Have you ever been "dumped" by a friend?

yes, actually just recently the person decided they want to be friends again. believe me, if your friend is going to quit being your friend, they never were in the first place and you’re probably better off without them.

How about heterosexual males, and person A has to create several fabrications (playing loose and fast with the facts) in order to break it off with person B, which would be me. The answer is yes.

Dealing with it: I needed psychiatric help, and after nearly twelve months, I have finally gotten around to figuring out that he wasn’t a good ‘fit’ for me. Some friends don’t deserve the designation friend.

Life is about choices, your results may vary.

I have “dumped” friends before. In both cases, they were people who treated me badly. They were never there for me when I desperately needed someone, they made me feel badly about myself when I already had poor self esteem. Basically, I got up the nerve and finally told them that I wasn’t going to be friends with people who treated me badly.
I think it might have been just as hard as being dumped by a friend. It was hard to say the things I had kept inside for so long, and even harder to say them to these people I cared about, who had been in my life for such a long time. I felt liberated for awhile and then I felt sad for the loss of the friendship, after that I felt a little better. Even now, several years after the fact, I know I made the right choice for myself, I could not have stayed friends with those people and still been a happy person.

Yes I have. sigh

I was going through a very difficult time when I was 30 (8 years ago) and one of my good friends from high school, someone who brought her children over quite a bit to play with mine, slowly started blowing me off whenever we made plans. After three attempts of trying to make plans with her to get together I finally got the hint that she didn’t have time for me in her life anymore. We haven’t spoken since.

I think @JONESGH‘s is right. I am better off without her in my life. It’s interesting because my true best friend from grade school helped me through this difficult time and is still my best friend to this day.

Yes. Our friendship was strong as long as I was there to help him through his issues. Then when I was the one who needed help from him he suddenly went AWOL.

@holden – I’ve had a couple of “friends” pull that one on me over the years.

After my divorce a few people chose sides. I was interested by the fact that the choices seemed self-serving, in that my former wife was very wealthy, and the people who cultivated her seemed to be people whose artwork she purchased, or people who enjoyed invitations to stay at her rather luxurious Summer home in season.

@aprilsimnel it was actually a real shock when he did it and it’s been very hard to trust people since then.

I have dumped and been dumped.

In my 20’s I had to cut a friend loose because she was just too much of an emotional vampire. Whenever we were together I could feel the energy being sucked out of me and it was just too exhausting. I felt just awful having to do it, but it really was the right choice.

Like @pdworkin I have friends who picked sides in my divorce. My ex is not wealthy, but he is kind of like a little puppy dog and got more sympathy from my friends than I did. I had two very close friends who did not like the choices I made and have stopped speaking to me. My life is better without one of them, but I still feel the hole left by the other one, I miss her greatly.

I have experienced both sides of the equation myself. haven’t most people? No one is friends still with everyone they ever once befriended.

Yes, I was once “dumped” by one of my best girl-friends because the boy she had strong feelings for was interested in me. I liked him too, but never dated him out of respect for her. Eight years later, we still have mutual friends but she has never spoken to me again. It was a really difficult and painful loss for me, but I’ve come to accept is as part of life. I choose my friends more carefully now.

yeah I’ve been dumped by a friend with whom I was best friends for several years – it was a slow moving away from each other but attempts on my part to reconnect have been ignored – no big deal…and yes I’ve dumped friends as well

My husband & I were good friends with a high school buddy of his & his wife, for several years. Then they started being ‘busy’ anytime we were in town, & were no-shows to dinner at our place. There was never any argument, disagreement, etc. We never figured it out.

I had two best friends in early elementary school. One guy left to another school around 4th grade, so the two of us who remained became better friends. We went to different high schools and started to have less and less contact. After a while, I started to feel like too much had happened in my life away from him and that it wasn’t worth the effort to do all the catching up. After high school, we completely lost contact.

Fast forward to about 2 years ago, when I got into contact with him again. After years of being anti-social and hermetic, I realized that I wanted friends again and sought him out. I guess I had remembered what a sensible, non-judgmental and all-around nice guy he was (exactly the type of friend I needed at that time). We spoke a few times, but I started to notice he wasn’t making much of an effort to keep up contact so I’ve tentatively let him go. So, it seems to be that the friend I dumped all those years ago has finally returned the favor. I have no hard feelings though.

Interestingly enough, I bumped into the third member of our group a few weeks ago and we’ve become great friends, hanging out at least three times a week. I guess you never can tell who life will put in your path again.

Thanks for all of the thoughtful answers. Nice to know that I am not alone! In my case, my friend was very supportive while I was going through a hard time, but she began to pull away once I was back on my feet. I asked her a couple of times (over email, since she does not seem to want to talk when I see her in person) whether I had done something wrong to her, but she just no, apologized for the distance, and then, well, continued to act weird and distant. Oh, well. Perhaps it is for the best. I mean, she used to make me uncomfortable when she would (frequently) bad-mouth other mutual friends or acquaintances. I still thank her for being so kind to me while I was down, though.

