Hi everyone. I'm in emotional turmoil about a friendship and I'm having trouble working out my feelings and deciding whether I'm being stupid or whether my feelings are valid. I've been besties (or so I thought) with someone from college--let's call her B--for the past year. We shared a lot, which is hard for me because I'm very introverted and don't trust people easily. Anyways, a few things happen at the same time: winter break comes, an old friend of hers moves back into town, and suddenly I don't hear from her anymore. She has a lot of history with this other friend, and suddenly all I see is pictures of him with B and her gf on FB. (I've almost never been in her pictures.) When I see her in public, she's with him. This guy and I have met a few times while hanging with B, and we never clicked. I've also heard things about him I don't like. But she and her gf love him. He's on their level intellectually. So, my feelings. I am intensely jealous of this friend. It feels like I was only a replacement for him while he wasn't living in town. Now that he's back, B hasn't contacted me (until now--more on that later). I feel abandoned by B. She knows I have few friends, most of whom spent the break out of town, and I can't turn to my unaccepting family anymore. So I spent this past month struggling with loneliness and depression. And I didn't want to be needy by telling her that. She's complained before about needy friends. Finally I decided I had overestimated our friendship, so I dealt with it (or thought I had), dealt with the loneliness, and decided to forget her and focus on myself. I was bitter for awhile, but I told myself it was petty and stupid. That I had expected too much from her. That my idea of friendship was warped. Then finally I felt okay and started moving on. All this during the great winter break silence. School started two weeks ago. We have one class together and I've seen her twice, but haven't talked to her directly. She didn't message me or anything. Until today. This morning she writes me a message asking what she's done wrong and demanding an explanation for giving her the "cold shoulder." If the wound had closed, it's been ripped open again. How can I tell her I'm jealous of her friend, that I feel abandoned, that I thought our friendship was deeper than this? That I can't accept being the lesser friend? She seems oblivious to this (I don't know how!), and I feel it's impossible to explain without looking like an idiot. My feelings are so pathetic. Of course it's natural for her to still love this other friend. But I feel very inferior to him. Frankly I don't see myself as very attractive friend material, so what am I to think but that I was just a temporary replacement for this guy? I told her she hasn't done anything wrong, but made the point that I haven't heard from her this whole past month. She replied: ok, I guess I just misinterpreted your silence. Which tells me she thinks everything is ok. But I can't bring myself to be warm to her again. I don't want to hang out with her knowing that I'm second fiddle and that he must be too busy at the moment, otherwise he'd be there instead of me. If we hadn't been so close before, or maybe if I didn't dislike him so much, this might not be an issue. But my feelings are what they are and I'm finding out just how little control of them I really have. Anyways, I'm afraid the problem will only crop up again as I continue to keep my distance and she realizes it. Sorry about how long that was. The amount and strength of feelings I have on this topic scare me. Like I said, I thought I was in control of my emotions, that I was a rational logical person, so facing this has been a big surprise.
I actually know exactly how you feel. My best friend of 8 years cut all connections with me about a year and a half ago and won't even speak to me anymore. But instead of an old friend, she had her new friend and I was pushed out of the way. If my ex-friend would come to me and say those thing what yours did, I would just tell her how I feel. Maybe I have so much anger and frustration bottled in that it wouldn't be hard, but still. If you don't tell her, maybe she would be your friend again, but you'd would probably feel bad about it. If you tell her, she can either understand you like a true friend or ignore or get mad at you, which would just prove that she isn't worth your time and energy. But whatever you decide to do, good luck with everything!
I know how you feel too. In High School I was extremely close to this girl, like a sister, we did everything together, I even roomed with her on my senior (spring-break) trip to Cancun. A year after graduation her grandmother got sick and she had to go to Texas to look after her. She switched to a different college moved out there and promised to stay in touch. When she got to Texas she abruptly cut off all contact. I was so devastated, these are no words to describe it Then (a year later) I had to go cross country for family reasons, I stopped by her place just to ask "What happened? (she had given me her address back when she promised to keep in touch). She apologised and said she missed me and explained that personal problems caused her to withdraw from her friends, I told he how much I missed her and then went on my way. Since then she's called me regularly and we've been rebuilding our friendship, it's not the same way it used to be, but she's a good friend again and I spent 4'th of July with her at he new place in Arizona. Evaluate how important this friendship has been, has she always been loyal and had your back, if she has go to her and be honest about your feelings. Who knows she may be going through personal problems of her own. But if she's causing you too much pain, it may be best to move on. In any event my heart goes out to you, I know how much this must hurt. I wish I could give you a hug.❤️
Thanks, both of you. <3 I wish I could tell her how I feel, but being jealous of someone else who's been in her life for so much longer seems embarrassingly petty of me. Today a realization hit me: I guess in my mind our friendship was solid, almost sister-brother (like you and your friend, Tom666), but obviously B's idea of our friendship must be much more casual. Especially in contrast to this other guy. I think all this time I must have been misinterpreting our camaraderie--she has a charming, outgoing personality that makes other people feel important, so it's not surprising that I mistook it for trust and affection. ...The weird thing is I could still swear we were really, really close... At any rate, I've finally realized that in light of all this, the whole problem is on my side, in my head, and that once again I've screwed up a friendship because I've imagined it was more than it really is. She's not to blame, and she doesn't deserve my anger and my "cold shoulder." Still, though, I don't want to adjust to her apparent definition of us. I don't want to be casual friends. I just want her to leave me alone...
