calming effect than even breaking into tears. In my case I guess I should just continue with my password-locked e-version of my personal diary; and repeatedly keep a copy of it in my thumb-drive so as not to lose the entries during a system crash like I unfortunately did before.

Before I terminate my blogging life (which is like ending it before it even started properly, so is too small to be even phrased as a ‘life’), I have one important question to ask you all. It would be great to discover a variety of opinions that different people might have on this issue: the question that you read as the title of this post. When you realize that you need to end a friendship – how would you prefer to do it? The reason behind your intention can be anything e.g.-
your friend is wasting a significant portion of your time,
you’re unable to handle him/her any longer,
he/she is getting on your nerves or you find him/her too irritating,
you’re just plainly bored with this friendship,
some very close friend has suggested that you should and you decide to act on the idea,
you feel you’re way too different from your friend and that would result in more clashes of opinions and of other sorts than enjoyable experiences,
the friendship is seemingly proceeding to a direction that you wouldn’t want it to, etc.

When you are desperate to remove your friend’s presence from your life (you might have actually stopped calling him/her a ‘friend’ by now; and rather prefer to term your friend as a ‘pest’, ‘irritant’, nuisance’ etc.) - how would you want to do it? Will the underlying reason that is making you wrap up the friendship affect the way you eventually block your friend from your life? If so, how would it? You can use a few examples from above to illustrate your point. What other factors will affect the strategy that you would like to choose – e.g.- the gender of your friend, cultural backgrounds, etc? Also, more importantly, would you take measures to not hurt your friend too much in the process? Would it even matter to you how he/she feels?

I want to describe one unique example that I have witnessed. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be too long and boring for you. But I assure you, it’s worth a read; it’s unique enough. This girl and this guy who is much older than her, meet online at some college forum – of the same college that they both attend. They become quite good friends (at least it seems so to the girl). They share a lot of experiences they’ve encountered in their lives at different points in time – pleasant and detrimental; perhaps the girl shares more than the guy does because as we all know – girls talk more. :P Thus they get to know a lot about each other, their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps the guy being older, more analytical and more experienced with life gets to know more about the girl than she does about him. They spend a significant portion of their time everyday talking to each other online than actually meeting up anywhere (although they subsequently do so later, just a few times). The girl still treats him as nothing more than a good friend. The semester comes to an end, each go in different ways during the summer. She finds that she misses him during her idle summer days. He is too busy with his working schedule. She expects him to be available to talk to her whenever she comes online; but he is just too busy, sometimes more than he actually seems to be. She wonders at how he manages to procure time to meet up with his another friend’s girlfriend (who is also his very good friend or so it seems, and nothing more, or so he claims). He spends a considerable amount of his free time talking to and hanging around with this other girl. Apparently, she feels ignored. She feels jealous (she doesn’t know why!) :S She doesn’t know how to deal with it; she ends up bugging him a bit more often than usual: because she doesn’t want to let him have any free time for any other girl. It seems that he couldn't tolerate any jealous possessiveness on her part. She once gets involved in an argument with that girl when she tries to message him online and the girl replies instead. The girl wouldn’t let her talk to him.

She might have developed some feelings for him by now, but she remains unaware until the day when she abruptly gets an email from him saying that he wants to end the friendship. She was shocked – she hadn’t done anything mean to him, then why? Point to note, it is obvious that the guy wants to end the friendship but she is too naïve to realize it.

She prefers straightforwardness as she isn’t diplomatic enough to extract hidden meanings and/or intentions behind deceptive words. She repeatedly requests him to come online and talk to her at least once – and let her know the reason. He does come online and she keeps insisting to know the reasons. The first excuse he gave was: that he had feelings for her but she obviously didn't, so friendship had to be ended. Because it’s not possible to be friends with someone you feel for in a different way. To his utter surprise, she accepted to go into a relationship! Something that he had been suspecting turned out to be true. She wasn’t keen about going into a relationship – she was even fine with friendship; because she felt she just didn’t want to lose him completely. Then he said he was concerned about what his sister or her brother would think – whether they would appreciate such a thing (please note that 'dating' in both their conservative cultures isn’t something highly acceptable or openly tolerable). When she pointed out to him that his sister was in a relationship herself and also her brother wouldn't oppose, he said that a relationship would affect his academic performance, as it wouldn’t let him focus and concentrate in his work. When she tried to convince him that it wouldn't, he pointed out that what he wanted out of a relationship was not what she wanted. He demanded for sexual activity in the relationship which she wouldn’t agree to, under any circumstances. And he knew it. This was the strategy he used to get rid off her. He finally hit the bull's eye. He always reiterated that she knew nothing about the harsh reality out there; and this is how he taught her about it. It is like teaching someone what death is by killing him. It is analogous to showing someone how devastating smoking/taking drugs is, by making him take up that habit.

In their online conversation during the summer holidays, he promised to explain everything to her later in the upcoming semester. Her curiosity, soaring mainly out of feelings of resentment & hidden affection for him, was only challenging her patience. Finally the summer holidays, which weren't as enjoyable as she wanted them to be, were coming to an end. When she got back to her college, he wasn't answering her phone calls, text messages or emails. He wasn't keen about meeting up with her. After her repeated struggle to reach him - through messages, calls etc, he finally agreed to meet her one night. She was extremely blank about what she wanted to say when they actually met: she didn't want to lose him. She wasn't sure what she should say so as to prevent a complete cut off. Her own preferences were of less importance to her: she just wanted to say that one magical thing that would stop him from leaving her alone. She decided to welcome anything, any condition - be it friendship or relationship and agree to all his demands. He repeated the same arguements and points he had made earlier. She would lose the verbal battle whenever he made the point about sexual activity. Because her virginity was precious to her and preserving it till marriage was important. She wasn't able to talk to him as freely and as she would online; but he wouldn't give her enough time to open up fully. He wanted her to come to his room to talk to him so as to be able to converse more frankly and convey all her thoughts but her orthodox principles prevented her from going there.

