How to Get Someone Off Your Best Friend List: 6 Things to Do

I know it’s not easy to break off relations with friends, but boundaries are important, so if you are stuck with somebody and want to break free of a toxic friendship, you need to read this article which answers the question ” How to get someone off your best friend list.”

Or say out loud to that person that you can’t be friends with them; you would be like,

“If it was that easy, why would I come here searching for things.”

I get it; that was a joke, I know it wasn’t good. You must be someone growing up and learning to take such hard decisions like getting someone off your best friend list, friend list, or maybe contact list. These aren’t easy, but we start realizing the importance of meaningful and healthy relationships as we grow up.

During childhood, we look for people of our age to play with without giving much thought we keep adding people to our friend list just to have a maximum fun time, but in our teenage phase, we are on our way to adulthood, learning maturity bit by bit through incidents and decisions, and that’s the learning phase basically where we don’t know the exact or the best way to deal with things like friendship, relationship, breakups, and failures. Making mistakes and learning from it is fine.

If you have come here searching for a solution about “How to take someone off your best friend list“, then let me tell you you’re not doing anything wrong because boundaries are important, toxic friendships can have severe effects on your mental health, and such relationships aren’t worth it.

Because we live in a digital age where friendship is determined by maintaining your friend list on social media, tagging your friends in various posts, uploading pictures, and writing birthday posts for your best friends, so I asked my fourteen years younger brother,

Which social media platform do you prefer to use the most?

And the answer was “Snapchat“.

I can see the growing popularity of Snapchat apps among teens today because, during our teenage time, we started chatting in Orkut, then switched to Facebook and Instagram.

I asked him why do you prefer Snapchat over other apps, and he said,

“I like sharing my daily activities with my friends, maintaining streaks with them, and seeing their lives also because some of my friends live far by, so these things keep us in contact, and I like buildings friendships with various people around the world through this app as I can see their activities.”

I had the Snapchat app installed on my phone way before, and I do love the filters and features of the app, but I was not that serious about adding friends, maintaining streaks, and sharing daily stuff, for a shorter time duration. I started remaining active on the app and shared shots only with my close friends and my fourteen years old brother. I always get scolded because I break streaks, but I see the whole group of people so serious about it.

1. Why Would Anybody Want to Get Someone Off Their Best Friends List?

Let me count on all the possibilities so that I can suggest ways to deal with them.

It feels so nice to keep adding plenty of people to our friend list, and as per their contribution, we promote them to our best friends list, but with time, we realize plenty of things about our friends as we get to know them better.

Some of the possible reasons we choose to maintain distance from some people are that we are not alike, our ideas and beliefs don’t tally, we don’t get along or feel any connection, they are backstabbing, spreading false rumors, they are envious, they are eyeing on our crush, or because they are too dependent on us.

Instant confrontation can cause unwanted conflicts, or their feelings might get hurt, so doing it in steps will most probably help.

First of all, be certain of your reasons because dear Brutus’ fault can be in you as well; what I mean is that don’t make assumptions. If you’re not certain about all that is in your mind about one of your best friends, take some time to notice and analyze your friend’s behavior or the best would be to gather valid proof.

If you had that one best friend who is a secret keeper and whom you can fully trust so the suggestion would be to explain the matter in detail to that friend, take her on the team, take her suggestion, and then proceed further regarding taking someone off your best friend list.

If you found out that your assumptions about that one particular person were right, then I am going to give you step by step guide to maintaining the distance steadily, remember growing impatience will do no good, it can spoil your friendships, and in the future, you might be weighted down by guilt or shame, simply follow the steps and be calm till the results show up.

2. How to Get Someone Off Your Best Friend List; 6 Things to Do

1) Start creating boundaries: Healthy boundaries are important to protect yourself from unwanted toxicity, so lessen your frequent interaction with that one best friend, stay outside of the activities in which that particular person is involved, stop sending snaps and daily updates, break the streak, stop tagging them in your posts, stop commenting to her posts in which you are tagged, don’t react to her stories, and practice social distancing.

