Last weekend I got an email from an old friend. She wants to meet for ­coffee and a catch up.How nice, you might think. But my first thought when her name appeared in my inbox was: ‘Oh no, I thought I’d got rid of you!’I may seem heartless, but I have no regrets over successfully ‘ghosting’ Julie five years ago – cutting her off without a word and leaving all her attempts to ­re-establish contact unanswered – and I’m determined to stay dead to her.Yet we were once best friends. I spoke to her every day. She was the person I called when I had good news, bad news, or just wanted a drink and a chat.So what, you may well ask, would lead me to drop her in such a merciless fashion?We first became friends 12 years ago after my daughter Emma, now 18, got pally with hers at primary school, ­something I was initially grateful for because I saw Julie as an ally – we were both older mothers who felt like we stuck out a bit at the school gates.Our first conversation was about how hard it was juggling full-time work with parenting a young child in your 40s.­ ­’Nothing’s really changed for my ­husband,’ I remember Julie confiding. ‘He tells me I’m being moody, when actually I’m just exhausted – he doesn’t get how difficult it is.’Hallelujah, I thought. Here’s someone who has the same struggles I do. We can be friends. At first, being friends felt good. But it soon became clear that Julie seemed to like me best when things weren’t going my way (file image)At first, being friends felt good. We helped each other out of various childcare fixes and took the girls out on day trips together. On nights out we’d have a few drinks and moan about our partners.But it soon became clear that she seemed to like me best when things weren’t going my way.When I told her I got a promotion, she launched into a rant about how awful her own prospects were, making me feel guilty while wondering if I’d just rubbed her nose in my success.But the time I called her in tears, having bombed in a job interview I had spent three weeks prepping for, she came straight round with flowers and a bottle of wine.Afew years ago, I confided in Julie that I’d found the printout of a holiday booking for two at a romantic-looking Lake District hotel after I went nosing around my husband Mark’s desk drawer. ‘I wish I hadn’t seen it,’ I remember wailing.Julie immediately flung her arms around me, calling me a poor thing and Mark a swine, and offered to be there when I confronted him about the affair he was obviously having.No, no, I told her, he’s not got another woman. This would be part of our silver wedding ­anniversary celebrations the following month. I only felt bad because I’d ruined the surprise.’Well, you must have been ­suspicious to go searching for evidence of an affair in the first place,’ she replied huffily.I can picture her face now, crestfallen when I told her I’d just been looking for stamps. She seemed genuinely disappointed that instead of plunging me into a crisis, my husband was doing something nice.Her husband’s failings, it turned out, went way beyond my own’s fairly benign imperfections. He was, apparently, a heavy drinker who gambled away every penny and spent more time in the pub than at home. After first confiding all this in the early days of our friendship, she turned to me and seemed to wait for me to make similarly damning revelations about my own home life. When I didn’t, because I couldn’t, she asked me outright whether Mark was a let-down, too.When I told her the truth – that he’s actually a good dad and mostly we get on well – she raised her eyebrows and sarcastically congratulated me on bagging ‘Mr Perfect’.I instantly felt terrible, like I’d somehow let her down. When her name appeared on my phone, I sent it to voicemail. I began taking days instead of minutes to respond to textsOver time, I noticed that I often felt that way around Julie – as though I was smug, entitled even – particularly when I spoke about my life in a broader sense.I once told her I used to love riding lessons as a child, but that my parents couldn’t afford for us to own a horse. She mocked me and called me a spoilt brat.When I got excited about ­taking my daughter Emma to the same ­Cornish holiday spot we’d visited each summer throughout my childhood, she mimicked my enthusiastic tone.When I asked why she was doing that, she said she was ­jealous because they couldn’t afford a getaway that year. The she suddenly ‘remembered’ she had to be somewhere else and rushed away, leaving me wondering what I’d done wrong.This pattern continued all through our kids’ primary school days. ‘Why do you put yourself through this?’ my husband despaired when I complained about how rubbish she’d made me feel after we bought a car.I’d felt nervous about arriving in the school car park in it, because I was worried how she’d react, which I can see now was ridiculous. Particularly given it was a second-hand Volvo estate, not some flashy Porsche.’What was wrong with your old car?’ she asked, before shaking her head and telling me I had more money than sense. I was too rattled to point out our old car was about to conk out with 120,000 miles on the clock.But, as much as I hated that side to Julie, I could also see good in her. When things were difficult – such as when Mark was threatened with redundancy, or the time I had a huge fallout with my sister – she was there for me.When, five years ago, my mum got ill and spent a fortnight in hospital, I couldn’t have asked for a better friend to support me through what was a really difficult time. She phoned every day to check on me and dropped off meals she’d prepared so I wouldn’t have to cook.But when Mum came home and began to recover faster than anyone had predicted, I turned to Mark and said, only half-joking: ‘I feel like I should pretend to Julie things are still really bad, so she’ll carry on being nice to me.’As the words fell from my lips, I realised just how toxic this so-called friendship had become and felt a horrible, rising panic spread from my stomach up into my chest.I knew at that moment I didn’t want Julie in my life any more.So I ghosted her.When her name appeared on my phone, I sent it to voicemail. I began taking days instead of minutes to respond to texts. The excuses I made not to meet up became increasingly weak: I had a headache; Mark wanted us to spend more time together; it looked like it was going to rain.’What does the weather matter?!?!?’ she replied to that one, which I’d texted after she asked if I fancied going to the cinema. I didn’t bother replying.She tried to call, leaving a curt message. ‘I’m sure I’m imagining it, but I feel like you’re ignoring me,’ she said.I felt a twinge of guilt, but not enough to make me want to re-think ghosting her.I reminded myself how I’d started editing my life for her benefit – keeping quiet about nice things I did with my family, and pretending work was a source of misery when actually I really enjoyed my job. Anything not to spark envy in her. Not ­having her negativity in my life felt liberating. The longer I held out, the easier it became.After she left that message I simply ignored her completely. To do anything else would have only prolonged the process. She didn’t try to contact me again.Dropping Julie was easier then than it would have been before the girls started at their secondary school, because we no longer saw each other daily at the school gates. I’d always worried that if I fell out with Julie it could spoil Emma’s friendship with her daughter – but now they were old enough not to care whether their mothers got on.And actually, now they were in the huge pond that is secondary school, they’d started to drift apart themselves, making my break with Julie even more straightforward.I knew it was over between us for sure when we walked past each other at ­parents’ evening a few months later and she just glared at me.If anyone else had done that I’d have felt sick with worry, but ­seeing the animosity on Julie’s face was a relief.Unfortunately, it now looks as though she’s forgiven me.But I’m not going back. And so, I sent her email straight to spam, which is exactly where that friendship belongs.Names have been changed.