I have been hurt by a friend’s strong and unfounded accusation against me and, although I am prepared to let go of this friendship knowing it’s no longer beneficial to either of us, I feel deeply hurt and find it difficult to let go.

A week before the incident, she said something mean and rude. I was well aware that she was being the usual her, direct and often oblivious to other people’s feelings. She also has a tendency to bring other people down so as to uplift herself. But I decided it had reached a point where I had to talk to her, had I wished to stay friends with her. I also decided right away was not the best moment to talk about it since I was angry. I did not want to say hurtful things just because I was mad and thought I would let it cool down and phrase my thoughts carefully afterwards. The week had been a busy one with 2 presentations at the university to prepare for, so I waited until the weekend i(.e. there were 6 days in between) where I had the time, the calmness and the headspace to word my thoughts precisely and carefully so as to avoid misunderstanding and hurting her feelings.

My message was as follows:

Hey, sorry for being out of touch. I have been very busy and needed some time and space to word what I’m going to say. It’s not easy to say, but I will try because I still hope this friendship would work out. And if I keep these unsaid, it would just be a fake friendship. I know you are a very direct person, and that’s fine per se, but I would like to ask you to put your opinion in a nicer manner because often it just comes off mean and rude and maybe you don’t even mean it like that. It has been annoying me every now and then for some time now, but recently it’s been too much for me to take. The world is mean enough at times and I think as friends it’s the least we can do to be nice to each other. I would understand if you think this is too much to ask, but then I would also ask for your understanding that I can’t be as close a friend anymore because it’s just not nice to be treated like this. I hope you don’t read this as a critique or attack, but rather an attempt to remove some barrier between us.

And her response was as follows:

You see, Cecilia, I am highly disappointed in you right now. Telling me directly when I said something too much, offensive would have been a lot more appropriate than this message, I would have apologized and been careful afterwards. It could have been this easy, and from you I would have excepted that because I think that we are honest to each other and not afraid to communicate our feelings. However, I am aware of my own honesty and am careful around some people, like my family. But they did not wait months in my company, and then weeks in silence to tell me that my behaviour is wrong. They just did it, and I started being careful. I am open to critics, there is just an appropriate way to do it.
Now I feel stabbed in the back. You say nothing for so long as we meet, you ask me to meet my friends because you so desperately need friends, you become friend with them and now this? It feels very much like you have been using me. And now, I am not even sure that this ‘friendship’ is worth working on.

I was at a complete loss of words when I read this. It was a very serious accusation of my morals. It was something I wouldn’t do in a million years. I was very angry at the accusation and explained why it made zero sense to accuse me of something of such, considering I hadn’t been seeing any of her friends. If I was planning anything like this, I wouldn’t even have told her I would like to meet friends through her because I am new in town. And then she shifted her argument into something like this:

So anyway, this conversation took a focused from a sentence that was misinterprated, since it was more about my feeling after reading your message than of a strong accusation. It just goes together with the disapointment. Overall I am not even angry at you for telling me that I should be careful when I say some things, that I can really understand. I am though disappointed that you would text me out of nowhere something like this, very brutal and ruined my really good day. As I said, I thought we could communicate easily whenever we would be just the two of us, and i would not get offended at all if you told me now and then “oh by the way, i think that sometimes you blablabla”.

I feel deeply hurt to be read and treated as someone like this, and that she used my need for time and space to phrase my well-meant message against me. In anyway, I do not feel this is a worthy friendship anymore. But I have difficulties healing myself and letting this go altogether. Would appreciate any advice on what can be done.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post. Wish you all a beautiful day!