Floralina

I can kind of relate to this issue. Your friend sounds a lot like my friend – we were best friends in secondary school but we lost contact – I would try to stay in touch and find out how she was doing but she wouldn’t return my calls. On a few occasions we even passed each other in the street or waiting for the same bus at the bus station and she just completely disregarded me. A few years later through the magic of Facebook, she reappeared in my life – “We should really meet up again!” We did and at first it felt like nothing had changed in our lives, but in the four years she had been out of my life she had gotten married (she was 19 at the time) and was subsequently going through a divorce because her husband had cheated. She started making more promises – “Let’s be friends again and hang out more” but when I called her up on it, she would either flake at the last minute or just not bother answering my calls. I decided she was an unreliable and untrustworthy friend so I just stopped bothering with her. From what I’ve heard she has since gave birth – she did have my number at the time but clearly didn’t feel this was important enough to share with me.

You think you know somebody really well but it turns out you don’t!

The point I’m trying to make here is – friendship is a two-way street, effort from both parties is required for the friendship to work out. Friends are supposed to keep each other in the loop on what is going on with their lives and not withhold important information, and getting engaged and having a child seems pretty significant! You said your friend kept on making excuses – just like my friend. Excuses that aren’t good enough.

I know it doesn’t feel great when a friendship ends but this friend of yours seems like a person who has taken you for granted, and just bothers with people only when it suits them. You deserve so much better – like any relationship, you are going to feel sad, upset and resentful when it is over but after a while those feelings will soon diminish.

I hope this helps

Joe

I can kind of relate, I’m almost always the one to start conversations with my friends but that’s because we’re busy and don’t have much to talk about.

Regarding your friend, it could just be her, she could simply be a private person, but I would talk to her about it and if she still seems to shrug and go “stuff happens” then I would reflect and ask yourself honestly if the relationship is worth it. If it feels one sided and each conversation leaves you drained emotionally you might be better off making new friends.

Floralina,

Don’t feel bad for distancing yourself. That is the best thing you can do, because while you see her as a close friend, she obviously doesn’t see you that way.

I had a friend like that. However, me and her had been best friends since elementary school. Our friendship continued all throughout high school. However when I got a boyfriend we communicated less and less each time. While we were still friends and talked, texted each other, talked on the phone, hung out, we just weren’t confiding in each other as much. After my boyfriend and I broke up we got to talking more and she finally told me she had been seeing someone. She kept me in the loop, but once again it wasn’t like before. It took a while before she finally told us she got engaged. After that she finally opened up again and started talking about her fiance and their plans. I was invited to her wedding, but I felt left out because everyone there was someone from her church or family. After that, we drifted apart again. She didn’t tell me she was pregnant with twins, and I wasn’t invited to her baby shower. Even when I texted her, our conversations would be brief. I had to find out all those things through Facebook. She distanced herself, I guess she felt very different from me, and I suppose I understand. Here she is, married with twins, and here I am, in college, not married or dating, and no children. I guess what I am trying to say is, we don’t have much in common, and life gets in the way.

While you made all the effort, she didn’t make any, and that is not fair. Your friendship with her is rather one sided. You need better friends than that. Ones who will confide in you as much as you confide in them.

If it doesn’t bother her it is because she simply does not value your friendship as much as you value hers. It’s sad, but it’s better for you to step away now, rather than later.

Dear Floranlina:

You wrote that it is your personality, that it is who you are to “just keep going even though (you) know that pain and heartache is inevitable” So, you mean that … I don’t understand. Can you elaborate what you mean by this, maybe give me a couple of examples?

anita