The Break-Up

I have to break up with a friend and I don't exactly know how to do it. I hate confrontation, and I have the gut-feeling that this person won't take it very well.

You see, I've found over the past year that we've probably just out-grown our friendship - a friendship that started in highschool! There have just been too many incidents in the past year that don't sit well with me, and I've been trying to have a discussion in person, but she is too busy partying and "hooking up" with random men. Here are my issues:

• I don't trust her. She knows me well, and knows some very private things about me. When I went to a gathering at her house and met somebody she works with, I got a "You're M? You don't look like I pictured after all the stories that I've heard. Pretty fucked-up stuff ...." or something along that line. What the hell is that?
• I don't trust her. Men are top priority right now. Random men. Men that have gone out on dates with so-called friends (hint: me). Any men. The more the merrier men.
• She's acting like we're still in highschool. Lots of alcohol-fuelled socializing. It's fine to party like that and make an ass of yourself when you're in your early 20's, but not when you're 40. Considering that alcohol has played a major role in some big happenings in her life, I am surprised with what she is doing to herself.
• I feel uncomfortable around the people that she has chosen to spend time with. Every time that I'm at one of her social events, I have to listen to people throwing sexual innuendos around - married, single - it doesn't matter. I wince at how cheap everybody sounds .... truly uncomfortable. And the number of times that I hear my friend "putting it out there" .... I am sad that this is how she thinks she needs to behave to get attention from a man. Am I judging? Maybe I am, but this is not how I want to talk to others or have others talk to me.

So that's it in a nutshell. There is another social event coming up in a couple of weeks, and I've been getting email reminders. No phone call - just email. Do I break up over email? I don't want this to upset her (although I'm thinking that it probably won't given that she has found so many new "friends" to partake in her libationous fun). I'm sure that I'll be told that I just need to "lighten up and have some fun" - well, that just says it all doesn't it. That my whole problem with all of this is that I just need to lighten up, get drunk on a regular basis, get laid, and party party my life away.