When I quit drinking alcohol and pretty much quit partying because of it I got dumped by a lot of friends including ones that I thought were “true-blue” but ended up not being so.

Also, sad as it may sound, when I graduated high school and enrolled in college I got dumped by a lot of friends most of whom did not graduate themselves. Maybe I’m just bad at picking them? I’ve always been a 2–3 good friend type person instead of lots of acquaintances but I guess that method didn’t help out much, haha.

My best friend who I knew for years was the best man at my wedding. Even gave me a pocket watch that said “brothers” on it.

He started dating and later married a good friend of my wife’s. After three rocky years, they not only divorced each other, but “divorced” us.

She never spoke to my wife again and he only communicates with me via eMail maybe six-times-a-year.

When I’ve asked him about it, he says I’m imagining it. “We’re all just busy” – but when I suggest getting together, there are endless excuses.

He’s since remarried with two kids (only one of whom I’ve met, briefly).

@cprevite Ouch!

Yes, but only because he convinced me to start a “Fight Club” and he ended up being an alternate personality of mine.

You see, I had insomnia really bad . . .

GA @Blondesjon

@cprevite Awww, that stinks. :-(

@answerjill – That happens. Some people who are addicted to drama need for their friends to always be in trouble and to rescue them. It’s weird to me, but I’ve seen that dynamic play out, too.

@cprevite – Yikes. :(

@all: Thanks. It’s still baffling to me.

I have. It was sudden and unexplained. We’d been close friends for years, she was close to my kids, we included her in holidays and family events, we’d taken trips together, etc. And then suddenly one day, with no particular incident in between, nothing changing that I knew of, I was written off. No word, no explanation—just BOOM. I was thunderstruck and hurt, and I did try to find out the cause and see if there was something I needed to make amends for, but I never got anywhere, and after a bit I gave up.

A while later I was describing this mystifying experience to other friends who didn’t know her, and one of them, one who’d been through plenty of therapy, said, “Sounds to me like someone identified you as part of a dysfunctional pattern.”

About twenty years later this former friend wrote me a letter of apology, saying that she had regretted her behavior but never knew how to set it right. But she never explained what had happened, what had caused the rift. And that’s all I ever knew.

One of the hardest things for me to accept has been the fact that some things just simply have no answers, or I can’t know the answers, which to me is the same thing. Once I got to that point with respect to God, the rest seemed easier.

Yes, unfortunately, it’s happened to me several times. (My psychologist would probably say that this feeds my fear of abandonment/commitment issues, but what does she know?~)

I don’t recall ever being the “dumper”, but I might have been, inadvertently.

It hurts a lot when a friend stops calling or stops being your friend for no reason or starts badmouthing you. <sighs>

This book deals with the female friend situation that we are referring to. I have yet to read it, but it sounds very interesting.

Obviously I’m so awesome that people can’t stand to be friends with me for more than a little while before their brains burn up from the awesomeness.~

ETA: @answerjill, that was very similar to a recent situation with a friend of mine.

However, in retrospect in my case, I can see that she was/is very co-dependent, and the fact that I “needed” someone (her, at that point) was something she valued. As soon as I got less drama-y, she started pulling away, towards other, more needy friends. Life sucks, ya know?

There was someone who probably wanted to dump me, until I finally stopped being such a jerk. Now he’s one of my best friends.

I went to primary school with a girl and we were best friends, when we reached high school we made new mutual friends, however when we got to 3rd Year suddenly I wasn’t cool enough any more and I got dumped, worse of all they didn’t have the nerve to say anything to me, they got anotehr girl to take me to one side just before the summer hols and tell me in a paper cupboard during a lesson… I was soo upset! It still peeves me to this day.

However, I made a super friend later in the year, who was my chief bridesmaid, and although I don’t see her as often as I would like, I know that when times are touogh she’ll be there and vice versa.

Update: Dumping-friend just invited me to a party. I am surprised. Anyway, I am planning to go, even though I am still hurt and confused by her behavior. My other friends will be there and it will probably be fun. I’ll keep you posted.

@answerjill good luck

I haven’t been dumped yet that I know of but have been the “dumper” a couple of times. Each time I informed the friend why. The why being that they responded to a stress in a way that showed something very nasty about their personality, which was later confirmed multiple times. I just couldn’t continue thinking of that person as my friend, a title I give people who hold my trust and confidence.

I’m sorry your friend didn’t tell you why she’s pulling away. Maybe she is occupied with something else. Or maybe she’s too embarrassed to talk about it. good luck with the party.

Yes. A psychopath ex of mine became violent towards one of my roomies and dear friend to where the roomie/friend went to court to get a restraining order. I was too afraid of retaliation and didn’t get one which really hurt my roomie/friend’s feelings like I wasn’t supporting him or even helping myself. He dumped me and kept me at a distance for his own good. It’s a decade later and we’re just now putting the friendship back together. I hope to regain his care and respect and comfort zone to where he accepts my love again.

Update: I didn’t bother with the party.