Letting People Go – J & K

I spent some time thinking about relationships this evening (actually yesterday). I was telling a friend about my recent decision to cut 2 other mutual friends off. For a long time, I had been evaluating why I was friends with these 2 girls – let’s call them J & K. We were always having arguments about one thing or another. Maybe we were just too similar in certain aspects or we were incompatible, I don’t know. A lot of the problems we had went unresolved as we’d have a fight and not talk for ages then something would come up that would force us to drop it and speak (e.g. someone’s birthday, going on a holiday together that was booked months in advance).


The final straw with J came about 4 mths ago when she hung up on me. I HATE PEOPLE HANGING UP ON ME. I think it is the rudest thing you can do to someone. For me, it signifies that you really don’t care whether you hear from them or not – and she knows this. I’ve said it enough times and she’s tried it before. My reaction then wasn’t pretty but I dropped it at her sister’s intervention. Why did she hang up on me this time? There was a party one evening and I was rushing to get dressed. I’d just stepped out of the shower and was doing my hair when my phone rang:

Me – hey.
J – (shouting) SO WHY HAVEN’T YOU BEEN PICKING UP YOUR PHONE?
Me – What? When did you call me?
J - I’VE BEEN CALLING AND CALLING!!!
Me – Ahhnn? I was in the shower and didn’t hear my phone. I haven’t looked at it till you called me just now!
J – So why are you giving me attitude?
Me – What? You call me and first thing you do, is start yelling. What sort of response did you expect?
J – hisses and drops the phone.

I was sooooooo incensed, I called her back immediately.

“How dare you? You hung up on me AND YOU KNOW I HATE PEOPLE HANGING UP, YOU KNOW J YOU KNOW! This isn’t the first time you’ve tried it. You called me and I explained that I was in the shower and didn’t hear my phone ring. You call and start yelling on the phone and despite my explanation, you’re like - why am I giving you attitude? Just … you know what? Bye, J, Bye!”

(convo – not exactly verbatim but you get the gist)


Even now, I am infuriated thinking about it. This might seem very trivial and it may well be but for me it was the straw that broke the camel’s back (apologies for the clichés). She never called to apologise. Now I’m the kind of person who when I realise I’ve done something wrong, I immediately apologise. I refuse to believe that she didn’t think she had done anything wrong and I also refused to speak to her till she did. About a month later, her aunt died and the news filtered down to me. Despite all the pressure from my friends, I didn’t call her. It was sad news and I was sorry for her loss but I was still too angry to let it go. I’m not the kind of person that can call someone to wish them well and still have bad feelings towards them. To call her, I would have had to truly let it go and I just wasn’t ready to do that. It wasn’t even about the fact that she hung up on me anymore. Soo much time had passed that even if she apologised then, it would have been because she was pressured into it by other people, and not because she meant it. It felt like I meant soo little to her that she didn’t care about apologising.


A couple of weeks later it filtered down to me again that she wasn’t talking to me. Reading between the lines, I gathered this was because she felt I wasn’t supportive of her when her aunt died. Fair enough. She can play the victim. It made it easier for me to make my decision to cut her off. When you’re faced with situations out of your control, it’s best to change the things you can control. In this case, rather than stay angry in a situation that would obviously never be resolved, I would just cut her out of my life and let go of the anger. Hence we are no longer friends and I am no longer angry. I wish her all the best in life but as far as I’m concerned, she no longer exists in mine.


The second person, K, is another slightly trivial matter. To cut a long, silly story, short, she tried to be patronising and I showed her that no one can do PATRONISIN G like me :-D. She didn’t like it and got very rude. I responded by letting her know she was acting like a child and I told her off like one. If I can still find the emails, I’ll put them up cos they are quite funny. Anyways, she made it obvious she wasn’t happy when she failed to show up at the cinema later that night without any explanation and when she spoke to another friend about it, claiming she wasn’t talking to me. I smile at this because again this made my decision easier. I cut her off because I realised I just don’t want to be friends with her anymore, and that I don't have to justify it.


A lot of my (now fast dwindling) group of friends don’t understand this and have relayed fears that it’s only a matter of time before I cut them off as well. For me, I view every friendship as a relationship of sorts, and believe there should be give and take. If at some point you keep having arguments and never resolve the underlying issues, you need to evaluate these friendships and see what they do for you. In their cases, our relationships had issues and their latest actions were the final straw. I am infinitely happier now with my decision and realise that I don’t miss them. Which begs the question of why we were friends so long? As the friend I was speaking to said – I’m really friendly and outgoing so I make friends easily. Because I am such a good friend and always make such an effort, I tend to hold on to relationships that normal people would have let fizzle away because they were incompatible. One of my flaws, I’ve also come to acknowledge is that I’m a fixer. I tend to gravitate towards people who have problems so that I can help fix them. This may be because I want to avoid dealing with my own problems, or simply because I like to feel needed. However after a while, it tends to pile up. Someone told me about something bad that happened to her and I started to cry. I started to cry, partly because I felt bad for her but also because I thought “I can’t handle this right now, not with all of the other shit I have to deal with as well”


Anyways. It’s all done and dusted now. I’m happy and they’re happy. I’ve also been careful not to make anyone choose sides. I believe that our mutual friends can find a balance.