Social Question

rockfan's avatar

Have you ever ended a long lasting friendship, but made the mistake of keeping in contact with him/her via Facebook or telephone?

Asked by rockfan (14632points) September 1st, 2014

I’m having this problem right now. My friend, who suffers from Aspergers syndrome, went through a period of drug abuse and stealing from friends and family. After three years, he’s clean and has a steady job. I recently created a new Facebook, and I’m really tempted to send a friend request or call him, just to see how he’s doing. But I know deep down that I should just move on. Have you ever been in this situation? What did you do?

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8 Answers

zenvelo's avatar

Facebbok is easier than phone, because you can defined if it turns onto a mistake.

I have reconnected with people from long ago on Facebook – some have enriched me, some have made me wonder what the hell I was thinking. But it’s a matter of whether the other person has grown or changed in a positive way or not.

If you know already, though, don’t reignite it.

Kardamom's avatar

A coworker started dating a mutual friend of ours. He’d had a crush on her for years, but she moved to another state. He kept in contact with her on Facebook. I always knew she was a little nutty, but she was nice. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in about 3 or 4 years. Then she came back to our city. My co-worker told me that she and he were now dating, she came by the office and I got re-acquainted with her and decided to friend her on Facebook, mostly as a courtesy to my co-worker, because in theory we’re all friends. Well fast forward 2 weeks later. We get a new co-worker who I’d known in passing from several years ago. He and I spent a lot of time working together on a project so we chit chatted a lot. He told me that this girl, let’s call her Jane (who has now been the other guy’s girlfriend for 2 weeks) came back into town, but she called the second guy before she came back to town to ask if she could basically move in with him. He’d also had a crush on her for a long time and Jane was all flirty with him so in his mind, he guessed she was coming back to “be” with him. Well it turns out that she was just using him for a place to stay, and that they got into a huge fight when she actually got there and she called him all sorts of ugly names and then fled (apparently to the home of her ex-boyfriend from years ago). Is this still making sense to everybody? Well the ex threw her out after about a day or 2 for similar reasons, then she went to my co-worker’s house (she didn’t tell him about these other 2 incidents that had JUST occurred) and they got together. Well the second co-worker told the first co-worker what had happened and that he was OK with the two of them dating, but he wanted to warn him that she might flip out at any moment. And we all went on with life.

Then about 3 months later, after I read post after post about how the first co-worker was taking her out for expensive meals and buying her gifts etc. I started reading posts from her that were right out of the conspiracy theory handbook. So I asked my co-workers (both of them separately, and privately, if Jane was into that stuff) they both said yes, and they were somewhat concerned about it. Well the guy who was actually dating her, sat her down one day and explained to her that he was concerned that she was getting caught up in stuff that didn’t have any basis in science and then she flipped out on him. She called him all sorts of terrible names and then she fled, but then a week later she called him and demanded that he bring his truck over to the room she was renting so that he could help her to move to a new place. He didn’t. She unfriended him on FB.

In the meantime, I was still friends with her on FB, mostly because I was concerned that she might do something crazy, and might threaten my co-worker and I wanted to be able to warn him if she posted something crazy, or if she insulted him publicly, online. So that went on for about another 3 weeks and then she kept posting sh*t about chem trails and how the government was trying to poison us and all sorts of other stuff. So I gently made a comment on one of her posts about how something she said was not true and I offered her some information that showed how she was mistaken. Well, she flipped out on me, and called me some awful names, on line, publicly. I immediately unfriended her.

I told my co-worker what had happened and that I had unfriended her, and he was a little upset and said, “Oh my God, why did you unfriend her? I needed you to be able to keep an eye on what she was saying, just in case she was saying more stuff about me!” Because she did say something awful about him the day after they broke up, and I had to tell him, because he couldn’t see it, because she had unfriended him. I told him that I just couldn’t stay on there and read her sh*t every day. He understood and we all went on with our lives.

This happened two years ago. Fast forward to yesterday. The two co-workers are still friends online so I see them post back and forth every now and again. The second guy mentioned something about “someone being crazy and being a conspiracy theorist” that had nothing to do with Jane, the first guy said, “I just checked up on her, went to see her and she seemed happy.” The second guy said, “LOL, I wasn’t talking about her, but thanks for letting me know.”

I was shocked to hear that the first guy was still in contact with Jane. He usually tells me everything, but I think he was afraid I would scold him for keeping in touch with this crazy beatch who called all 3 of us mean names and used 3 different guys in the space of 5 days. I let it go, because I know she held some kind of pull over him, even after how she treated him.

Bottom line is, if you know exactly what kind of person this is, and I think you do, then run away as quickly as you can and don’t look back. It’s not worth the drama.

rockfan's avatar

@Kardamom Yeah I agree. I know that my friend is a good person but made some awful mistakes

trailsillustrated's avatar

I made horrible mistakes and I am friends with all my past friends, some just on fb. I did get a text from one that I unfriended (he let his dog chew my sporty bag), since returning to Australia. I didn’t reply or friend him and I never will. And I knew that person for 25 years.

Mimishu1995's avatar

I unofficially dumped a friend a long time ago, mostly because our personalities clashed too much. A few months ago she sent me a Facebook message asking how I was doing and I made a mistake of replying to it. She then went on to ask me every single details of why I was cold to her. I got annoyed.

El_Cadejo's avatar

If it gets to the point that something caused such a schism in a friendship that I completely stopped talking to the person, that would be it. IMO fuck up that bad and there are no second chances, I just move on with life. I can always make more friends, so I don’t see the point in even attempting to deal with someone who has shown me how toxic they can be.

Stinley's avatar

I refused to socialise with a woman who was in my circle of friends because she bullied and intimidated me every time we met up in a group. I was up front with my other friends who liked her and said that I didn’t like the way she treated me so if she was coming along then I wouldn’t. We were all living quite far apart so it wasn’t too hard not to meet up but to this day I’ve never met her again. Once I had gone she started on others in the group and worked her way through them. They seemed to have forgiven her as they are friends on FB. She sent me a friend request on FB recently. Ignore it and went on with my life.
Well, after I’d had a nosy around on her FB page for a bit…

Dutchess_III's avatar

I’ve never deliberately let a friend go. We just kind of drifted apart over the years. I am friends with them on fb, tho, and there are times I wonder what I thought we ever had in common.

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