There's someone I can't stand being around, we used to be pretty good friends (couple of years). But lately her extreme attitudes and opinions are just very off-putting, she's really judgemental and unhelpful to the people around her and I don't like that, I don't think I should make people jump through hoops to help them. She says she only likes smart people, but the thing is she's not very smart herself, she just parrots things back, she has very little original thought, in fact most people tend to not like her when they meet her, she's very off-putting. She also thinks lots of things other people do are rude, but I have a bad experience with this, another family friend who thought everyone around her was rude, ended up being diagonesed with a serious mental illness... so everytime my friend goes on and on about people being rude(including this one guy who forgot her name, even though she'd talked to him in a group setting like twice before! which I wouldn't even consider being rude) I just get a bad feeling. It seems like she's not really in touch with reality.

I've highlighted some of the annoying/bad characteristics she has, but she also has some good points. The thing is I want to end this friendship semi-permantly, I've burned month my bridges in the past with friends, but I'm trying to move beyond just burning bridges. I can email her once a or something, and I'll stop hanging out with her, but the thing is how should I deal with her inviting me out to do stuff? Have any of you successfully moved from good friends, to accquaintance type friendships without creating hard feelings? The thing is I think she realizes I don't want much to do with her, because I'm remote on the phone, and try not to see her.

Your thoughts?

[Tony T]

You are correct that it's not good to totally burn bridges in most cases but there are some where that's essential. From what I've read in your post, I don't see many good reasons to continue an association of any kind with this lady, whether she's mentally ill, going through some phase, or has simply become rude. When evaluating people to associate with, you have to judge the entire package and this one just doesn't fit you at all. Burn the bridge and be rid of her unless you have some pathological need to have a thorn half way up your butt.

Dumping people from your life is always a difficult thing to do. But I have set rules for myself that I live by and have become very comfortable with. If somebody is causing me considerably more grief than good in my life, friend, associate, aquaintance or whatever, I eleminate them. Life is very short and there's simply no reason to subject what could be a wonderful life to these kinds of people who just cause chaos. Why put yourself throught he mental strain of trying to sort when you should be around her and when not?