tldr: My old friend has many personality traits and behaviours that are deeply unpleasant and I simply do not enjoy spending time with her. However there has never been a fight between us and I am generally a conflict avoidant person. What do I say if she ever asks me to visit me again (which I do not want), and in general, how can I discontinue our friendship?
This might get longer but I just need to get this out of my system.
For context, we are in our mid twenties now, but I’ve known her since early childhood. We have never been super close and never went to the same school, but just somehow always ended up in the same circles in our neighbourhood. My friend has always been a “weird kid” and she never really seemed to connect to many people at her school. However, because of our daily distance and because her behaviour was more bearable when she was younger, I didn’t mind spending time with her now and then. We shared many interest and I thought she probably already got a lot of shit for being the way she is, I didn’t have to make it harder for her, and just let her be herself around me. Maybe this is where I should have set my boundaries sooner, but I was a child. Nowadays we even live in different cities so in theory, I shouldn’t even mind her since I see her even less often, but I feel like by becoming an adult, all her bad traits and behaviours just solidified to their worst possible version. I reached my limits with her when she visited me for the first time for a few days earlier this year.
Let me explain: She is a very social person, however she doesn’t understand some important social cues and seemingly lacks the ability to reflect on how she is being perceived by others. For example, she will dominate ANY conversation and take great lengths to tell the most irrelevant and uninteresting stories (or not even stories, just simple happenings in her life, like how she sorts her laundry) that don’t even fit into the context of the conversation. She will tell “funny stories” and completely butcher them, if there even was a punch line or anything remotely funny to begin with. After all those years, my brain just goes on auto pilot when I’m with her, I just let her talk and half heartedly react without even listening, BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING TO LISTEN TO. She’s also a very judgemental person but doesn’t live to her own standard she measures other people with. She will judge their style (even tho she herself dresses like a 60 y/o biology teacher but not in the fancy vintage way), their life decisions, or just call them weird. She has an opinion about everything (and by everything, I mean EVERYTHING, no detail about the best way of doing laundry goes undiscussed) and never holds back. Not even for the sake of others who, just maybe, would also like to have some space in a conversation. Also, she clearly thinks of herself as a superior person who has her life together more than other people in our age group. In reality, she is stuck-up, unable to adapt to other people’s ways of living and very fragile and dramatic when something slightly inconveniences her.
I tried to be so patient with her, for years. But when she visited me, I got to experience her not only all day round, but also thought the eyes of my flat mates. They were so deeply confused by her and we were all glad once she left. I had the most horrible time, I couldn’t relax, couldn’t sleep and even had nightmares of her, until she was gone.
I also feel bad for her because I can almost watch her pushing all of her friends away. When I visited her in the past, I noticed that she is not included in her house mates’ friend group. But then I watched her lecture them about household things like a strict mother and understood why they don’t want to spend time with her. Being excluded from friend groups and old friends turning away from her seems to be a recurring theme with her.
This is why I struggle so much with the thought of breaking contact with her. But then again, I just can’t bear spending any more time with her than necessary. And I REALLY want her to NEVER visit me again. I’m probably gonna meet her tomorrow tho, because we are both home for Christmas. I am scared that whe will ask me to visit again and I won’t know what to say. We never had a fight. I can not just tell her “I can’t stand your personality”. I don’t want to hurt her. I would love to let the friendship fade but she just keeps contacting me.
Addition: After rereading my paragraphs, I noticed that some might interpret my descriptions of my friend’s behaviour as signs of a social or personality disorder. Non of us, including me, is in a position to judge on that and I kindly ask you to not speculate on that in the comments. It wouldn’t help my situation anyway. All I can say is that she has a lot of her traits from her mother (a deeply unpleasant person whom I already disliked as a child) and her younger sibling now seems to develop in a similar direction.