Since I don’t know your friend, it’s impossible to assess her accurately. However, there are couple of things you should be aware of people in general. One is the need to appear strong and successful, and avoid appearing weak and a failure. Another is emotional immaturity, which means the inability to cope with the fact that it’s not that black and white.

Appearances are never the whole story. In my opinion, one does not have yo be terribly skeptical about everything people say, but it is a good idea to take it with a grain of salt and to put it in perspective. I know plenty of people who want to join in on different causes and go through the motions of caring and helping others, but don’t actually have the capacity to truly open up and offer support to another human being. People have difficulty giving attention to another person for a prolonged time. It’s more important to update Facebook status about being out with friends than to actually focus on the friends they are with 🙂 Appearances matter more tyan substance.

There is no actual contradiction. It just seems so to you, because you take her behavior for face value. You’d have to see deeper into her fears and motivation to understand the pattern.

While I haven’t yet read the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, I have looked into it and two of the agreements are “don’t take anything personally” and “don’t make assumptions”. I’m sure it hurts to lose a friend, but even if it is a personal relationship, try not to take her actions personally, because ultimately it is about her and not about you. She might only be ready for a very superficial connection. It is your choice whether you are OK with that or if you’d rather spend your energy on other people (or yourself!) Her journey is different to yours. Focus on your journey and definitely take care of yourself regardless of other people’s actions.