Tell Me About It: Emotional distance clouds travel plans

Question:

I have been friends with C for over 10 years. More and more, though, I have been getting irritated with her, bored, and generally unhappy when I deal with her.

We've been growing apart for years, due to different life choices and viewpoints, and it's gotten to the point where it's a chore to see her. She doesn't have many friends, so is clingy to the ones she does have.

We have arranged to spend the weekend together in another city within a few months, and have already made travel arrangements. So what should I do? Wait until after our trip is over, and then tell her I don't want to be friends anymore?

Answer:

I hope the cruelty of your parting suggestion announced itself as you typed it.

If you can't make good on your promise to show up - and I mean showing up with everything you've got, including enthusiasm, ideas, goofy tourist maps, and a mind open to the possibility of putting the friendship on new and better footing - then you cancel now, while there's time for her to find someone else or change the itinerary.

You pay her fees, too, as well as any lost deposits. When you agreed to a trip you didn't really want to go on, you blew your chance to get out of this jail free.

You didn't want the awkward moment, I get it. But there's a real person on the other end of all this, who is going to feel real pain because the nonconfrontational (read: easy) way out was more appealing to you than the compassionate one.

It isn't about the outcome so much as it is your input now, and the critical input here is decency.