Hi ladies. I need new friends, but in the meantime, some of the old ones have gotten very old. Some of it is me. This particular friend group seems to revolve around one person holding court and he's somewhat intolerable to me now. He's always high, he talks over me and ends up dictating the night. Everyone else adores him - he's very funny and personable, but I can't with his lack of consideration at times. Plus, he's in another friend group of mine and he never hangs out with us. He always has plans with his new, younger friends. There's some jealousy involved on my part because a part of me wishes I could be so charming to others, but not like this.

I'm done with the routine of this friend group's gatherings, too. We get together at someone's place, we do edibles, watch or listen to stuff on YouTube, maybe play Cards Against Humanity or some similar game. It's so tired and the last time we hung out, I lied about having other plans just to leave.

Now, they want to hang again to celebrate birthdays. I don't want to be a jerk but how can I communicate that I'm not interested in hanging out anymore, really? I can take some people individually but altogether, this group - I don't want to waste my time. So how can I do this, respectfully lol?