Think aloud
Ending a friendship with a narcissist is always the right choice.
We all love our friends, but when one of them turns out to be a narcissist, it’s better to break up than get emotionally drained.
Can a narcissist love anyway? Well, your narcissistic friend probably has positive feelings about you, but as for genuine love, that’s not what they feel.
Their love is based on you serving their needs.
So, can a narcissist love you? In a way, yes, but they actually love the fact that you serve their needs and make them feel good about themselves.
They don’t really care about you; they care only about themselves.
If you’re wondering if a narcissist can love you, you should know that your narcissistic friend loves the way you love them much more than they love you.
This is only one of the reasons why ending a friendship with a narcissist is a good idea, but how can you be sure that your friend is a narcissist?
You know your friend is a narcissist when you spend 95% of the time talking about her and her life.
She needs you to puff up her ego and makes you feel bad in order to assert her dominance.
That’s another reason for you to end the friendship, because why would you want to hang out with someone who does that?
Women do these things subtly, by playing mind games that you can’t possibly escape unless you choose to end the friendship with them.
This is how you should approach ending a friendship with a narcissist:
1. Identify your friend as a narcissist
This sounds like it should be obvious, but it’s trickier than it seems.
Narcissists will keep you around only to make themselves feel important, and you’ll be treated as a friend so long as you’re feeding their ego.
However, you will feel like your narcissist friend is a friend to you, and you will care for them, which will make it harder for you to realize who they really are.
Some people can be dramatic or hyper-confident, but that doesn’t make them narcissists.
Your friend is a narcissist if she feels entitled to superior treatment and expects everyone to cater to her needs and desires.
She will always talk about herself and control the conversation so you’ll find yourself on autopilot, allowing her to go on and on about her life and problems, but she’ll never ask you about your feelings or life.
You will find yourself hanging out with her and not saying a single word about what’s going on with you.
She won’t care about it anyway, because she only wants to hear the comments you have on her life, and preferably positive ones that will boost her ego.
The spotlight has to be on her all the time, and you will start feeling like you’re just her sidekick.
She will also make decisions on your behalf to stay in control and spread negative emotions to keep you feeling insecure, whether you realize it or not.
A narcissistic friend wants to keep you dependent on her friendship so she can feel powerful.
Ending a friendship with a narcissist is the right choice, and if you know which friend I’m talking about by what you just read, it’s time to see the next step you should take.
2. Say it directly
Let me first point out that if you don’t like this approach, you can always skip this part and proceed with the following steps, which will be equally effective.
However, I am a big supporter of being honest, even to the people who don’t deserve that from you, which is why I advise you to tell your friend directly that you want to end the friendship.
Saying something like, “I’m sick and tired of listening to you constantly talking about yourself, and I don’t need a narcissistic friend.
I want to hang out with someone who actually cares about me, not just about themselves.
So, our friendship is over,” sounds brutal, but it comes from the heart.
Of course, once you’ve said this, you shouldn’t expect them to have an epiphany and realize that you are right, but that wasn’t the point anyway.
What you can expect, and what makes this approach effective, is that they’ll get mad at you.
When doing this, it needs to be perfectly clear that you’re not trying to make them realize that what you’re saying is true and you’re also not trying to have a fight with them and then patch things up.
Remember that your goal is ending your friendship with a narcissist, and be prepared that they’ll be mad at you and think that you’re wrong.
Nevertheless, you want them to be mad at you because then they’ll stop talking to you.
It’s a win-win situation. You’ve said the truth, haven’t played any games, and still got them out of your life.
However, there’s a problem with this approach, and that is that they might try to patch things up. After they realize you were serious, they could start promising you that things will change.
That isn’t such a big problem, though, because you can now proceed to the next step.
3. Ghost her
Ghosting is a horrifying modern practice that I do not normally condone, but in this case, it’s the best course of action.
Your narcissist friend wants to keep you around as part of her entourage, not as a friend.
She is only using you, and no matter how long you’ve been friends, you need to be around people who care about you and not only use you.
Ghosting means that you simply start to make excuses to avoid your narcissist friend, so when she calls to hang out, just say you’re busy.
Have an excuse ready every time she wants to see you.
If she didn’t get it when you said it directly, or you skipped that step, she will eventually get it now.
Most of the time, narcissists won’t even waste their breath on a fight because, to them, there’s nothing worth fighting for—you’re replaceable.
You should also know that it will be easier to let the friendship go if you gradually ghost her over time, as opposed to cutting her off without an explanation.
Ghosting is awful, and the worst part is that people soon realize that you aren’t really busy; you just don’t want to see them anymore.
However, in this case, it’s the best part because it makes ending a friendship with a narcissist easier.
4. Block her and completely cut her out of your life
Telling her directly, ghosting her, or both, will sometimes be enough to get her out of your life.
You know your friend is a narcissist when they exhibit behavior that demonstrates how little they care about you and your friendship.
They only have ‘friends’ in their life to stroke their ego.
The second you stop catering to their needs, they will drop you in the blink of an eye and move on to someone else.
Hopefully, she will do the same once she sees that you no longer want to be her sidekick.
Whether she does or not, it’s a good idea to block her on all your social media accounts.
Cut her out of your life completely, and don’t let her find her way back.
The important thing is that you cultivate healthy friendships, and that brings us to a very important part of ending a friendship with a narcissist.
5. Avoid collateral damage
When ending a friendship with a narcissist, you have to think of the other friends you have even before doing so.
Surely you and your narcissistic friend have some mutual friends and if they aren’t narcissists too, you want to stay friends with them.
This is why it’s important to avoid collateral damage.
What I’m talking about is that other friends will probably feel the need to start taking sides.
Since you and your narcissistic friend aren’t going to see each other again, other friends will have to choose who they will stay friends with.
Of course, you shouldn’t badmouth anyone, and that includes your narcissistic friend, but saying it as it is isn’t bad-mouthing.
Talk to your other friends about the narcissist, and explain to them why you can’t be friends anymore.
Let them know that you don’t want ending that friendship to affect your friendship with them.
They need to know that you’re not just randomly kicking people out of your life and that you have a good reason for doing what you did.
Don’t make them take your side; just make sure they know you want to keep seeing them, but you won’t see them when the narcissistic friend is with them.
Keep in mind that it’s very likely that she will talk to them too, and even try to turn them against you.
That is why you need to make sure that they hear your version before they hear hers.
As emotionally painful as it is to cut off a person who you once thought was your best friend, you have to get past it and push forward.
The best thing to do for yourself is block all of their social media and their number and devote your time to cultivating healthy friendships.
