A post about un-making friends

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There are a lot of posts here about making friends. What about unmaking friends?
What if you have a friend or acquaintance whose true colours have become blindingly obvious through either events or just losing one's rose-tinted spectacles, and you no longer want them in your life?
I would really like to know how to deal with situations like this, especially when they are (for example) close with another person I want to KEEP, or the partner of someone I value very highly.
I am not assertive enough to say to someone "It's been nice knowing you, but..."
Is this the way of the world, one must put up with people one dislikes intensely and pretend they are not who they have proven themselves to be, just to associate with the people of value who are connected to them?!
Is this behaviour not dishonest?
I tried to ask my boyfriend about two-faced-ness and etc....it did not end well.

Yes, that is the way of the world. If you refuse contact with the person you dislike, you risk losing contact with the person you like. This issue comes up a lot in couples when one partner in the couple has a friend that the other partner hates.






Yes. But also often necessary unless you want to lose the person you like. Saying, "I like you and I hate your friend so don't bring him around me any more" can easily cause a rift in the relationship. Of course a partnership isn't the only situation where this happens. It's just a common scenario.

Some people make their peace with this by not "faking liking" but rather being polite. You can be polite to people you dislike. Manners aren't the same thing as liking. I recommend that route. Don't try to keep up the facade that the person you dislike is somebody you like. But it will be necessary to continue to be polite to them and accept that their presence is unavoidable. The only way to actually avoid their presence is to cut yourself off from both people, and I get the feeling you don't want to do that.

Yikes. That isn't good at all.

I would say, try to find time to spend with your friend when the person you don't like would not be with them. Or just ask if you can hang out alone to go to a movie. Call it "Girls Night" if you're both female etc. Then you can minimize the amount of time spent with the other person.

But I agree, you can be polite to the person but don't have to be fake nice to them.

My advice is... talk about it. To the person you don't like anymore, be honest with them. Start with "I have to be honest with you" and as you go about it, don't make it seem entirely their fault. Whatever conflicts you may have, try to acknowledge both sides of the story, or least pretend to. As for the friend you want to avoid losing, be sensitive (for lack of better term) when the topic is discussed. Say something like "Hey, I've hit a rough patch with so&so and I know you're friends with that person, but I don't want conflicts I have with this person to affect our friendship."

Thanks for your replies everyone...there was definitely much food for thought provided.