I Don't Want to Be Your Friend Anymore.. Am I a Jerk?

I just got off the phone from speaking with Gordini. No, Gordesky didn't want to say bye bye to me. But he's noticing that he wishes he could lose a couple of extra friends that he doesn't want anymore.

Aside from de-cluttering my life and getting more organized, I recently downsized my social circle and I feel loads better.

So Gordonopolous thinks he attracts the funky lot of humanity and they are starting to feel like extra baggage. I told him to try on the perspective that maybe they had matching baggage and that's the attraction.

Friendship by shared drama, pity potlucks, bonding by misery.. Then there's mutually dependent friendships: a needy person finds a person that likes to be useful, a helpless person needs a hero. I'm sure there loads of dysfunctional perfect combinations and lots of people have a favorite drama queen in their circle.

I told Gordacci that maybe he ought to consider what's the winning combination that he's part of and there will be pretty qualities and not so pretty qualities. If he's saying goodbye to them, is he saying goodbye also to himself too and changing. It's one thing to evolve... and it's another thing to play at avoidance.

I said goodbye to a handfull of folks last year. Some goodbyes were very clear. There was a breach of trust and that was an easy distinction from friendly behavior. Some friends had great ambition that I admired... but they were too unfocused, reactive emotionally, consistently flakey, or compromising to a point where I had to "not exist" in order to give them space. These are the friends that meant well but insulted me anyway with their behavior. They had a voracious appetite for energy and I can't say that they contributed much to my life that I don't miss them at all. And conversations were an exhausting merry-g0-round of "you don't care enough about me"... Having lots of other friends where that dynamic of conversation never occured, I had to conclude that taking on friendships that demanded more maintenance and time than I had to give myself was insanity. What is friendship that is demanding and UNinspiring?

What I had initially in common with them was nice but they had a different off ramp and they are going to a different place that I can't call home. And the vision I have for myself is not what they want to call home either... Am I wrong for making obvious the exit to these people?

Well, I can't say that I was a jerk. I lost sleep and spent tears weighing out goodbye and patience. And when I found that I spent so much time and energy over them and found no end to their demands and another round of "this is not fair" and "give me another chance"... I was sad that no real connection to enjoying friendship came.

And so I said goodbye and good riddance.

I didn't want to tolerate behavior in them that I won't tolerate of myself. And friendship is supposed to be fun and fun was NOT happening. I don't care to be in a "matching baggage" friendship club. I want to travel light... I am intending to lose my baggage.

JNET