The Advice Column III

587

Advice Request

A person that the requestor used to be in a relationship with wants to be friends with them however the requestor would rather not.

Answered Submission

Hello!

Welcome back! We're always glad to help return requesters. I do hope our previous advice was helpful. 

Now, moving on to the situation at hand. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be his friend. Given your history with this boy, you have every reason to want to stay away. The question here is how do you do that in a non-confrontational way that won't risk receiving a negative reaction from him? 

It's actually a pretty simple process. What you need to do is start distancing yourself from him. Be friendly when he talks to you, but don't seek him out. Keep conversations superficial, even diplomatic if necessary. Remember that you don't have to try to keep conversations going. What you're trying to do is put little to no effort into the relationship. When you do that, it makes it falls on the other party's shoulders to keep the relationship going. As we all know, a one sided relationship is one bound for failure. Chances are, it will just sort of fizzle out as you feed it both distance and time. 

What do you do if he confronts you about your distance? Well, then you have a few options. A) You could try and skirt your way around it, B) you could be (almost) blunt and tell him that you just don't feel comfortable with some of his actions and such, or C) you could be full on blunt and tell him how you feel. Since you said you don't want to be blunt and end up hurting his feelings, I'd say go for either A or B. You could go for C, but either way, no matter which one you choose you need to be good at conflict de-escalation and resolution. 

I think that honesty is the best policy, but I totally understand where you're coming from. In that case, you need to figure out a way to say how you feel in a nice way, just in case he wants to know what's up. Don't be defensive because that will only trigger a reaction from him. You need to make sure you stay calm, cool, and collected. 

In the end, I can't tell you for sure whether or not he'll get upset or how exactly he'll respond. I can only help you prepare for the possibilities. To be completely honest, I don't think you have anything to worry about when it comes to him. If you just slowly remove yourself from his life, I think he'll just sort of acclimate to the change over time. Eventually you'll be just acquaintances or even strangers who just happen to share a few memories. You just have to be deliberate and patient. I hope this helps!

Stay strong, 

The Advice Column Team