How do you manage ending a friendship that has run its course? What do you do when you realise that someone you once called a friend has become toxic and being around them sucks your energy and makes you feel bad wheai n you are around them? Do you just slowly withdraw from them, and choose not to respond to their messages or calls? Or do you explain to them why you are retreating from them, saying that you feel the friendship has run its course. I am currently faced with this dilemma and don’t know the best way to handle it. A few people I once called friends have changed in ways that make it hard for me to remain friends with them. A couple have become bitter and toxic and are now so unpleasant to be around that in the case of one guy, his Thai wife has told me that she has had enough of him and is about to leave him. A couple of other friends have changed and we have almost nothing in common anymore. They each wish to continue to meet up while I no longer have any interest in doing so. If it were a relationship of a romantic nature, I’d sit down and explain where things were at. But with friendships, I’m not sure the best way to go about it. My tendency in life is to be open and honest – but my experience has been that some people don’t like to hear the truth. Said friends are in their 60s of early 70s, retired and long-term Thailand expats. If you have faced a similar dilemma, how did you handle it? Or am I overthinking this all and I should just block them on all forms of communication and be done with it?
