Tab Guide To Ditching Friends In Second Year

Here’s a typical scenario. It’s week 3 of your first year at Cambridge and you’re lonelier than a hermit without a Wi-Fi connection. Desperate to fit in but unable to find a group where you feel at home, you decide enough is enough. As a result, your options are as follows:

a) Join the group of Asian students you vaguely know in the hope you can grasp Mandarin quicker than the 3-4 years Rosetta Stone suggests.

b) Slither your way into group of boatie lads by making all of your anecdotes vomit-related and pretending to find the word ‘pussy’ non-repulsive.

c) Claim you’re a Christian and hang around with a group of Chapel-goers. Struggle with how disconcertingly nice they are, but enjoy the free biscuits that all their events seem to provide.

d) Remain alone. Find solace in creating a parody Matt Baker Twitter account and telling yourself you might get a first.

e) Suicide.

f) Keep talking to Olaf from the bop in the hope he’ll eventually run out of things to say about Minecraft.   

You pick option b) and spend the rest of Michaelmas making non-ironic nob gags in Spoons. But, come Lent term you finally stumble upon some like-minded students. A new group begins to emerge and, by the beginning of second year, you’re ready to shed the mates you adopted in your moment of panic. But just how do you go about it? Well, here’s The Tab’s guide to ditching your friends in second year. 

The old fashioned schoolyard bully should be your idol

1.       Make them do the ditching.

If you can make your friends dislike you, there’s a chance they’ll do the ditching themselves. This not only saves time but provides you with superficial moral high ground that can be used at a later date. The most effective ways of making your friends do the ditching are:

Make a lunge: nothing puts a friendship on the rocks quicker than launching yourself lip-first at a fellow student. Allow them to recoil in disgust before explaining that you fancy them. If it transpires they feel the same way, sleep with them, shout ‘BACK OF THE NET’ too loudly and too frequently during sex, then claim things have become too awkward the following morning.

Note: this technique works with both male and female friends.

This little dude knows exactly what he’s doing

Talk about all the time you’re spending at the ADC: everyone wants to know about how stressful it’s been ‘teching’ a gender-reversed stage-adaptation of The Wrong Trousers, right? WRONG. No-one cares. That’s why becoming obsessed with the ADC is a fast-track way to irritating and then shedding some friends. Of course, you don’t actually have to do anything at the ADC if you don’t fancy it. Just make sure to use slightly prickish terms like ‘blocking’ and ‘stage whisper’ every thirty seconds and you should be fine.

Where your friends enter, but return as acquaintances at best

2.       Cover Your Tracks

However you approach the ditching process, make sure you don’t give the game away. This article, for instance, is based on my own attempts to ditch friends*.  I thus posted the following status to avoid any of them catching on. This is key. Always cover your tracks.

*I should just make clear that I’m not actually ditching any of my friends.

3.       Soften the blow

It’s important to consider the feelings of those you’re ditching. Buy them chocolates, flowers and other clichés, but give the impression that these are all gifts from a mystery porter. The ditchees should be more concerned about the identity and motives of the porter than of your absence, as well as cheered up.

4.     Make sure your new friends are all they’re cracked up to be.

It’s easy to get excited when you meet new people. ‘He’s not an arsehole!’ you exclaim. ‘There are no Marilyn Monroe quotes in her Facebook bio!’ you cry.

Don’t be fooled. I met someone last year who I was convinced had best-friend-potential. But, a couple of candid late night conversations later and what’s revealed? A lack of humility and some serious hygiene issues. Both of these, and some of my other flaws, he couldn’t handle. In other words he was intolerant. Be careful. Only ditch when you’re sure the grass is greener.

So that’s it. Follow these easy steps and your ditching should be a sure-fire success.

That said, if you’re a fresher reading this then my advice would be not to rush the friend-making process. It’s always better to wait for the right people. Always. That way you’ll never need any of the bullshit advice I’ve just given.