Dropping a friend - advice
Since another user posted about being dropped by a friend I want yalls advice about me dropping a friend lol.
We've known each other for about 9 months now and our relationship is.... complicated.
I'll detail all the struggles I've had with her, so if you feel like you know me, hi, sorry you had to find out this way and text me so we can resolve it.
Alsooooo i am nitpicky so I will mention minor problems as well. Some of this will sound like me being a real drama queen bc i kinda am sometimes. And because this friend is difficult i am much more sensitive and remember things i would usually forget.
So grab some popcorn because this will be really long.
I will call this friend Anna (not her real name).
First off I have to clarify that I am hard of hearing, which may mean you have to repeat yourself when talking to me and that I need people to speak loud enough. I tell people about this right off the bat when I meet them.
I also told Anna immediately because I noticed she talks very quietly and I could barely understand what she was saying.
This leads to the first problem.
While she didn't respond badly at first, Anna rarely repeats herself when I ask her to and she continues on speaking quietly. Sometimes when I ask her to speak louder or repeat herself she will get grumpy and mumbles stuff I can't understand.
I understand that some people have quiet voices (me too) and that it isn't easy to change that, but this is who i am and I cannot do anything about it.
Anna makes me feel horrible about not being able to hear in a way I haven't been since grade school, where people would make fun of me bc of it. I am very confident about it now but I used to be very insecure and she makes me me feel that again.
This leads to the second problem.
Since i can't always hear her and she responds badly to me asking her to repeat herself.... sometimes I just let her talk and nod along and trust on mirror neurons to tell me how to respond.
That's obviously a bullshit base for a friendship.
Now a little history lesson on how our friendship progressed.
We met through a mutual friend (of mine, acquaintance of hers) and Anna quickly took a liking to me because we both read manhwa. She is a very kind and gentle person so I also liked her and was happy when she approached me.
I was struggling with not being able to hear her but I thought this may pass with time and I wanted to get to know her better.
Now comes incident no. 1 (over txt message)
She would send me manhwa recs allllll of the time so when I was reading something incredibly fun i recommend it to her. The story was GL.
Her response was "no thx I don't read yuri"
I was a bit surprised since even though majority of friends do not actively consume wlw media never has one outright refused it.
So I asked her why and explained my surprise and that i wanted to understand her reasons.
She said she doesn't like it and that I don't have to understand.
I asked again and she didn't respond until I asked about another thing several hours later.
This whole interaction gave me very bad vibes and I suspected Anna may be wlw phobic (she reads BL). I wanted to talk about this the next time we met in person.
We met at her house to bake and watch a show and despite all of my intentions to like her, I was having a horrible time.
I understood less than half of what she said and generally didn't feel comfortable around her in the way that I had to actively think of stuff to talk to her. She filled the conversation very well, telling me tons of stuff, not sensing my discomfort at all.
Then Anna said "elle, I know we've only known each other for a few weeks but I feel like I've known you since forever". I was baffled, since this was the opposite of what I had been feeling that day but I was still happy about her words and decided to give it another go and work harder.
I thought if she liked me this much then I should try to do the same for her.
Now my theory is that she felt that way because I didn't act like me because I didn't hear her words. Maybe she said dodgy stuff and I was like “ajahha yeah you are so right”. I don't know.
Later I finally mustered up the courage to ask her about incident no.1.
Now comes incident no.2
From her response I deducted that she may not be outwardly wlw phobic, but she is a stuck up mean friend.
Apparently Anna has read a few fetishizing GLs some years ago and she didn't like the dynamic. I think this is a bullshit reason because it clearly isn't representative of the whole genre and I felt bad that she cared so little about my recommendation, like all my other friends would 100 % give something a shot if recommended it even if they don't like the genre.
But well, I suppose she isn't wlw phobic.
During that interaction she also said that she had noticed how that topic had affected me and laughed about it. I felt awful about that because why did she drop the topic then instead of resolving the problem.
She also said she didn't understand why i was obsessed and had made such a big deal out of it - which in my opinion she had made by refusing to explain anything and acting so suspiciously. I told her I simply wanted to make sure my friends aren't homophobic.
After that we kind of made up and all was back to normal. I still wasn't satisfied with her response but accepted it.
The next day we met at uni and while talking Anna hugged me out of the blue and said "I know we've just seen each other yesterday but I missed you so much"
I was taken aback and flustered. How could she feel so different about our relationship? I felt so uncomfortable and she missed me?
I felt so guilty and responsible for her in that moment that I tried much harder liking her. Later that day I wondered if this is how love bombing works. I am definitely susceptible to that. If you tell me you like me I will try doing the same for you.
We saw each other a few times during uni after that.
The next time we met was after an exam when we wanted to go eat with that mutual friend.
Incident no. 3
I have to explain beforehand that Anna and I feel differently about spoilers. I hate them and she actively looks for them.
No problem.
During this dinner we talked about books we wanted to rec to each other and made the deal that Anna would read a book of my choice and I would read a book of her choice.
She started telling us about the book in detail and I asked her to stop because I would rather not know. She then went on being more vague but still telling me too much for my liking so I firmly told her that I wouldn't read the book if she went on spoiling me because I would rather not know anything.