He reasoned with her all along, with false reasons and premises; and she actually believed in him; she was very foolish. Although she had lots of complaints and suspicions in her mind that were redirecting her to the truth, she dismissed them as mere accusations against him. One of the many was about him deliberately having her get rejected from an organization she applied to for a membership. He held an important position in there – he would interview applicants and could accept/reject applications. She knew he wouldn't want her to have anything to do with that organization, although he surprisingly encouraged her to apply (even after all these); perhaps he was only fulfilling his duty. Although she applied way after the deadline, she was again surprised to have got shortlisted for the interview, whereas many of her deserving friends hadn’t. And after the interview she was rejected. Soon after that, he even expressed how glad he was at her rejection. She felt that he did it on purpose - to belittle her, to lower her self-confidence and make her feel weak. And at one point, he did agree to those accusations – he admitted that he had lied and had used a fool-proof strategy against her to end all ties. She partly believed in what he said and thought that his answers were only angry sarcasms. She held a high opinion of him and his character; she would rather choose to blame herself within for vexing, suspecting and accusing him than to admit to herself that he was a deceptive lying hypocrite. Although she would incessantly accuse him of being so, she never thought he could actually be that. She didn't want to be proved mistaken in judging people's character for the umpteenth time. Unable to deal with such a situation, she sends him numerous hate mails and sms, to let him know what opinions she had of him. He uses swear words many times at her and threatens to call the police and complain to her brother, who would eventually inform her parents. There wasn’t anything else she could do. She wanted God to teach him a lesson, to avenge the unbearable pain he has inflicted upon her. She felt it wasn’t wrong to fight for the truth, to know the truth because no matter how bitter, the truth is all that matters.

One night she gets a call from him. And that too was because she used one swear word against his friend's girlfriend in a text message. He seems to be very sensitive about that girl always - so much that he had to make the phone call. (He would never answer her calls or messages otherwise.) He apparently spends more time with her than her own boyfriend. (Perhaps he has some hidden feelings for that girl that he is trying to suppress and conquer). He talks about his concern over her that she might commit suicide and get him into trouble. She realizes that he didn’t call her out of concern for her but for himself and she couldn’t believe that he would even imagine her to be psychotic enough to attempt such a thing. He eventually told her brother about the whole issue, in spite of her repeated requests over the phone; and that was about to cause problems for her but fortunately it didn’t. Her brother believed in her and understood her situation – what a complicated deceptive maze she had been put into by him.

About two months later, she sees him with a girl – the same girl she met while waiting to be interviewed; who helped her locate the venue where it was to be conducted as well. She then realizes that she never had him – or rather, she lost him long before she even apprehended. The same girl was accepted in that organization instead of her. Her place was seemingly given to that girl – in that organization, and most importantly, in his life. She finds that girl to be much uglier compared to herself – she cannot comprehend why she was abandoned; why the friendship had to end, let alone the beginning of anything more. She doesn't understand why he was going out with that girl. She tries to think like he would - perhaps he was just trying to conceal his feelings for his friend's girlfriend by going out with someone else - just anybody else he could find at hand; or just to destroy any rumours that might surface to damage his friend's girlfriend's reputation that meant so much to him. They walk past her now and then with a careless look of contempt on their faces. He turns out to be sadistic enough to kiss that girl in front of her. She doesn’t know why she had to go through all these – she wonders what sins she might have done in the past for which God was taxing her inner peace so heavily. She wishes to not see them ever anywhere. But now she is happy to have discovered the truth that she was looking for. His relationship with that girl doesn’t involve sexual activity. It isn’t affecting his academic performance. So whatever reasons he gave to her earlier were just lies – to end the friendship. He was a hypocrite after all.

I had to describe the example in detail – because it is too complex to be stated in just one small paragraph. What do you think of this issue? Is this the best way to end a friendship? How would you deal with such a situation if you are on the receiving end? I would like to highlight a couple of other debatable questions. Is it important to pursue the truth always – is it practically beneficial? Does the truth always help you find peace within yourself? What would you have done if you were in the guy’s situation? And in the girl’s?

My personal opinion is that we should forget about extracting the truth when it isn’t of any use to us anymore. When knowing or not knowing it doesn’t change or affect a situation – the importance of truth dissolves. Sometimes discovering the truth after living in a lie for a long time can cause a lot of pain, frustration and hatred. Sometimes it’s more pacifying to rather believe in some lie. But then again, discovering the truth also helps you discover yourself and hence rectify your flaws. Choosing to believe in some lie just to attain temporary peace places you at the risky brink of reaching the hurtful realisation of the same truth. Yes, the risk is always there - and the later the truth dawns upon you, the more embittered you become towards the issue. And about ending friendships – I think honesty is the best policy. It’s more efficient – it gives the desired results quickly. Also straightforward honest opinions and reasons can help your friend to learn more about himself/herself and focus on improving his/her attitude or nature so as to prevent similar occurrences in the future.