I've had to do this a lot lately because I've grown a lot as a person in the last six months, and those friends I've had to cut ties with had not responded well to that.

I was friends with this person in one of my classes where we became friends instantly. She was loud, funny, an outspoken feminist, and we bonded over being the only two people sitting up front and speaking up in class. We had a period of time where we were inseparable, but the more time I spent with her the more I realized she was extremely inappropriate and very transphobic. She would blatantly try to use my sexual orientation (I'm queer) as an excuse to grope me or tell me very explicit things she would do to me if she weren't straight, which is not how this works. One day she grabbed my butt and squeezed, and I turned around and told her not to do it. She got extremely offended and lashed out at me, saying there wasn't anything to grab anyway. She has a very strong personality, so confrontation was not the way to go about this. I gave her the slow fade. She got the picture.

Another friend was someone I had a two week rebound thing with after my last relationship ended. She tried to play both me and her ex and refused to pick one of us, so both me and the ex said "fuck it" and went on to better things, lived our own lives. This friend got upset that she couldn't have her cake and eat it too, and she tried very very hard to win me back, but I was long gone. I told her very clearly that nobody gets to treat me like that and stay in my life, so she figured we could just be friends. I tried it for a month or so, but I just couldn't do it anymore. I don't let something like that slide. You don't get to try and manipulate me and use me for your own pleasure with no regard for mine, and then get upset with me for not immediately letting it go. There are times where I miss her dogs and her family. Her sisters were so sweet to me. But I don't miss the person. She was only respectful of me when it benefited her.

All in all there are certain parts of people that I miss, but I don't miss the person as a whole. I miss this one ex singing to me absent mindedly. She had a lovely voice. I miss watching Doctor Who for the first time with this person I used to be friends with. I miss this one person's dogs and her mom's secret menudo recipe. I miss getting Denny's at 4am with this one chick. I miss the ridiculous nicknames this one girl would give me. I miss the way this one girl I dated would use a very calculated set of emojis after every time she said goodnight to me.

I miss all of these things from these people, but I don't actually miss the people. Well, some of them I do, but most of them I don't. And that's okay.