She apparently felt insulted over this and said "well then I won't read your book either".
Again I was baffled. Not only had she not listened to my requests of stopping with the spoilers (atp we knew each other for months and she knew very well how I felt about them) but then she responded like a little kid.
I dropped it and went on with the conversation. The whole evening I felt very on the edge and could feel negative tension between the two of us. She went on refusing to repeat herself multiple times.
Another time I made a sarcastic joke and Anna took it very seriously leaving me very confused because I didn't understand that she thought I was being serious. We quickly resolved it though and all was fine.
Later I offered to going to a kind of park near to the restaurant and when we arrived she made fun of me calling this a park because it was so small.
When I got home I felt awful about the whole evening and decided to talk about this with the other friend, I'll call her Mia.
Until this point I only had talked with friends that didn't know Anna at all about my feelings about her but I desperately wanted to know how she perceived her and me together.
I won't go deeper into that, I only want to present what Mia experienced herself that evening. So Mia has an ED, which Anna and I know about.
When our food arrived it was the wrong order for Mia and she got very emotional and stressed about it. We quickly resolved the problem and she got the right order. I had obviously noticed her distress and the whole situation but not what happened afterwards.
Apparently Mia had wanted to explain herself once she had calmed down and Anna had cut her off by saying "it's alright now" four times in a row. Sadly I didn't notice that at all.
Mia was very unhappy about that, understandably so, since she felt disrespected and talked over because Anna simply didn't let her speak.
Mia and I talked very long that evening and I detailed all of my prior struggles with Anna and that I didn't know how handle it since at that point I didn't want to be her friend anymore.
We decided it would be the best if I simply didn't pursue the friendship and kept quiet about my feelings.
This was four months ago.
Now I want to go into detail into the third problem.
Anna and I have baaaad vibes. At least I feel that way. I cannot talk freely around her, tense up and overall we don't click at all.
E.g. the whole me making a joke incident. I thought about whether it may be me who made a bad joke but i make those kinds of sarcastic jokes all of the time and never has someone not immediately understood it and laughed about it.
Now this obviously isn't a personal flaw but this shows how we don't vibe. She doesn't understand my jokes.
The fourth problem is her spoiler tendency.
I have a bad case of spoilerphobia, Mia likes to say and I agree. No one I know reacts THIS badly to spoilers and that has never been a problem. I tell people and they adjust.
Anna has stopped being that bad but just a few days ago I had to repeatedly ask her to stop talking about a book she wanted me to read. She kind of doesn't respect my wishes on that part, making me uncomfortable with even telling her about stuff I read or watch in fear she may spoil me.
When mia and I were both watching jujutsu kaisen we made the mistake of telling Anna and while she didn't say anything, she showed us a reel that clearly alluded to a massive spoiler that I already knew. Mia didn't though and I had to tell her some bullshit to make her forget and mislead her so she wouldn't get it.
This only affirmed me in my belief.
Now let's continue in the timeline.
Anna and I didn't see each other for a while.
However, I finally got to read that book she had wanted me to read.
Incident no. 4 (minor)
Sadly I really didn't like it. I told her when I started reading and then when I was done. (Txt message)
The exchanged went about
"I just finished the book"
"And?"
"I didn't really like it to be honest"
"Okay"
"I will still read the second book if you want me to"
"Dw, you don't have to"
I was a bit shocked because I had thought she wanted to talk about the book. I thought she wanted to know my opinion, yet she didn't say a single word about it.
I was hurt by that. I would have dropped the book if if hadn't been her recommendation. Anna had asked me to read it for months at that point.
After talking to a friend about it i decided to be honest and ask her if she didn't want to talk about my thoughts about the book.
She was very dismissive the entire conversation but it seemed to be a misunderstanding so I started talking about my thoughts and then she dropped that she had already read my storygraph review.
I don't have a problem with my friends reading my public reviews, but she didn't respond to my review in ANY way or like tell me her thoughts about it. I just felt a bit iffy and sad about the whole situation.
Time passed and she read the book I had wanted her to read. I was extremely excited about that.
When she was finally done we met and..... it was such an unsatisfying exchange. She didn't do anything wrong it just.... felt weird.
She didn't really listen to me or let me talk when I responded to her thoughts leading to her not understanding that I had the same opinion as her. But oh well, nothing major.
A week later we saw each other again in uni and had a little discussion about politics and feminism. She said some ridiculous stuff like her not voting because she didn't know the people personally and then the whole feminism thing....
Incident no.5
What matters from that exchange is that at some point I explained how the word feminism is being sullied by right wingers and that it carries a lot of meaning how you identify yourself for others. Anna on the other side said that it only mattered how you felt inside.
(My point here isn't the argument itself, you are free to have your own opinion)
I made the example "well, if you had said on your first meeting that you weren't a feminist, I would have had a bad first impression"
To which she replied
"And if you had said you were a feminist on our first meeting I would have found you weird"
I was baffled yet another time because she again gave that childlike response, that "you hurt me so I hurt you" thing.
I didn't know how to respond so I said nothing.
After that we dropped the discussion.