Don’t just cut off all the connections from them but reduce your spent time and stop sharing things or having conversations more needed, do this in social media real life as well because networking sites are very much part of our real life.

2) Get Involved with Your Other Friends: Spent your good time with your other best friends more in front of her, and let her get in, but for the time being only.

While you do this, take care not to hurt anyone’s feelings but do this casually, not intently all the time; otherwise, it will make that other person feel left out and unwanted.

Use your profile picture to show your intent, upload a group photo in which that person is not present, and set it as your profile picture; these things can give her the idea that you don’t want to share the same bond.

3) Observe the Behavior: Now, when you have been playing all the tactics to distance her observe the behavior of your that one best friend.

If she is that smart and understanding, she will herself start realizing that you people don’t get along. Still, if she is someone who likes enforcing things, then she will grow desperate with time and start doing things out of the blue to be friends with you, and she can be someone less mature who can’t get the meaning of gestures and needs straightforward confrontation.

4) Wait for the time being: Be patient during this phase and wait for the expected reaction to come.

It’s good when you want to keep a distance from some people. It’s your choice, but you must not ask your other friends to do the same as it can deeply hurt the other person leaving her lonelier and sad.

These things can affect her mental health badly, and that person might choose to isolate herself completely and will not be able to be friends with people in the future.

While you do this, as I said, do this in bits and pieces, don’t stay too focused on doing things every day but focus on the try looking at the positive aspects of the person as well, it can improve your relationship with your best friends.

5) Give No Attention: Focus on your studies, well-being, fun activities, and other good friends because giving attention to negative and unwanted things will only cause unhappiness and dissatisfaction in life.

So focus on good things, do things you love, spend time with people you want, and practice skilling and you will see how things start to get better with time.

Don’t give much attention to your that best friend, and don’t pay attention to her actions and words; she might start putting quotable stories and posts on social media to drive attention or to make you feel envious about certain things, so to protect yourself unfriend her, remove her from your friend list, and stay at peace.

Giving much attention to negativity can cause insecurity, and this can affect your relationship with your other friends, also.

6) Time to Confront: Now when you have prepared yourself enough, you must confront her by stating your feelings clearly and loudly and conclude this complicated friendship chapter.

Let her know that you want to meet her to talk about something important by texting or calling, and be ready to hear her side of the story.

Like I said earlier, if she is the smarter one who understands gestures, then she must have distanced herself already, but if she like enforcing things, then she might have created unhappiness and disturbance to you, but if she is that dummy who is carrying on and not realizing that the equation between you two has changed, so there is an urgent need to confront feelings clearly in the last two cases.

One for your peace of mind and the other for allowing your best friend to make peace with you; just let her know that changes are a part of life.

3. How to Adapt to Changes After Getting Someone Off Your Best Friends List?

I know in the beginning, things can feel a bit awkward after you decide to maintain distance from your close friend but remember this shall also pass; after a short period, you will learn to live with it.

If things turn ugly for you then you must remove your friend from your social media account and if get that bad simply block her, or I will suggest you use the temporary option for hiding your profile and taking a break from Snapchat, this will eventually refresh your mind.

You might have heard from your parent warning you against physically endangering things, but I am warning you against mentally endangering things; if you don’t learn to use social media appropriately, then it will eventually take control over you and your life, and the result will be mental deterioration.

Something which is not letting your mind be at peace should be removed, if that best friend is causing disturbance block her. If you don’t feel happy, delete the Snapchat app and learn to take a break. And learn to choose your best friends wisely and stay in touch with your close friends.

I am not telling you to abandon social media fully because it’s next to impossible but taking a break will fill you with new energy, and after that, you can get back to it, update your profile picture, and best friend list on Snapchat, and start sending snaps.

You can choose to remain in touch casually with your ex-best friend only if she is understanding and you feel like doing it because it’s worth it, and around her, you don’t feel unsafe or anything.

There are plenty of therapists and counsellors available, you can get in touch with them, and they can guide you throughout in a much better way.

Last Updated on September 12, 2023 by Laveleena Sharma