How to End a Friendship

A friendship can end for many different reasons. Often, a friendship ends naturally through loss of contact or friends simply grow apart from each other. Occasionally, we choose to end a friendship. Follow these steps to easily end a friendship.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Know why you want to end the friendship. This will help you explain your reasons to your friend when she asks why you want to end it.
2. Re-examine your reasons. Friendships should not end because of a petty argument or because he said something that hurt your feelings. Your reasons should be based on fact and not based on rumor or speculation.
3. Ask your friend to meet you. Choose a private setting. You don't know how she is going to react when you tell her you want to end your friendship and this avoids an embarrassing public scene.
4. Get to the point. Don't dance around the issue. Dragging it out will hurt your soon-to-be ex-friend even more.
5. Be honest about why you want to end the friendship and how you feel about ending it. Lying will get you nowhere and the truth has a funny way of coming out.
6. Spare feelings as much as possible. Just because you are being honest does not mean you have to be mean or nasty.
7. Brace yourself for the reaction. The most likely scenario is that he is going to angry and hurt, but be ready for any response.
8. Stay calm. If she hurls insults at you or is antagonistic, don't respond by behaving the same way.
9. Repeat steps 4 through 8. If you feel that you still haven't gotten your point across, repeat these steps until you do.

Tips & Warnings

• Accept the outcome. Sometimes it isn't possible to end a friendship tactfully. If this is the case for you, accept that your ex-friend has hard feelings and move on.
• Don't beat yourself up. If you believe you have a good reason for ending the friendship, don't feel upset or guilty about ending it.
• Get support from your other friends. If you are wavering, talk to your other friends to validate your decision.
• Be mature. Antagonistic behavior such as character assassination is petty and childish and will result in everyone being hurt and angry.
• Stand your ground. Don't give in to any empty promises that may be made by your soon-to-be ex-friend.