There’s only one meaning this phrase really has and its appropriate response reciprocates the sentiment: Frak you!
This clichéd sentence belongs to a whole class of catch phrases where the speaker really is trying to avoid being the bad guy, such as “It’s not you, it’s me” and “Let’s be friends.” It’s the language of break-up. If there’s no romance involved, it’s implies that whoever says it is moving on without you. Is there really a need to wish someone well if this person intends to remain friends? I don’t think so. Insincerely wishing luck is a big part of our culture; it’s the way we avoid the responsibility of rejecting other people as evident in editor’s form letters for work absolutely not considered for publication and in how job terminations are handled. And the rhetoric comes in handy for gracefully ejecting people from our lives, lest we get burnt by the fallout.
About 12 years ago, after someone broke off dating me, leaving me to get back with his previous boyfriend, he insisted on being friends. Shame on me for believing him because I took him up on his offer. I tried calling him to no avail. We were on a messenger application called ICQ – he became invisible after he dumped me. Once, he agreed to go to see one of those showings of old Kurasawa films at the Ken, only to stand me up at the last minute. I decided to forget about him. Six months later when I decided to clean up my contacts, found him, and requested that he delete me because I was deleting him.
He could care less that I was alive, yet he couldn’t stand the thought of me deleting him. I then received several messages explaining his side of the story. Whatever.
Recently, a good friend’s longtime girlfriend dumped him after being together for close to 10 years. I knew her before I became really good friends with her now ex-boyfriend, so we had a long friendship history. Shortly after her breakup, this friend also went through a mass defriending, interestingly expressed through Facebook. I’ve tried “re-friending” a few times, only to be ignored. Three months later, once I removed her from my Netflix “friends,” then I got her attention. She texted me and said she missed me and that we should hang out for dinner. We wound up having a passable dinner at Jimmy Carter’s with stunted conversation. Since then, I have put in one more “friend” request on FB, only to be rebuffed.
Here’s the e-mail exchange that followed:
shindo: Fine. Don’t ever pretend to be my friend again.
——: I don’t believe friendship depends on FB situations. You and I knew each other before it, and you are welcome to email or call me anytime. I’m sorry…your message to me below made me sad. Take care of yourself.
shindo: What am I supposed to get from the FB situation? One day, I found I was “de-friended” and I’ve tried several times to “friend” again. Frankly, it troubled me even if was only FB. I really don’t know what kind of statement that is.
As for knowing you before the whole FB thing was in our lives, yes, and I also knew you before I became friends with the guy who is now your ex-boyfriend.
——: I would say, again, not to place too much importance on FB. And you did know me way before then, which is why you’re always welcome to email or phone. It makes me sad when friends say unkind things or use a certain tone with each other unnecessarily. As with before, I wish you well.
I perfectly understand her whole rhetoric about Facebook. It’s not everything in a friendship. I have friends who are not on FB and will never ever be, and we’re ok, because we are friends. What bothers me is that I feel shut out and excluded on something. Perhaps the real reason is that she is concerned I will tell everything I see on her FB profile to her ex-boyfriend. It’s only an inference I can get from her saying she “needed to protect her privacy” when we met for dinner and conversation that went nowhere except for the warm fuzzies of “I miss you.” I’ve also really come to hate that conversation not only because of that context, but a few others with different people. It is frustrating when I’ve been friends for someone for nearly a decade and there’s no depth at all.
Not every interaction has to incredibly profound and deep and heavy. But I really don’t have time for nonsense like “I wish you well.” It’s challenging to find time for my real friends as it is.
Wow, I have been keeping up with your blog lately…. reading like mad.
The person you were referring too…. did he live with you when you were downtown? If yes, you are better off without him. He was a brick short of a load anyway. Besides people who revel in conspiracy theories are a bit suspect….if you know what I mean.
Your other friend has a passive aggressive way of dealing with issues. I never knew this of her. Though I agree that FB is not the prime place for keeping up friendships, you still have a right to know “why” she defriend you. When I defriend people it’s because they were a problem. As for keeping people away from seeing her statuses so people wont have a need to gossip, my question would be, “WHY would you put really personal shit on a public forum(if you’re going to be upset by the results)?” Lamebook is a site that posts all of the lamest things people post on FB. It makes your eyes roll up back in your head. I had to add this in as it reminds me of your situation.
Oh, I agree with you that the culture has a very shallow, superficial, vapid way of looking at relationships (not just friendships). Sad really, and people can’t understand why they are alone.
Anyway, this is a small take on what I feel. Remember, you are better off without people like this as people who like and respect you will always value your friendship. Honestly Shin, the people dumping you and you in return dump them and they get upset mentality is really mental (and that’s being nice).
My first example – no, that wasn’t the guy who lived with me in my downtown studio for a while. This was several years before, in 1998. I met this person on an online forum, dated briefly in real time, and then was dumped in a passive aggressive manner I didn’t even mention – he did it through a private IRC chat channel.
As for that guy who lived with me for a while – he’s a separate topic altogether. You definitely know what a piece of work he was. He was the type of person who had to constantly talk, lest I had a chance to think about it and see what he said for the bullshit it was. One of the oddest moments of noisy manipulation came when he dumped me. We returned to my apartment (because I didn’t have to good sense to kick him out yet. That would come a few days later), and he put David Bowie’s “Tonight” on my CD player, as if “everything’s gonna be alright tonight.” That episode forever ruined that song for me.
Yeah, it makes me chuckle a bit to think that this woman’s a bit mental. Mildly sociopathic, perhaps. She behaves in a manner that shows no regards for anyone’s feelings, yet we’re supposed to be concerned that something makes her “feel sad.” The whole Facebook thing and how she handled some of her friends after breaking up with my friend makes me sad. Even though I once saw this person as a friend, I can’t bring myself to call her a friend right now. I’m not negating the past, but her actions haven’t been friendly at all.