should you tell someone you're going to unfriend them before you do it?

i'm just wondering if i should send the person i'm planning on unfriending a message before i do it. i'm doing it because they've treated me quite badly in the last few days but they were a close friend before, and i'm also doing it because i want to get over them.

should i send a message explaining that i'm not unfriending them out of spite or anything, just to help myself heal, or should i just do it without telling them? they've shown me in the last few days that they don't care about me half as i care about them and they've had a really negative influence on my life recently

Reply 1

hunchoM

19

Why would you put the time and effort to explain to a toxic person that your unfriending them??? Doesn’t make sense

Reply 2

username5027880

20

That would be the decent and respectful thing to do, although in this day and age decency and respect is in short supply.

Reply 3

Anonymous #1

OP

Original post by hunchoM

Why would you put the time and effort to explain to a toxic person that your unfriending them??? Doesn’t make sense

that's what i was thinking. i just feel bad because we were so close before.

Reply 4

Anonymous #1

OP

Original post by Karisa96

That would be the decent and respectful thing to do, although in this day and age decency and respect is in short supply.

true, i would feel a little guilty doing it with no explanation

Reply 5

Anonymous #2

Original post by Anonymous

i'm just wondering if i should send the person i'm planning on unfriending a message before i do it. i'm doing it because they've treated me quite badly in the last few days but they were a close friend before, and i'm also doing it because i want to get over them.

should i send a message explaining that i'm not unfriending them out of spite or anything, just to help myself heal, or should i just do it without telling them? they've shown me in the last few days that they don't care about me half as i care about them and they've had a really negative influence on my life recently

Hmm sounds a little like my situation

Reply 6

DrawTheLine

22

Original post by Anonymous

i'm just wondering if i should send the person i'm planning on unfriending a message before i do it. i'm doing it because they've treated me quite badly in the last few days but they were a close friend before, and i'm also doing it because i want to get over them.

should i send a message explaining that i'm not unfriending them out of spite or anything, just to help myself heal, or should i just do it without telling them? they've shown me in the last few days that they don't care about me half as i care about them and they've had a really negative influence on my life recently

Considering they've treated you badly, you don't owe them an explanation. I would just unfriend them, and then if they ask why later you can explain. But it doesn't make sense to spend more time and effort writing this person a message when you're trying to remove them from your life. Just press the unfriend button and be done with it, move on.

Reply 7

Anonymous #1

OP

Yeah - they've known I wanted space for a while but never respected it, so they know that much, I think they'd be able to guess why I unfriended them

Thanks for your advice :smile:

Reply 8

Anonymous #1

OP

Original post by DrawTheLine

Considering they've treated you badly, you don't owe them an explanation. I would just unfriend them, and then if they ask why later you can explain. But it doesn't make sense to spend more time and effort writing this person a message when you're trying to remove them from your life. Just press the unfriend button and be done with it, move on.

Thank you - I think that's what I'm going to do, I know if I messaged them I'd probably be persuaded into staying friends with them which is something I don't want to do for the time being