Gemma Spake

You might also feel kind of ashamed or overstimulated, like

You really have to put a lot of energy into this rather than just seeing your friends.

And I think the biggest sign that the friendship is done is when you just don't like who you are when you shop with the group.

Maybe because it is making you feel defensive or jealous or needy.

I think a lot of this is because often when we know something is wrong, we can sense it.

When we know people are trying to exclude us, we can sense it.

And so we become very hypervigilant out of fear.

And that just makes us feel all these kinds of really irritated emotions to do with the friendship trio that just like bleeds in and destroys everything.

If this friendship is making you feel exhausted rather than lighter, it's simply not worth it.

And there will be more people out there who value you

and value your time and will be receptive to you now that you have more time for them rather than for these people that might not care about you.

The practical side of leaving can be really difficult.

You know, you often feel like you're losing two friendships at once plus the friendship of the three of you and I feel for you and I'm really sorry.

It doesn't mean the door is closed forever.

What I would say is if you find yourself in this situation, try not to ghost

Don't just disappear and stop replying to your friends like it sounds like our listeners friends are doing to her.

I know that that might be tempting and I think throughout this conversation there's been obvious easy routes that we can take but you don't want to give people ammunition to say that you didn't try or say that it was your fault.

You don't want to give people ammunition to justify shitty behavior.

The best you can do now is focus on living with the knowledge I did what I could

I tried.