Incident no. 6
In the evening I thought about our discussion again and after talking to another friend about it, I thought maybe Anna had a different interpretation of feminism.
I asked her if she could elaborate (txt message). She said she would rather not do it over text message because she's scared I could misunderstand her like with the GL incident. I told her I understood.
She then went on explaining that she hates discussions and that she cannot handle them. It was a really long text that confirmed the suspicions I had already had.
I responded reassuring her that she doesn't have to worry but that I cannot help but discuss things when I have an opinion on it. I have to summarize this very shortly but in general I was very accepting and reassuring. I took a long time finding the right words and typing it out.
After that she didn't respond anymore. I waited but assumed she's either busy or has to think about it.
I forgot about the whole thing until she texted me a few days later asking if I wanted to have a chocolate spread she didn't like.
That left me FUMING. I felt so offended by her not responding at all to these words I had poured out from my heart.
I decided to ignore her message at that point because I had no idea how to respond. I was way over our friendship and while I felt offended, I didn't want to start drama again.
This is the fourth problem.
Anna can't do discussions.
I love discussions. They come to me naturally and i discuss things with everyone. I've never encountered a problem with this, all my friends respond very positively and engage in those discussions with me.
It's who i am and if someone can't handle discussions and confrontation then i am not the right person for them.
Anna DOES engage as well, she just does it badly. Would she say "i dont want to discuss this" i could pull back and respect that (except the GL thing cause i don't want homophobic friends). But if she doesn't draw boundaries l cannot respect them either. And her way of avoiding confrontation by stopping answering or being a mean child is just awful.
Some days later we met for a trip we had planned prior with Mia.
Anna didn't address the whole thing at all and neither did I.
It was actually the first time I enjoyed my time again with her, partially probably because Mia was with us.
Anyway, this leads to incident no. 7
At the very end, we are going home, she drops
"Elle, I am so glad you are not mad at me. You didn't respond so I was worried"
I, who hasn't expected this at all, said something along the lines of "haha yes".
When I got home I felt really guilty about that because it clearly hadn't been "haha yes", i had been hurt and had discussed this with almost my entire friend circle.
I felt like i was being dishonest.
I don't like lying so after talking to my friends i mustered the courage and told her in a voice memo that i had been overwhelmed in that moment but that i had actually been a bit upset over her lack of response but that was all okay now, i just wanted to be honest since she had addressed the topic.
Anna responded that she thought the topic had been resolved and that was why she said nothing. "I just expected some reaction, you know? I felt like I was talking to air since you didn't respond"
"Well, that's just how i am. What should i have said? Okay? Aha?" (I'm omitting the emojis, think of the closed eye monkey)
This gave me such a foul feeling. I had mustered up the courage to be honest and been very polite about it and she responded in such a passive-aggressive way. So i just said
"Yeah, maybe"
And her response was
"Aha."
That moment i decided i would stop investing any emotions into this relationship. I was done with this. If she couldn't appreciate my honesty and the emotional labor, i didn't want to do it anymore.
Weeks pass and stupid me makes the mistake of telling her that my friend had to cancel our date cause she is sick, to which Anna offers going with me instead.
I has no reason to say no without hurting her feelings so i accepted.
Cue incident no. 8
Now that i didn't care about our relationship it was much easier accepting how little we vibed. I could see how i acted differently around her compared to around friends. Our discussions were stiff, I talked weirdly.
But it was fine overall. Nothing major happened.... until....
We went to a restaurant and when we paid I didn't leave a tip. We live in a country with a real minimum wage and while tip culture exists it's not obligatory. Waiters don't depend on tips, they're just a bonus.
She left a tip and after I didn't she said, with a shocked expression "you didn't give a tip"
I, also shocked about her reaction said "Yeah"
"But that's custom, 10 % tip"
Awkward laugh "not in this country"
And she dropped it.
I felt really insulted over this. I wouldn't mind being confronted about why I don't tip (I do sometimes, just not always) but the way she did it was just so... rude and condescending.
Like I said it's not custom at all, half of my friends doesn't tip either every single time like Anna apparently does.
Anna also works while I don't, leaving me with way less disposable income (I'm on mangago, duh).
I didn't confront her about that
This concludes our friendship at this point.
I haven't asked her to meet me in months but if she asks I usually can't find a polite reason to decline.
I have no idea why she still pursues this friendship so much. Never have I been in this kind of situation.
It boils down to us just not vibing and that has happened so many times in my life but usually the other person notices instantly as well and we mutually just never talk again.
Anna on the other hand relentlessly asks me for dates and I don't know what to do.
While I don't like her I wish I could. She is not the right person for me but she is very kind and a great person. I feel bad not telling her how I truly feel but I have also seen how she hasn't responded well to my honesty a single time.
We are currently forced to see each other in uni as well and basically telling her "stop talking to me, I don't like you and don't want to be your friend " and then seeing her every single week would just be cruel. Especially since the only people she talks to in this lecture are me and Mia and Mia is so much closer to me than her, Anna would be alone.
But again, I hate dishonesty.
To summarize: she doesn't respect me being hoh, she and I don't vibe, she disrespected my avoidance of spoilers and she can't do discussions.