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So, I have this... "friend." Let's call her S.
S and I have a lot of history.
We became friends in about 3rd grade (we're 26 now, so, almost 20 years?) We were really close in grade school and middle school. She lived about a mile up the road from me so we would walk to each others' houses a lot. Her family was (and still is, I think) pretty messed up...her parents divorced shortly after she was born and she was raised by her mom and step-dad, who adopted her when she was very young. Both of them (mom and step-dad) were drunks and went to jail more than once for drunk driving and other drug use. Her mom was also a vicious bitch. S also has two half-siblings who are younger than her, and because S was the oldest and the product of a previous marriage, she would bear the brunt of the abuse (both physical and mental, I think.) Her grandma, who lived next door to them, was her salvation but she died when S was about 10 or 12. My family and I were there for her through thick and thin while she was growing up and she took refuge at our place more than once when things got bad at her house.
After we graduated high school, we drifted quite a ways apart. She has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer and she didn't get any smarter after we got out of school. She doesn't learn from her mistakes. She got involved with a number of guys who were just stupid or sleezy. The general crowds she runs with were either really dumb (high school drop-outs, kids living at home not looking for work) or drunks/dopers. Whenever I would run into her at the grocery store or something, she was always surrounded by this crowd and I would do my best to avoid them because I got a bad vibe about them. S herself was well on her way to becoming a drunk.
We didn't have much if any contact for years and I was okay with that. My parents and I had tried to help her a lot when we were in H.S. We convinced her to go to the community college that I was going to, but she dropped out after a semester or two. She wouldn't listen to any of the advice we tried to offer her. She was stubborn and bull-headed, and there were a number of times when we were growing up that she would get pissed at me for trivial shit. So I really felt like I was just done trying to help her.
Recently, she's been trying to contact me, on FB. We added each other as FB friends years and years ago and never talked to one another, until a few months ago she started sending me messages. The first one was the general "hi how are you" that you occasionally get from people you haven't talked to in ages. I either ignored it or just plain forgot about it and didn't respond right away, and then the messages started getting more frequent, and more snarky. "Why won't you respond to me? Don't you like me anymore?" "Okay, I get it. You don't want to talk to me. Fine." "I don't understand why you won't talk to me! What did I do wrong!?" By that point I was annoyed so I continued to ignore her messages.
I'm sick of it. I don't want to be friends with her anymore. Last I knew, she was engaged to be married to some random sleezbag and she was sleeping on his mother's couch because she didn't have a place of her own. Her FB info and status suggests that nothing has changed, and I know it hasn't. She hasn't grown up one bit in 20 years and I just feel like I've..."outgrown" her. I know that sounds terrible, and it probably sounds terrible that I haven't responded to her messages and don't want any contact with her after all our history. But just thinking about some of the shit she's pulled and how the results are always the same, I just do not want to deal with it, or her.
I have a completely different life now. I live in Texas (we were both born and raised in Wisconsin, and she is still living in our hometown.) I am married, I have a house, I have great friends, I have a LIFE down here. I moved away from Wisconsin because there was nothing for me there, including the people who live there (no offense to blas or Irv or BK or anyone else who lives in Wisconsin, but the town I lived in was pretty much all drunks and was a complete dead-end.) I kind of just want to forget about everything that ever happened there.
What should I do? Should I tell her to leave me alone? Should I just remove her from my FB friends and block her messages? Despite her crying "I've tried to contact you every way and you won't respond to me!" she has not tried calling or writing me, as far as I can tell (even if she doesn't have my new address, she has my parents' address and any mail that I get there, they forward to me, and my cell number hasn't changed ever since I got it, about 8 years ago.) So I don't really think I have to worry about her harassing me outside of cyber space. I was okay with her sending me emo PMs on FB, but she recently started posting publicly on my wall about how mean I am for not talking to her. While I can understand why she's upset (I have been ignoring her, when I probably should have said something to her right away when the messages started) I really feel she's being childish now for screaming at me on FB where anyone can see it.
