Was I wrong for ending a friendship because I felt completely drained by it?
I recently ended a friendship and I’m wondering if I handled it badly or if I was justified in stepping away.
When we first became friends, everything was fine. I genuinely liked her and enjoyed spending time with her. But over time, I started noticing things that really changed how I felt about the friendship.
One of the biggest things was that she became extremely obsessed on a young employee at her gym (she’s 11 years older than him). Conversations with her started revolving around him constantly. It felt like almost every interaction somehow came back to this guy, and eventually I found myself feeling drained because I didn’t really want to keep having the same conversations about him over and over.
I also started noticing that she seemed to have a very negative outlook toward other people. She would make rude or judgmental comments about people, and I found myself becoming uncomfortable with how often conversations were centered around criticizing or talking negatively about others.
The thing that really hurt me, though, was that I was going through a health challenge and told her about it. I didn’t expect her to fix anything, but I did expect some basic follow-up or concern from someone I considered a close friend. She didn’t really check in afterward, and somehow the conversation went back to her and this guy.
At that point, I realized I was leaving interactions with her feeling more drained than fulfilled. I didn’t necessarily think she was a terrible person, but I didn’t like how I felt when I was around her anymore. Now I’m questioning myself because there wasn’t a huge dramatic betrayal. It was more like a buildup of little things: the constant fixation on the gym guy (she’s stalked him and his gf page and thought they were subbing her), the negativity toward other people, the rude comments, and feeling unsupported when I was dealing with something difficult personally. I tried to tell her I was feeling overlooked in the friendship but I think ultimately she is a bit selfish. Also, she knew me for 8 months and never bothered to learn how to spell my name correctly smh.
So, was I wrong for ending a friendship over this? Or is it reasonable to walk away when a friendship consistently starts feeling draining, even if the other person hasn’t done anything objectively terrible?
Edit/Update: I realized I left out some important context about how the friendship ended. I wasn’t initially planning to formally end the friendship. I had already been trying to create some distance because I was emotionally drained by the dynamic, particularly the constant conversations about the guy from her gym and her eventually telling me he SA after he rejected her. It was a lot of emotional whiplash her saying she enjoyed the attention she got from him to her saying he SA her when she felt rejected was sooo triggering. She became upset when I wasn’t as available as before and eventually told me the energy between us felt off and that I was being strange.
She then sent me multiple long messages accusing me of being dismissive, unsupportive, and making jabs at her. She continued sending messages throughout the night and early morning even after saying she wanted space. At that point, I felt like we were going in circles and I genuinely had nothing left to give, so I told her I wouldn’t be continuing the conversation. That was the last time we spoke.
I also want to clarify that I had been trying to support her for months, including listening to the same situation repeatedly and even accompanying her to the gym on my rest days because I knew she felt uncomfortable going alone. At the same time, I didn’t feel like there was much room for what I was dealing with personally.