# "Breaking up" with friends is pretty lame **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 12, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951 "2009-01-12T18:36:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/41 "2009-01-13T19:27:46Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Maybe the difference also has something to do with the fact that I don’t consider someone a “friend” just because the lived on my dorm floor or we ended up as roomates together or we work together. I mean a lot of the people you folks are talking about aren’t “friends”. They are annoying pains in the ass who happened to glom onto you or you happen to be stuck with because you work together. I’ve found that the definition of friend tends to vary not just person to person but over time for the same person. When I was in college, I hung out with this person, went places and did stuff with her, and invited her to my parties. “Friend” seemed like a perfectly reasonable label to me in that time and place. And frankly, these days I’d still call someone I hung out with and went on outings with and invited to my parties my friend. Not necessarily a close friend, but a friend. It’s just that those things no longer apply to this person. Like all the other casual friendships I had in college, this one died a fairly natural death as our lives and priorities changed after graduation. Except, for some reason, she still considers me one of her very best friends in the world. Sadly, I suspect that’s probably true–she most likely doesn’t have any better friends than me, which makes shutting her completely out feel a lot like kicking a starving puppy. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/42 "2009-01-13T19:37:19Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > To me, even using terms like “toxic people” “breaking off a relationship” sort of conjures up images of a lonely middle-aged woman talking to her therapist about all the various people in her life who rub her the wrong way. I’ve just never really known any men who think like that. Let me just quickly count - one, two - yes, both testicles present and accounted for, and I use the terms you seem to think no man does. I’m not clear what your beef is here. Are you objecting to the act of someone taking an assertive approach to telling someone to get out of their life (as **you with the face** points out, just ignoring their phone calls or emails isn’t assertive, it’s passive), or the terminology being used to describe the kinds of people we don’t like any more? And whilst you’ve got a perfectly valid point that coming into a thread to say the OP is lame is threadshitting, starting a thread to make an assertion about behaviour you don’t follow and, as far as I can tell, doesn’t even affect you does seem a little strange. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/43 "2009-01-13T19:41:18Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Well, you implied it with your fifth point in the OP and last paragraph you just wrote. Imply…or implode? Ok, so maybe I did a bit. I just sort of imagined that if I did that much complaining, one of my friends would likely tell me to “dude…stop being a little bitch already.” Although a couple weeks ago, I’m with a couple of my college buddies and publicly stated that “if we haven’t spoken in 18 months or you live more than 100 miles away, I declare our friendship…OVER!!!” Everyone seemed horrified by that though. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/44 "2009-01-13T19:55:12Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Although a couple weeks ago, I’m with a couple of my college buddies and publicly stated that “if we haven’t spoken in 18 months **or you live more than 100 miles away** , I declare our friendship…OVER!!!” Everyone seemed horrified by that though. :eek: Well that’s all my international friends gone with that approach. If you delivered that line as you wrote it I’m not surprised your friends were a little surprised. And people keep telling me that American attitudes to distance are so different because the country is so big… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/45 "2009-01-13T21:10:01Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Are you objecting to the act of someone taking an assertive approach to telling someone to get out of their life (as **you with the face** points out, just ignoring their phone calls or emails isn’t assertive, it’s passive), That and just ignoring messages runs the risk that they might show up on your doorstep (as in the case I described in the parent thread). > [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Well that’s all my international friends gone with that approach. If you delivered that line as you wrote it I’m not surprised your friends were a little surprised. Jeebus, seriously! ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/46 "2009-01-13T21:19:46Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Although a couple weeks ago, I’m with a couple of my college buddies and publicly stated that “if we haven’t spoken in 18 months or you live more than 100 miles away, I declare our friendship…OVER!!!” Everyone seemed horrified by that though. 100 miles? You have an interesting definition of friend. I’ve got lots of friends that live 300 miles plus away, yet I talk to them every couple of weeks and probably see them 10 times a year. Do they know what I had for dinner last night? No. Would they help me hide the body? Yep. Hell, we’ve driven 300 miles each way to go out for pizza with friends, then home the same night. ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/47 "2009-01-13T21:40:51Z")
> [@taxi78cab](#): > > You can be forced into “breaking up” with a friend if they have different expectations of the friendship than you do. I was friends with a guy for a while who wanted us to spend lots and lots of time together and generally wanted to be BFFs. :rolleyes: > > Now, admittedly, I allowed it to get to that point when I should have nipped it in the bud and said from the start that I didn’t have time or the inclination for that type of very involved friendship. But I didn’t and it got out of control. I tried to just back off, saying “I’m busy” or “I’m more of a loner” but he didn’t want to hear that. He wanted to know what was wrong, if he’d upset me, why I didn’t want to talk to him any more. For the record, that’s not the way to save a dying friendship. Most people are going to run screaming from someone who acts like that, and that’s what I did. I finally just had to say, “Look, I don’t want to be friends any more. Period.” I had to do the same thing! He would call, and when I had the chance to call back, he wanted to fuss at me for not picking up right away or not calling back soon enough. I can’t deal with that. Another person and I seem to really get along - then she started with the emails with all previous forwarding information attached asking me to send to 20 more people so that little Jimmy would live. I blocked her address. Anyone who sends that crap can’t be my friend. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/48 "2009-01-13T21:44:47Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > 100 miles? You have an interesting definition of friend. I’ve got lots of friends that live 300 miles plus away, yet I talk to them every couple of weeks and probably see them 10 times a year. Do they know what I had for dinner last night? No. Would they help me hide the body? Yep. > > Hell, we’ve driven 300 miles each way to go out for pizza with friends, then home the same night. Yeah…well…I don’t own a car. ☹ I wasn’t really serious anyway. It is an interesting question though, why some friends you don’t see for years at a time but you can just pick up where you left off while others you don’t call as soon as they change zip codes. And I guess I really couldn’t imagine calling one up and being like “look Dave, I know we were friends and all in college. The thing is, you moved out of the radius. Give me a call when you’re back in the tri-state area and I’ll reaassess your application.” ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/49 "2009-01-14T00:51:12Z")
Well, some friendships are just closer than others, so you have more impetus to keep in touch, even if you don’t physically see each other. Other friends you don’t even necessarily have to really keep in touch to still feel a bond, because you’re just on the same wavelength. I’ve got this one friend (or former friend, or friend who is currently bugshit crazy, or whatever–she’s pretty much cut off contact with _everybody_) who we can go ages without seeing each other, or talking on the phone, or even emailing more than a couple times a year. But at the end of that time we fall back together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. We finish each other’s sentences, or sometimes we just talk in little fragments that make no sense to anyone else. We just kind of resonate on the same frequency that way, always have. My other friends, not so much. We’re very close, and we can often finish sentences for each other because we know each other well enough to understand how the other person’s mind works, but it’s not the same. It takes thought and effort, whereas with the first friend it’s effortless, almost instinctual. And I think a lot depends on what, exactly, you had in common with a person and how much of that remains. With friendships that dissolve with distance, either the commonalities were fairly superficial, or they were deep but one or both of you has changed. I’ve had both situations. It’s not an official “I’m not your friend any more” announcement, you just both slowly make less and less effort because you have other priorities, and it fizzles out. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/50 "2009-01-14T07:29:30Z")
I agree, “breaking up” is pretty lame. I’ve had a lot of friends. I’ve had some crazy friends. The crazy ones don’t last long. People who I don’t have much in common with anymore just fade away after a while. They don’t call me, I don’t call them. I don’t spend time with people who suck to be around. I’m not going to keep someone around long out of misguided loyalty. If the friend is someone I really care about, I’m going to tell him or her what the problem is. If no behavior change is evident, they’re gone as soon as I get fed up with their shit. Bad people use up their relationship currency really fast, and dumping even a good friend is lot less serious than breaking up because: a) I have a lot less emotional baggage tied up with a friend than a lover, and b) I’m not sleeping with a friend (see a). That said, I’ve never had to actually dump a friend. I choose close friends pretty well. Some have been around for decades now. I’ve never been stupid enough to award a lot of trust to someone who wasn’t trustworthy. I’ve never allowed someone who was a “psychic vampire” or whatever to take over my life. Hell, I’ve had to cut _family_ members out temporarily and limit my exposure to them when they were being self-destructive and showing signs of taking me down with them. That doesn’t mean that I let them drown without a rope, just that I cut my losses when they threatened to turn into black holes of need. What makes you think that any friend rates higher than family? Short version: if they’re bad people, you don’t need them. If they’re having problems, help them, but no problem excuses them from hurting you. If they want an explanation for a lack of contact, no need to sugar-coat the truth. If they don’t like it, too fucking bad. If they want to come back into your life, the burden of proof/trust/reparation is completely on them. I’m fiercely loyal toward people who have friendships with me. I’ve even put myself in danger for them. But absolutely no one is allowed to fuck me over and stay my friend. You get _one_ second chance after hurting me. That’s it. You don’t get to hurt me again. In **Skald** ’s thread, I found it hard to believe that he’s had no problems with her until recently. After 20 years, you absolutely know a person if you’re paying any attention at all. Heck, after a couple of months, you know what kind of person they are. Character doesn’t change much, though the person’s behavior might over the short term. If that incident was just the most recent straw, he should have gotten her out of his life _20 years_ ago, not a couple of weeks ago. That’s two decades of abuse that he shouldn’t have subjected himself to. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/51 "2009-01-14T07:30:20Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > First of all, what do you say when you break up with someone? “Let’s still be friends.” I don’t. That’s a bunch of bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951/52 "2009-01-14T12:53:16Z")
One of my friends has someone “break up” a friendship with him. They disagreed about something, and the guy shook his hand and said it was nice knowing him or something else equally lame. Me? If someone does something worth ending a relationship, I call them on their shit and tell them to fuck off. But that’s only happened twice in my life. Once when a twenty-year friend lied and tricked me into a really bad [del]investment[/del] gamble and other was a guy who married a drama queen and became unbearable. Otherwise, you just let fade away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-up-with-friends-is-pretty-lame/480951.md?page=2)