A few years ago, I (26F) was friends with a girl (26F) in college. At the time, we were good friends, but the friendship was mainly based on us drinking and going to parties together. In 2017 she transferred away and we kept in touch the way you do nowadays, liking each other’s posts on social media and the occasional birthday message.
Fast forward a few years and she’s moved to another state, gotten married and divorced within a year. After her marriage dissolved she sparked up a relationship with a guy that used to go to college with us and who my husband and I were actually good friends with. He lives in the same state as us a few miles away and this past winter they solidified their relationship and she moved here to be with him.
Since the time we were friends in college, she became super politically active and her socials became a hotspot for controversial posts and statements. I try not to judge others by their political stances, but when they are openly posting their political views that disregard other people who aren’t themselves, it’s an ick for me. I’m not a fan of people who openly post things that bash others who don’t have the same view as them. Definitely one of those people that makes their political views their whole personality.
Anyways, she moved about 10 minutes away from me and has been asking me to hang out since last fall. I have been making excuses every time, but last week after she texted me multiple times and re-sent me a friend request on Facebook, I finally caved and made plans for dinner this week. I honestly wasn’t super excited but went into it thinking that I should still give her a chance since we were friends before.
We went to dinner last night and honestly it was worse than I thought it was going to be. The first red flag was her being rude to the older Chinese woman who was our waitress and spoke broken English. The second red flag was when she told me that she had started talking to the guy she is currently with while she was still married to her ex-husband. She had mentioned their relationship was tumultuous, but still a red flag for me, idk. Get out of your relationship before you try to start a new one?
She then proceeded to talk about herself and her story the entire time, rarely asking anything about myself. It felt like I was at someone’s memoir reading. She talked about all the future plans she wanted us to have and I went along with it- stupid, I know, but how do you just say “no” straight up?
At the end of dinner she insisted on paying for both of our meals despite my resistance, and said I could get it next time. The problem is, I don’t really want there to be a next time.
She is a nice girl, but I don’t think our morals and values align. How do I get out of this friendship now before I’m in too deep?
3 comments
Say no. I can’t get together. Don’t respond for a bit with texts. She’ll eventually get the hint. If she doesn’t, then be honest. I was really uncomfortable and embarrassed when you were rude to our waitress. Our beliefs are very different and it does not feel good to hear anyone bashing people. I wish you well but we’ve just evolved into very different people. She’s not going to be with this guy long. She’ll cheat on him too.
By just telling her that you don’t want to be her friend and you should apologize for going along with what she was hoping for in the future. That makes no sense to me because that was the perfect time to be honest about you all not being on the same page. You could make up something but no matter what her feelings will be hurt but she’ll be fine.
Just tell her that you feel that you both changed as people and that you don’t think you share so many things in common now as you did before. That you wish her the best but you don’t think you can resume your friendship. What I would tell her if she insists, is “can you speak Chinese? Even broken Chinese? No? Because you were super rude to a lady speaking a second language the best she can, when her first language is so different to ours and thus it must be very hard for her to make sense of English grammar, would you like it if Chinese people were rude to you if you tried to learn their language? You made me embarrassed to be with you and I don’t want to repeat the experience”. But that’s me and I’m very vocal when people are rude or racist.