S and I have a lot of history.
We became friends in about 3rd grade (we're 26 now, so, almost 20 years?) We were really close in grade school and middle school. She lived about a mile up the road from me so we would walk to each others' houses a lot. Her family was (and still is, I think) pretty messed up...her parents divorced shortly after she was born and she was raised by her mom and step-dad, who adopted her when she was very young. Both of them (mom and step-dad) were drunks and went to jail more than once for drunk driving and other drug use. Her mom was also a vicious bitch. S also has two half-siblings who are younger than her, and because S was the oldest and the product of a previous marriage, she would bear the brunt of the abuse (both physical and mental, I think.) Her grandma, who lived next door to them, was her salvation but she died when S was about 10 or 12. My family and I were there for her through thick and thin while she was growing up and she took refuge at our place more than once when things got bad at her house.
After we graduated high school, we drifted quite a ways apart. She has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer and she didn't get any smarter after we got out of school. She doesn't learn from her mistakes. She got involved with a number of guys who were just stupid or sleezy. The general crowds she runs with were either really dumb (high school drop-outs, kids living at home not looking for work) or drunks/dopers. Whenever I would run into her at the grocery store or something, she was always surrounded by this crowd and I would do my best to avoid them because I got a bad vibe about them. S herself was well on her way to becoming a drunk.
We didn't have much if any contact for years and I was okay with that. My parents and I had tried to help her a lot when we were in H.S. We convinced her to go to the community college that I was going to, but she dropped out after a semester or two. She wouldn't listen to any of the advice we tried to offer her. She was stubborn and bull-headed, and there were a number of times when we were growing up that she would get pissed at me for trivial shit. So I really felt like I was just done trying to help her.
Recently, she's been trying to contact me, on FB. We added each other as FB friends years and years ago and never talked to one another, until a few months ago she started sending me messages. The first one was the general "hi how are you" that you occasionally get from people you haven't talked to in ages. I either ignored it or just plain forgot about it and didn't respond right away, and then the messages started getting more frequent, and more snarky. "Why won't you respond to me? Don't you like me anymore?" "Okay, I get it. You don't want to talk to me. Fine." "I don't understand why you won't talk to me! What did I do wrong!?" By that point I was annoyed so I continued to ignore her messages.
I'm sick of it. I don't want to be friends with her anymore. Last I knew, she was engaged to be married to some random sleezbag and she was sleeping on his mother's couch because she didn't have a place of her own. Her FB info and status suggests that nothing has changed, and I know it hasn't. She hasn't grown up one bit in 20 years and I just feel like I've..."outgrown" her. I know that sounds terrible, and it probably sounds terrible that I haven't responded to her messages and don't want any contact with her after all our history. But just thinking about some of the shit she's pulled and how the results are always the same, I just do not want to deal with it, or her.
I have a completely different life now. I live in Texas (we were both born and raised in Wisconsin, and she is still living in our hometown.) I am married, I have a house, I have great friends, I have a LIFE down here. I moved away from Wisconsin because there was nothing for me there, including the people who live there (no offense to blas or Irv or BK or anyone else who lives in Wisconsin, but the town I lived in was pretty much all drunks and was a complete dead-end.) I kind of just want to forget about everything that ever happened there.
What should I do? Should I tell her to leave me alone? Should I just remove her from my FB friends and block her messages? Despite her crying "I've tried to contact you every way and you won't respond to me!" she has not tried calling or writing me, as far as I can tell (even if she doesn't have my new address, she has my parents' address and any mail that I get there, they forward to me, and my cell number hasn't changed ever since I got it, about 8 years ago.) So I don't really think I have to worry about her harassing me outside of cyber space. I was okay with her sending me emo PMs on FB, but she recently started posting publicly on my wall about how mean I am for not talking to her. While I can understand why she's upset (I have been ignoring her, when I probably should have said something to her right away when the messages started) I really feel she's being childish now for screaming at me on FB where anyone can see it.
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