Dear Eric: So often we read questions from people seeking friends and how to do that. We have the opposite problem. How do we gracefully say no to all of the askers?
My husband and I are in our mid-80s and 70s, respectively, and have a problem we feel lucky to have, but aren’t sure how to resolve with love and respect.
We are grateful for the many friends we’ve made over the years in our professional and personal lives, volunteering and teaching (my husband). Every week we receive invitations to have dinners, lunches or coffee with many of them. We love them and wish them well, but now we’re tired and our lives are full enough.
For example, my husband meets either in person, on Zoom or by phone with more than 10 people weekly. I have nerve issues that make speaking increasingly more painful, so I dislike meals or phone calls. I’ve had people respond negatively when I suggested keeping in touch by email. My husband and I agree that it’s over the top, and we choose to slow down. But how?
– Grateful and Tired Now
Dear Grateful: It’s so healthy that you’re recognizing and honoring your impulses here. Friendships have seasons, as does our capacity for social engagement. It’s good that you’re listening to the parts of yourselves that want to commit energy elsewhere.
For friends with whom you’re close, consider a brief, proactive conversation before the next invite. You can tell them that you feel grateful for their invites and don’t take them for granted, but that you want to let them know about a change you’re experiencing. You don’t have to go into great detail, but you might say something like, “We’re more likely to decline invites and I hope you understand that it doesn’t reflect any ambivalence toward you.”
Invite them to respect and respond to your changes by finding new ways of staying in touch, like the emailing that you mentioned. Hopefully the context will help people understand your request. If someone is still responding negatively to the suggestion of email after this, that’s a blockage that they need to resolve for themselves. You can ask, “what would you suggest?” or you can just let it be.
For more casual or professional acquaintances, you may want to reset expectations on a case-by-case basis by saying something like, “we’re declining now and will be doing so more moving forward. Health challenges and the changing paces of our lives are asking us to slow down and we’re listening. We hope you understand it’s not personal.”
Dear Eric: I was part of a group of 10 moms in a community. We were all close but five of us were very close and the “social leaders” of the group. Just to differentiate, call the group “The Five.”
A woman moved into the neighborhood that one of The Five knew. From the very start this woman made me uncomfortable. I tried to shake it off and hung out with them a couple of times, but it was just awful. I mentioned it to the other three moms (not the one who knew her). I was told that I was being unfair and judgmental.
I decided I would step back and let them be friends, hoping we could also continue our friendship, too. Instead, they all dropped me. They unfriended me on social media and no one was interested in going for so much as a coffee, let alone brunch.
Now, six months later, the newcomer convinced the mom she knew to get rid of two of the other three moms. And they have turned to me, apologizing for how they treated me and saying they would like another chance. But I have no interest in rekindling these “friendships”.
Am I being too harsh?
– Former Friend
Dear Friend: The dissolution of these friendships seems to have escalated really quickly, and your former friends had their feet firmly planted on the gas pedal. It’s no wonder you feel less than compelled to start again. It would be different if things had simply petered out and they were looking to rebuild. But their actions – the unfriending, the social ostracization – were unkind and extreme, at least from your telling.
If you have no interest in starting over, forcing yourself to grin and bear a reunion isn’t likely to get you very far. Now, if you do believe there’s something to salvage here, once bruised feelings heal and amends are made, it could be worth thinking about what “another chance” looks like. What can the friendship be moving forward? And what do you need from these former friends to be able to trust them?
But again, if you’d rather put all of this behind you, there’s nothing wrong with telling them “thanks but no thanks.”
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)
