I’m a 21 years-old guy attending grad school in your country. Cool place by the way. Really liking California. My story is kinda long but I’ll try to resume it: Thing is there was me and there was this girl, who we can call Girlette, 3 years ago while I was still attending undergrad school back in my place. She’s older than me a couple of years but she was a year behind me in school. She was friends with some friends, but I never paid that much attention to her, pretty as she is, until she started talking to me. Glad should I be that she decided to do so, I thought back then, for she is a really intelligent and fun girl. We started to hang around and quickly became best friends and confidents, with nothing really happening in the romantic departed as she was currently dating a guy and I wasn’t interested on her anyway. Time went by and we became closer and a little bit closer when her relationship went from normal to bad to horrendous in record time. By the time she finally broke with the bloke we would spend most of our time together having pretty much a good time while sailing through my last year at school and her issues. More time went by, and with time grew infatuation towards her. I graduated and started working a pretty nice job, which allowed to pay my school loans and also finance our get-togethers. She started to demand as much attention as she could get from me and I had no problem giving it; sometimes she would even call me angrily asking why I hadn’t call her while I was in other city for work-related reasons. That situation was very weird but I came to like it as in my head it meant that she reciprocated my (by then) fully-fledged feelings towards her. I knew she liked me and she said so, but didn’t want to ruin the friendship while anyway wanted me to pay full attention to her. Sexy thinking about her felt very uncomfortable so I never proposed anything physical to her. That way it remained 100% platonic until this other guy appeared.The guy was not new really, I knew him from my work but didn’t care much about him. Coincidentally she met him somewhere else and quickly grew puppy feelings for him, like, in record time. I thought I knew her enough to say that they would eventually date formally and started to fear for my position in her life and, well, freaked out. I told her I could see she really liked the guy and given that I couldn’t do anything about it I would step aside and have some time for myself to, well, fall out of love. A couple of weeks later she effectively started dating the guy and was really happy, therefore I took some more distance. The bad thing is that she didn’t liked that idea that much as she missed our get-togethers and my friendship so started calling and inviting me to hang around, well, with Mr. Boyfriend on board as it was really important for her that I get to be friends with him. All those things from her were genuine, I could see she genuinely missed the friendship part of our relationship but I wasn’t ready to hang around with her, even less with Mr. Boyfriend, so I basically stated that. She pressured some more and I stated my case stronger. She pressured even more and then I became slightly rude while stating my case. She pressured even more, as far as wondering why it was taking me so much time to get over her, and then I… well, I didn’t say anything. I just then tried to avoid her and anything that had anything to do with her. This kinda worked as I went to enjoy myself a lot, have fun with old friends and new friends and dated a girl and stuff. Eventually I got over her and felt more comfortable about the idea of being friends with her. She is a really nice and intelligent, girl, better to have her as friend than not. The bad thing is that while I was avoiding her and having fun, her issues spiraled out of control one after the other. Her relationship with her mother was always rocky by her own account, so when she was diagnosed cancer it struck Girlette really hard. That was back when we started knowing each other. In time doctors said the cancer was controlled, but somehow it resurfaced strongly the couple of months I was keeping myself away from her. Also, her boyfriend left her for an ex-girlfriend in a sadly dramatic chain of events. During that time she grew angry towards me for abandoning her, but when things became too much she called me. I stood by her side those days but she was resentful and rude, which was perplexing but understandable given the situation. Then I had to stay in another city for a week doing work stuff. Sadly I left the city during a fight with Girlette, and after the flight I was informed that Girlette’s mother was on intensive care. I tried to contact her but she only answered with a text message saying that I had abandoned her for months so nothing would make a difference now. That struck me really, really hard. Then I proceed to have the shittiest week of my life as she called me sometimes nicely, sometimes crying angrily as things went from bad to worst. Sometimes hating me, sometimes expecting me to say something but every time I opened my mouth it was only for worst. The next Sunday her mother died. I went back to my place to attend the funereal services. Her words resounded repeatedly on my head and I convinced myself that I was guilty of having abandoned her. I started hating myself real bad. I tried to stay close to her but she repelled me and in some occasions during the following months I became her punching bag and guilt didn’t allow me to move past that. We lost common friends. Things went that way for a couple of months until I realized that I was not important in the new configuration of her life and when I cared it was only for making her really angry and go ballistic over ridiculously stupid little things. That was last christmas. In time I came to know that her relationship with her father collapsed but she met a really nice guy that was helping her going through that. I broke up with my girlfriend and also started to make plans for grad school in the States. Anything that had to do with her made me feel sad in a way I never felt before so I thought it would be better to cut positively and for good. Those months I was basically working during the day and counting the days left for fall on the night. A couple of weeks before the day of my flight came she came to know about my trip and contacted me. She told me things were not exactly ok but were getting better, that she was really as happy as she could with her boyfriend and that he was tremendously supportive. Knowing that it was easier to leave my place, but the goodbye was for me very, uhm, dramatic. Truth to be told now I don’t want to be her friend anymore, in fact I’m ok with knowing that she’s ok but not anything more. That is why it was perplexing to read an email from her saying that while we’re far away it would be nice to write each other every once in a while. And yes, it makes sense, it should be nice, but maybe I am not mature enough for not feeling like a total piece of shit, which brings me to the proper question: Is there any polite way to tell her that I don’t want to know about her?… Is it even right to want to say that? I mean, she was the one that lost her mother, not me, and anyway she’s been able to move past all the shitstorm that was the last year and a half and try to be friends again, but I just can’t. So I don’t know.
Heh, sorry it took me that long. Thanks for reading.

I couldn’t help but read this in the voice of Derek Zoolander.

To be honest, it was the only way I could get through it. 1500 words, man. Seriously. God forbid you actually fuck this girl one day. I don’t know if I could handle that novella.

Actually, I kind of feel ripped off. You led me on as if there would be some grand dilemma, but all you want to know is the proper etiquette for telling the crazy cunt to go fuck herself.

Well asshole, I know exactly what you should do here. I know what you should say to her. I know when you should say it. Thing is, I’m not going to tell you.

You wasted my time, so now I’m going to waste yours.

Rewrite your entire question in the form of a haiku.

If I like it, I’ll give you the answer.

Consider this a lesson in brevity.