We were pretty good friends in high school but he has a bit of a crab mentality which became too much for me in the recent years. Eventually I told him we've grown apart since then but we could still chat online to keep in touch but even that's proven to be a challenge to keep up as he is the only one initiating now while I have completely lost interest in maintaining communication and feel like I really cut my losses and am I enjoying my lone wolf lifestyle.

I figured he would've gotten the message by me not replying but he keeps messaging me even though I don't read them. I want to just block him and leave all of that behind me once and for all, at the same time it seems a bit callous to do that and feel somewhat obligated to just tell him straight up that I don't wish to be in contact anymore for good.

This is on Facebook that he's messaging me from btw and I know how a lot of you guys feel about FB and I respect your choices but I personally choose not to delete my profile as I have several history and military pages that I own and manage as a hobby (which is the sole reason I even have FB) I'm just looking for a bit of advice on how to deal with this former friend.

Usually I'm pretty good at handling these kinds of things on my own but every now and then I get stuck in a hard place and feel if I had a second opinion it would help me make a better decision and you guys on this sub are the only ones I can really ask these kinds of things.

Update:

I did what I had to do. Some might see it as a bit selfish but I'd already given him one warning previously and that should've been enough to show him I wasn't going to put up with anymore underhanded critiques and small jabs at my life. He is also older than me by quite a bit which means he should be a role model but instead he has seen me grow up from some no-good kid into an adult an sees it as a threat which is just sad.

A good sign of mature people is they talk things out first which I had done previously, but another good sign of maturity also is accepting that people will come and go and you can't get too attached as there's no way of really knowing who are the lifers and who's just passing by.

I hope he does well in life but I can tell that he still sees me as that kid and nothing I could've told him would've changed that as he still feels like the old and wise mentor and any criticism would be shrugged off or he'd be aware of it, but continue to do so as his old ways are just too ingrained in him to let go of them yet.