I ended a friendship for small reasons and now everyone is coming out of the woodworks to reveal all the things I’ve said about her.
I (25F) have been friends with this girl, Lena (24F), for about 3 years now. Since last year, I’ve noticed a change in her behavior, where she seemed to be a little bit more entitled than before. Expecting rides even when it was the opposite way from the place we were supposed to meet at, forgetting her wallet and always relying on a friend to cover, expecting full research done by someone else who has the same career goals as her and leeching off of them. I got kind of tired of it. I met her when I was in a really low point in my life and she has been with me through a lot of friendship changes, so I’ve considered her a solid friend, but this type of entitlement, which some people probably wouldn’t consider rude, was something I couldn’t handle anymore. Just because I had a small amount of friends doesn’t mean I need to pay for someone’s companionship, as that’s what I was doing.
So, I didn’t reach out to her for months. There were a lot of things that led up to this moment. When we went to study for a test at the library, we sat in separate desks across from each other. In the middle of a timed practice section, she comes over to my desk and stands there. When I don’t acknowledge her because I’m trying to focus, she taps her fingers on my desk. I pulled out my headphone and she asked me if I knew where the bathroom was. To me, this was literally the last straw, despite how small it is to other people. She could see I was focused and we were both doing the same thing so she knew it was timed, and we are in a public place with signs everywhere. It was the entitlement to my time that I decided right then and there I would not be her friend.
Anyways, months after not speaking, I removed her from everything. She noticed right away and asked what was wrong. I wrote her a really sweet message saying that I loved and appreciated her, but there were things that she’s done over the past year that I found quite rude and I distanced myself because of it. I told her I’d love to stay friends, but we didn’t have to be that close anymore. Anyways, 24 hours went without a response and her Tiktok came on my FYP and I went on her profile and saw 30+ reposts with notes about terrible friends and one specifically that said “when they end the friendship over a misunderstanding, it proves they weren’t your friend in the first place.”
I don’t know why that one got to me but I thought it was very immature to repost 30+ videos and add notes to it, so I sent her one last text explaining that I don’t want to be friends with her anymore because of her immaturity and I listed out every single time that she has done something that has really bothered me. (Now I understand I was immature as well for being passive aggressive, not voicing my concerns, or not bringing this up to her sooner, but like I said, some people may not consider the things she does as rude, so I didn’t want to make a big deal out of nothing). I promptly blocked her from everything.
Two weeks later, our mutual friend Sarah receives a text from Lena saying Lena doesn’t want to be associated with anyone associated with me because Lena recently heard we were talking badly about her family and that it was quite disrespectful, and that she would no longer like to remain friends with Sarah. The only thing that we have discussed about her family is that her father is a registered sex offender towards minors and that is why she lives in the middle of nowhere and why it’s so inconvenient to pick her up and we don’t feel comfortable to go to her house when there’s a registered sex offender at home. It is public knowledge and he is on the registry. If that is saying something bad about her family, well I am sorry. The only person who would have said that and revealed that info is another girl, Jane, that we had a group falling out with and we all haven’t spoken to that girl in over 8 months, so I found it interesting that Jane came out of the woodworks to reveal this information, as if she wasn’t present and involved in the conversation about the Lena’s father as well, also feeling uncomfortable with going to her house with her father around.
Anyways, I’m grown now. My frontal lobe has developed. I don’t need this kind of friend, and she doesn’t need me as a friend either. But I just want advice on how to go about the feelings of having people discuss you behind your back.