Ask A Woman: Breaking up with a bro.
If you’ve got a question that needs the female treatment, chances are you’re not the only one who wants to ask it. Beth is our source for the answers. From opinions on men’s style to decoding the sometimes mysterious ways of women, she’ll take on a different question every Thursday. She also might provide an answer without waiting to be asked. That happens from time to time too. Click here to get to know Beth, then get in touch with her by sending your question to: askawoman@dappered.com .
Hi Beth,
A couple years ago I graduated from college and ventured into the adult world only to discover that most of my friends had quickly dispersed and moved on with their lives. This left me with only a few ‘friends’ which I’ve learned to cherish deeply. Unfortunately, I’ve realized that I no longer wish to be friends with one them. So how can I end the friendship? Is it best to always make excuses and slowly fade away? I think that’s a better method than saying flat out “I think it’s best that we should no longer speak” as this guy seems a bit emotionally unstable. I’m afraid of what he’ll do to himself to put it bluntly.
Sincerely,
Trapped
Hi Trapped,
Eesh, this is tough. This is going to be one of those situations where I’m going to give you some things to think about that I hope will help you figure out how to act, instead of absolutely recommending a single course of action.
How you break it off with your friend could depend on why you don’t want to be his friend anymore. Is his instability part of your reason for wanting to distance yourself? If this dude gets plowed every time you go out with him and becomes morose or belligerent and then sleeps on your couch until 1pm the next day, well, that’s a behavior you can address. “It’s my opinion that you have a drinking problem/are depressed because I haven’t seen you sober/functional since we lived in the dorms, and I don’t want to hang out with you until you get some help.” If you simply no longer enjoy his company, that’s harder to address with a conversation. “So, dude, like, I just don’t have fun with you anymore.” See what I mean?
In many ways, breaking up with friends is more complicated than breaking up with romantic partners. In the latter scenario, we figure out we have different values or nothing in common. We decide we can’t stand that person’s family. Those little annoying habits we noticed in the beginning turn into deal breakers when we have to deal with them for months at a time. So break-ups are, well, not expected, but more understandable, perhaps, because romantic relationships take so much more commitment and energy that to stay in them, they have to be pretty good.
Friendship…it can be difficult to figure out.
Now think about your friendships—if you can imagine female versions of your friends, do. Would you want to date any of them? Probably not. We put up with crap from our friends we wouldn’t necessarily do with our partners. We deal with sloppy habits, thoughtless behavior, and irresponsibility (if I have any friends reading right now, of course, I’m not talking about you, silly) simply because friends are less of a fixture in most of our lives than our partners. So if you break up with a friend…he’s gotta be a real pain in the ass.
Normally passive behavior is not a great solution to a problem…but in this case, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to let the friendship fade away. Friendships aren’t always permanent, they ebb and flow, and often, end. It can be hard to hold onto friendships from our teens and early twenties (and even beyond) because we change so much during this period of time. It’s unreasonable to expect that what we valued in a friend at the age of 21 is the same at the age of 26 or 32. And holding onto friendships that no longer satisfy us, just for the sake of holding onto them is a mistake.
As far as your last line “I’m afraid what he’ll do to himself,” well, that’s a whole separate issue, and a very serious one. If you really feel that he is at risk for self-harm, simply as a compassionate human being, you should address that. You are not responsible for his mental health or “fixing” him, but I do think telling him that you are concerned for his well-being is the right thing to do. Where he takes it from there…that’s up to him.
-Beth
Got a question for Beth? Send it to: askawoman@dappered.com
Interesting that this was posted today as well… both hit home.
Trapped, How could you? You’re like a brother to me!
Brothers don’t shake…BROTHERS GOTTA HUG
“I’m afraid what he’ll do to himself.”
If that person _decides_ to do something, then that was his _decision_. Unless that person is truly mentally incapable of making his own rational decisions (aka IQ of a 6 year old, autism, etc.), then as long as you did it in the best, most compassionate and empathetic way you can, then there is nothing more you can do.
The shackles of the mind are the tightest that bind. And guilt is the tightest.
This seems like an odd topic to ‘Ask a woman’ for advice about, but I do agree with Beth. Only put as much effort into a friendship as it’s worth it to you. Just make excuses
and let things fade. You may change your mind after a while and it’s not very easy to resurrect a friendship if you’ve told someone that it’s over.
