It’s not unusual for friends to drift apart and stop seeing each other so often, but one woman has been left completely baffled after one of her closest friends told her via text that she wanted to cut her out of her life – and then doubled down with an entire essay about her “issues” with her.
Posting anonymously on Reddit, the 27-year-old woman said she had felt as though her friendship with the other woman, 32, had been dwindling for a while, but had thought they would just “slowly go their separate ways” over time.
Instead, three days after the pair had hung out together and had even discussed the woman’s upcoming wedding, she received a WhatsApp message from her friend stating she “didn’t want to be friends anymore” and she would no longer be attending her wedding.
In her post, she explained: “Recently a friend of nine years who I considered one of my good friends texted me completely out of the blue saying that she didn’t want to come to my wedding or ‘be my friend anymore.
“Some backstory: I knew the friendship was fading but had just assumed we would slowly go our separate ways. Over the past few years, I have often gone to her house to comfort her about everything that went wrong in her life.
In contrast, in the past few years, my parents have had 3 cancer diagnoses between them and my sister died, and any time I tried to talk to her about this, she just changed the subject.
“Anyway, this all happened three days after coming to my apartment, laughing, chatting, and exchanging gifts and books.
When she was at my house, the only moment that seemed to upset her is when I asked her if she wanted to help organise my bachelorette party.
“She said she felt she wouldn’t do a good job, I said I didn’t really care and wasn’t sure if I wanted one anyway. She was a bit cagey about it but at no point said ‘no’. Perhaps I could have picked up on this, but also I think if you don’t want to do something, just tell me.
“So a few days later I get this long text saying she didn’t want to be my friend anymore or come to my wedding. I was obviously upset because any rejection feels like garbage, and I tried to call her to discuss it but she wouldn’t pick up.
“She said we should take time to ‘let it sink in. I was still upset but just decided to give her some time. After a day or two, I realised that anyone who would act like she did with no explanation wasn’t someone I wanted to be friends with anyway.”
Just when the woman thought she would never hear from her friend again, she got another WhatsApp message a few days later – this time explaining that her friend had “written an essay” that listed out all the woman’s faults.
And when the woman refused to read it, her friend claimed she “wouldn’t grow” as a person if she didn’t take criticism.
She added: “Five days later, she messages to say she has written an ‘essay’ on ‘all her issues with me’ that I ‘won’t like’. She also said that it is too big to send by WhatsApp, so she will email it to me. This was accompanied by a lot of smiley emojis and friendly exclamation marks.
“I told her not to send the essay because I wouldn’t read it as I no longer wanted anything to do with her, and I blocked her on Whatsapp. She then sent me texts telling me I wouldn’t grow if I didn’t read this essay and that I was selfish. I then blocked her on everything.”
Commenters on the Reddit post were equally baffled by the friend’s actions, as many stated she was being “dramatic” by writing long essays and text messages just to “break up” her friendship.
One person said: “The fact that this person thinks it’s appropriate to send you an essay detailing everything they think is wrong with you tells me that you are not the problem here.”
While another wrote: “Friends don’t need to break up with long dramatic text messages or essays, they can just stop hanging out. She just wants drama, she can go watch Netflix or something instead.”