Dear Prudence,
I have been friends with “Ann” for more than a decade. We’ve supported each other through divorces, new relationships, childbirth, and childrearing. We have a group text thread with another friend. Our topics of conversation run the gamut from very serious to very silly and sometimes very crass. Nothing has ever seemed off-limits. During early lockdown, Ann started engaging in what seemed like risky behavior. She was going on multiple Tinder dates with strangers and not social distancing, going out in her town, etc
I never commented on it until she’d been avoiding our group text for several days. I texted her, “You fucked ‘Mr. Third Tinder Date Guy,’ didn’t you?” I was using it as a teasing opener to why she’d gone dark on the group thread. She replied “I’m done with you,” and then didn’t reply to any further texts or phone calls. (I sent many in quick succession trying to figure out what the hell just happened.) It’s one thing to have a problem and be angry and want to talk something out, but to drop a bomb and leave no opening for communication is awful and unfair.
I tried calling at least 15 times. After radio silence, I texted her that she owed me an explanation and that I found her behavior “disgusting.” I texted her that I’m not disposable and deserve the respect of an explanation. I told her that she made me feel like actual garbage and that I thought it was despicable to treat a friend of 12 years like that. Days later she only replied to chastise my reaction to her awful behavior, and said that me calling her behavior disgusting made her more resolute in her decision to be done with me.
She still never offered an explanation to why she was done with me in the first place! I don’t feel safe in a relationship of any kind that can be destroyed by one joke or crass comment (even though there’s a history of both in our conversations). The other option is that Ann had been accumulating grievances and never addressing them with me, then dumped me after some last straw in a pile of straw I never knew existed. That also feels like an emotionally unsafe relationship. In an effort not to be a hypocrite, I wrote her a letter explaining that I had no interest in reconciling and explained why, citing the reasons above.
I’ve mostly moved on, but every once in a while, the sting of being treated as disposable creeps back in. Am I crazy for taking this so personally? Did I mishandle things by seconding against ever reconciling? I want to work through issues, but I don’t want to accept being treated like trash.
—Dumped by a Friend