I used to be very close with a few people I met through some events in the industry I’m in. After over a year of chatting in group texts all the time and going to many events with them, I started to realize our group was fairly toxic and decided I needed to separate myself from it. That was spring 2020, so covid basically made that much easier for me.
A couple of them still will talk to me sometimes, but after being pretty distant from them, I don’t have any desire to hang out with these people any more. There are some events coming up that they will all be at and I’m positive they will talk to me there, and ask me why I stopped talking to them and I don’t really know what to say or how I should act around them.
It’s not like any of them did one big bad thing to me, but they are all very negative, criticize each other, complain about their own misfortunes, and badmouth others and I just don’t want to be like that any more or be around it any more. From what I’ve seen of them on social media, it looks like most of them are still this way and haven’t made the same effort to change that I have.
All I can think to do is pretend like I don’t know them, and that’s not really my style, but I would feel very uncomfortable trying to have an honest conversation about why I stopped talking to them *at* the event especially if they tried teasing me for “being a stranger”
I also don’t have any desire to talk to them about why I don’t want to hang out with them anymore. I mentioned before quarantine started as I was already distancing myself from them that I found the dynamic to be toxic, though I think the ones I mentioned that to might not have had the self awareness to know I was talking about them.
Regardless, I don’t feel that it’s my job to teach these people to not be toxic, and many of them act like “ask-holes”, being addicted to asking for advice and have poor boundaries, and I have the sense that if I try and give them honest feedback about their behavior, they may just keep hounding me for more advice.
1 comment
Civily, superficially, briefly, and compassionately.
It is sad it didn’t work out. If they are as toxic as you say that is also very sad, they might not even like how they are but not know how to change, and they probably had some bad experiences….
But that doesn’t mean you need to have bad experiences.
“Love” them, if you can, for any redeeming qualities they have. Construct contact with them to be as positive as possible for all involved, and then move on. No need to start a conversation, but you can still make eye contact, smile, and even wave…. but not in a forced way, or resentful way, or punishing way…. if you can’t do that you’ll have to just look straight ahead the best you can.