They say it’s harder to break up with friends than a romantic partner since the rules are a lot less cut-and-dry. This often results in people tolerating others’ company they otherwise wouldn’t be around because they can’t bring themselves to cut them loose.

I’ve only ever friend broken up with one other person who was going down a 4chan bigotry rabbit hole back in the day, and he’d constantly bring up problematic talking points that I’d try to dismantle, but he was too dogmatic to have a conversation with so I had to stop being friends with him.

I check up on his online presence every now and again, but he’s only gotten more racist and sexist. Sometimes I wonder if having more pushback from me or someone outside whatever echo chamber he was in would’ve helped, but he just sapped my energy so much I couldn’t take it.

(trivia for older internet peeps; he was the Legorobot Comics author. If you ever saw his work you could probably tell he was gonna grow up to be a bigot)

Anyways, what’s your friend break up story? What was the last straw? What was the first straw? Any regrets?

  • CaptainSaabossa@piefed.socialEnglish
    11·
    3 days ago

    I’ve broken up with three friends, and cut all three of them out of my life too.

    First one was one of my best friends. Over the years, he’d become less and less like a real friend, and he was incredibly childish. The defining moment that ended it for me though was when I moved away and realised that I was wearing a sort of mask, and I was refusing to see all the bad elements of our so-called “friendship” including the way he abused and bullied me. The nail in the coffin was when he refused to come and visit me, but then weeks later asked me to join him at some event twice the distance away.

    Second friend was part of the group that involved me and the first friend above, and clearly lacked any interest in talking to me (or the first friend) again after the group collapsed. I feel slightly bad about this one, but it also doesn’t feel like a big loss.

    Third guy was my best online friend, and we’d known each other for a very long time from our MMO days. Trouble is, he also had a habit of randomly ghosting me for months or even years at a time, the longest gap of which was 5 years. What he failed (or refused) to realise is that it was very painful for me every time he did it. Well, he did it again and this time I called it quits.

    Some people just aren’t worth your time, energy or mental health, stick with the ones who are