It really depends on the person, if you’re close and use to or currently keep in contact it would probably be best to tell them how you feel. If you don’t really talk then I guess fading is okay which I’ve probably done before especially since it’s easier to do while in school since you can use it as an excuse. I actually had to deal with this recently and unfortunately it was with someone I considered my best friend.
As for the part of “he’s emotionally unstable” and being afraid of what he’ll do to himself, it’s his life and choice. You can’t blame yourself because you did what you felt. Even if he did do something to himself, it’s not your fault and to be honest it sounds selfish on their part to do something like that.
Warning: Wall of texts, just kind of what I went through (tried to make it as short as I could while having context)
We’re both 21 now and we’ve known each other for maybe more than a decade at this point. For me, I felt college and growing up i wanted to be more mature and stray away from really talking with high school people because I really disliked a large amount of the people we went to school with as a lot of them were very immature, selfish and liked to gossip to the point where friendships ended because of little things.
My friend on the other hand, didn’t care as much even though he was kind of center of a lot of drama despite actively starting it (girls fought over him and talked a lot of crap about each other). I didn’t mind it at first until a lot of them went to me to find out how he felt about them which made it irritating after more then 4 girls kept going to me despite him having a girlfriend. After graduating high school, I expected for me to not ever hear about him being with a girl from high school since he broke up with basically his high school sweetheart. I thought he was finally free, no chains and he can continue with college and make better friends that even I would like to hang with (a lot of his friends I wasn’t too fond of because they were really shady, get in trouble a lot and just do really really stupid stuff.
However, he ended up transferring colleges from a decent college especially for his major to a college where it’s highly regarded as just going back to high school and only good for two major which neither was his. I told him he shouldn’t do it as he won’t grow as a person and just a terrible idea future wish, he listened but didn’t follow and still transferred. I didn’t mind, he listened and it’s his life so whatever. What bothered me after was he started dating a girl we knew from high school and in short, she’s bat shit crazy (like reading your facebook and text message while you’re in the bathroom crazy).
I decided at this point that I didn’t really enjoy hanging out with him anymore because he was going another path in that he started to hang out with even more shady people and his other best friend, who I knew from elementary school too, was a total douche whenever we hung out and I was tired of his shit as well as me and my friend weren’t as close and we’ve been drifting apart for sometime. He texted me one day about his girlfriend and how I’m always right about how it’s a bad idea and I decided after a bit that I should tell him how I feel about our friendship and I don’t really considered him a best friend and that we are kinda on different paths. He understood and said he’s noticed how we don’t talk and it was weird for me because it felt like I was breaking up with him. I guess for me that it was lucky because he is an understanding person but I also know he ended up getting back with his girlfriend the next day. To be honest I also felt my friend was emotionally unstable cause he was always in a relationship and relied on me to talk to about girls and he also had a major break up when we were younger where he kinda did crazy things (and odd enough, the break up was with my cousin).
If the emotional instability is the root of the problem, and underneath that he’s a good friend whose company you value then I’d think twice about abandoning him either outright or by just fading away. It would be better to talk to the guy and tell him you can see he’s struggling with something and needs to get help.
Is Trapped a guy or a girl? The “I’m afraid of what he’ll do to himself” line leads me to wonder if Trapped is a girl and the guy in question wants the friendship to be more, while Trapped has absolutely no desires in that direction. If this is the situation, it’s quite a different issue from a bro wanting to end a friendship.
One way is to start dating someone and blame it on the relationship. I don’t mean it in the sense that you squarely place the blame on your girlfriend, i.e., my girlfriend doesn’t like you, she’s possessive, etc. As you grow older and more responsible with your relationships, you choose to spend more time with her. Whether he understands or not is not your problem.
This is an instance where telling the whole truth is not the way to go. Why damage an already fragile ego? Even if a friend is emotionally stable, being explicit about why you never want to see this human being ever again in your lifetime is pointless. Allowing friendships to take their course and fading away really is the path of least resistance.
Seems today that people who don’t want to be friends anymore simply cuts them off, a la “unfriending.” Harsh, and unnecessarily so, in my view. Whatever happened to talking about stuff? Or is this 55yo simply beyond the curve?