lainiest — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:25:18 GMT

Yesterday I was slowly waking up and working on a knitting problem when I got an IM out of the blue from a friend I don't speak with very often; she has a heavy work schedule and tends not to be online much during her free time, so while conversations tend to be rare I always look forward to them.

During the course of this conversation, after a mild disagreement about something that happened long enough ago that I'm not entirely certain why it was brought up at all (though I do have my theories), this person suggested that, speaking of things that shouldn't continue (I'd mentioned that I really would like to not have that conversation at that point in time since it was a matter that was over and done with), maybe our friendship was one of those things. Which ... kind of came as a surprise? She went on to say that she wasn't getting anything out of it anymore and that she assumed I wasn't, either, what with the fact that we hardly speak anyway and we have "different worldviews" now.

Of course, she did add that she wasn't trying to give me an ultimatum, but what were my thoughts?

Needless to say this was pretty upsetting but since I have a bit too much self-respect to get on my knees and beg to stay friends with someone who clearly has no interest in reciprocating I eventually settled with a curt sort of 'I guess you're right' and so ended a ~12 year long friendship that I'm guessing probably was more on my end than hers.

I explain this to lead into the next bit, with full awareness of the absolute irony (irony? hypocrisy? double-standardishness?) of the situation; while I was removing her from my social networking sites I decided I may as well trim out some of my own personal Lains as well. Aside from a few Facebook people who were people I used to work with years ago, now, and weren't all that close to begin with, I removed a few people who I have indeed known since I was tiny but who, over the years, I've kind of... stopped talking to? Most of them/you I'll just say you since I'm addressing -- any of those people who were on my LJ list, anyway, I don't know who a lot of you even are anymore. I don't mean that in the melodramatic way but in the literal 'your lives have changed so much since we spoke regularly that I am completely out of touch with what is going on in them most of the time'. It isn't quite so dramatically the case with everyone I've brutally defriended, but that's the basic reason. Things change, people move on, it isn't like I suddenly hate you forever I just... sometimes I'll be posting something and I'll just feel awkward wondering what X Person will think about it, or Y Person will post something and I'll think about commenting but all of the other people in the thread are people they're friends with now instead of people they used to be friends with (ie, me and anyone whose name I'd recognize) and I just feel awkward.

So the earlier thing was just enough to kick me into realizing that I should probably let go of some other connections that haven't really existed in a long time either. And that's okay, people move on. Like I said, it isn't a matter of sudden dislike, I've just gotten tired of feeling like I'm trying to maintain friendships with strangers who haven't been the people I know them as for a long time. And that's okay.

I've just never really been good with confrontation which is why I tried to do it silently, that obviously didn't work out. Sorry this is kind of rambly but I just don't have the emotional energy right now to actually discuss this person-to-person so I tried to cover everything.

lainiest — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 19:04:16 GMT

cleaning out the friend list a little because i am a monster, and also there are billions of names on here who are people i haven't even thought about in like six years, much less spoken to or seen online

history's greatest monster itt

1 = 2