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Hi Gaia, so like the subject says, when is it okay to cut off people from your life??
Does it necessarily have to be in a situation that is toxic?
I ask because I like someone (who is on the other side of the country) but I've accepted that realistically we could only be friends. We only chat online. There are periods where we talk a lot. And vice versa, periods where we don't. Dry spells that could last up to 3 months or more. I know space is important and that when the other person does not want to talk, I should not force them. But for the past few months, our interactions have declined. I might wait a few weeks and try to rekindle a conversation, but I'm always met with terse replies. I'd say something, and they would merely agree. I always felt like those conversations were dead ends. And so I stopped making conversation. We actually had agreed previously to watch a movie online together, and I asked him for his availability and that I was pretty much always free. (It was the start of summer). The movie thing never happened.
I like this person, (really like, for years now) but I think it's time I moved on to better things. I feel that in any relationship you get what you put in. I feel like I've put in a lot and I'm struggling to maintain this.
It may be immature of me, but I feel like the only way I can forget about this person is to literally take out all reminders of them. This would mean deleting my messaging app and blocking this person. And I know this is unfair to them. That I'm ending whatever we had without them having a say. But please understand that I've been quietly suffering inside, mulling over how much this person doesn't want to talk to me. If they had anything to say to me, they'd have said it within this 4 month dry spell.
TLDR; Can I remove a person from my life in order for me to move on to better things?

Magical Shapeshifter

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You can remove who ever you want from your life. (God knows I've done it) I've moved around a lot in my life and gained a lot of friends. Around 15, but I only kept 1. It was time for me to let them go. It hurt watching them move on with their lives without me. (no thanks to social media) And its not like I ever talked to them or visit them. Some of my friends grew too much apart, but the majority I learned that they never liked me for me. I had to act dumb and say stupid things to be funny and for them to love me. I tried so hard it was pathetic. Once I stopped pretending to be stupid, they found me bored to be around, so I cut all my ties. Its a way for me to move forward and not be held back by memories. Sometimes I reminisce and miss them, but there's nothing back for me to go back to. I make new friends instead.

There is a friend I really loved and recently cut off. It hurt because we have been together since middle school and I really didn't want to let her go, but I had to. We grew so far apart. I criticized every decision she made and it became increasingly hard to hang out and talk with her. In last effort, she came down to Georgia to visit me and it didn't go well. I'm not going to go into detail, but to give you a gist: she mentioned how much she wanted to ******** my boyfriend, she was only here to tour the state and not see me, no matter what I planned she didn't want any part unless we were going to go to go somewhere noteworthy, her behaviors were odd. It was frustrating. She didn't even care to relax and watch a good movie when it was night fall. She wanted to go to Stone Mountain (a 2 hour drive). After she left, I kinda gave up on our friendship.

Trash Garbage

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if you are pretty certain this friendship is dead on the ground,
then i would just do as you are going to do.
sometimes it's better just to cut people out,
than make a big song and dance about it.
i don't know if i'd block them unless they did or said something to upset me/piss me off,
one day they might change their mind perhaps?
but i'd certainly just delete the messages and leave it.

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You have really answered your own question. You said you feel you are ready to move on and not invest more into this relationship. At any point at any time, you have every right to pick and choose who has a place in your life. You don't owe justification to anyone.

You don't have to wait for any sort of relationship to turn into abuse and hurtful words to end it. When your heart just is not in it and you want to focus elsewhere, do so.

I find that if another person doesn't equally invest the effort into interacting and spending time together, you can just get quiet for a while and gauge how much they really want you around. See if they notice and react to you not providing all the grounds for conversation and such.

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Its not unfair to them for you to remove yourself from contact. If this has become a relationship that is stagnant and increasingly unhealthy to try and maintain, then it is more than reasonable to move on from it. As it is, is seems that is what they're trying to do also.

Go for it, it will likely come as a big relief to be done with it and not have to fret over it any longer.

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You can distance yourself from someone whenever you want, but if the person isn't toxic then I don't see a reason why you would want to cut off contact entirely. For this person, you could always keep communication open to them if they ever want to talk, even if you don't feel obligated to try and make conversation with them. It's ultimately up to you, though. Just use your best judgment and decide for yourself when you feel like you need to distance yourself from someone.


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Stop thinking about them and consider yourself.

Moonlight Healer

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Like others have stated, you can cut whoever you want out of your life; you don't have to justify anything. At the same time, you shouldn't be surprised if there's any kind of reaction on the other end.

That said, have you actually tried to express to this person how you've been feeling? A lot of the time in situations like these there's a lot going on on each end that the other person may or may not be aware of, and some communication can shed a lot of light on the issue.

Maybe they're caught up with other things, or maybe they really aren't putting in enough effort to have a relationship with you. There are a lot of times these days where I don't talk to some of my friends for months at a time, just because we're all busy and caught up with other things. But if there isn't a well established relationship there to begin with, it might be more of an issue.

Honestly, if you feel like the relationship is too one sided for you and you want to cut contact, then do it. For a little while I had a friend who I would talk to a lot over texting or games, but I felt like I was always the one initiating the conversation. I explained this to them, and they told me they didn't want to be a "bother" and whatnot, but the whole dodgy/flaky bs annoyed me so I stopped trying to talk to that person. It's like I knew there was something else going on but they could never just be up front about it. I wasn't that upset, but I felt like it wasn't much of a friendship if we could only talk to each other in a specific context and that was annoying. So I was done. Nothing wrong with that.
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