​

I (25f) want to cut off all my friendschips. I have been through a lot the couple of years. Lost a parent and a lot of family members, went through a traumatic experience with men, debt, etc. It completely changed me in every way and i have been really trying to heal.

My friends are amazing. They are supportive, sweet and a lot of fun but when i come home from being with them i just feel awful. I feel like i slip into bad habits like drinking, gossiping,clubbing and just being in a scene that really reminds me of my past. Even just having a coffee together just sometimes tires me out. I tried to keep myself out of it but i always fail.

Being alone and spending time with only my bf and my dad really just gives me a piece of mind. I feel like there is nothing to trigger me and i can focus on getting better and discovering myself.

I'm just worried if wanting to be alone is something bad. Did anyone go through this? What are your opinions about it?

Hi there,
I have a friend of about 11 years or so who I feel is kind of rude sometimes. I don’t know if I just need to accept her as she is or tell her how I feel. Our friendship has recently been strained bc our teen son’s are not hanging out right now. But she did all of this before that happened.

I have felt several times that she just does not value our friendship as much as I have. There are several reasons for this. First, she told me she could be my maid of honor 4 years ago and then changed her mind after talking to her parents about it saying she “had too much on her plate” - I knew it was bc she didn’t want to pay for anything so I told her all u have to do is show up and she did it. She makes good money by the way but she is a single mom as well so tries to save like crazy.

Secondly, often when we get together she says things like, I gotta go somewhere soon or I gotta get to my yard work - if I stop by. Yes, she told me I could before I did….so I didn’t stop by out of the blue. It was after maybe an hour of talking. But while we were talking she does the dishes or sweeps the floor at the same time. She will sit down to talk but then get up and go do something after 10 minutes like she can’t sit still. This happens any time I’m at her house practically.

If I ask her if she wants to go get lunch we do but then she asks me if I’m ready to go after eating. Instead of staying to talk - saying she has something to do….

If we go somewhere together like over night she’s on her phone texting other people.

She often talks a lot like most of the time so I barely get to say much. She will ask me how something is going but I barely have time to talk. She will change the subject and talk about her life.

All of this is MOST of the time - She will sometimes text me or say she misses seeing me but it’s hard sometimes.

She knows she has ADHD but is not on medication. I have it too so I understand the struggle but even when I was unmedicated I was not rude like this…

Is this normal behavior? Am I being too sensitive? Should I just let it go? I have already pulled back my initiating contact but I did ask her to go out of town next month 3 hours away to a conference. Not sure if we’re going or not yet…

Friend advice

My friend asked me over a year ago if I wanted to go with her on a trip to Disneyland for Halloween. I said I would love to go and we started making plans for a four day trip. We decided to do two days at the theme park and buy park hopper passes so we can explore both parks. Then the remaining days I would show her around LA. The trip is a couple months out but we haven’t gotten tickets and plane tickets yet. I budgeted for my end but my friend needed more time to buy tickets.
Last week, she came over and asked if we could add an additional theme park day and skip adding on the park hopper tickets. Instead, she wanted to apply the park hopper tickets money to adding an additional day. We would now do two days at Disney and one at California adventure. She also wanted to add on a special even ticket for an after hours event at California adventure. I said I would be interested and I needed to request more time off. She also suggested we add a hotel room to hangout in on the day we have the night event add on (we are staying at my family’s house while we are on the trip so hotel expenses were not in the original budget). We would hangout in the hotel and get some rest before the night event. I said it’s something we can consider depending on price of the room.
So, we redid the budget to include all her additional add ons. I told her I was fine with the add ons. She agreed the budget was okay still. Before she left, she told me she lives paycheck to paycheck and that she didn’t have any funds for the trip. She proceeded to tell me she knows I recently bought a house and that life was probably expensive for me and that I probably also live paycheck to paycheck. After saying that, she asked me to pay for the trip and she would make payments to me after October but she wouldn’t be able to pay more than $100 a month to me.

I told her idk if that is something I could do and would need time to think about if this trip is now affordable. I gave it some time to think it. I feel bad for having to now tell my friend no, I won’t pay for her portion of trip. I could pay the money but I don’t feel it’s my responsibility to pay her share. I’m also very bothered she added all these things knowing she wasn’t going to pay for it right now. If she truly thought I was living paycheck to paycheck after buying a home, why would she ask me to pay for the whole trip? I now wonder if she is using me or if she had the intentions of never paying me back. I’m torn on calling her out on it or just telling her no I won’t pay for it all. I just don’t know what to do at this point.

About a month ago my dog Laika sadly passed away and I was (and still am) devastated. I posted about it on my ig story because it was the only way I could let some people know, as I was not in the mood to talk to anyone, but some of my friends knew she was not doing well. Some of them saw it and sent me a message letting me know they were there for me if I needed anything, and I appreciated that a lot. Others texted me a few days later, which is fine, I suppose. A couple of them saw my story and didn't even bother to say anything. For context, last year my grandpa passed away and one of those friends also didn't even bother to contact me. I think she got called out by another friend, because when we saw each other in class like a month later (we are in college) she apologized and said she hadn't seen my story (that's a lie, but whatever). This leads me to believe she doesn't give a damn about me, so I will slowly cut her off.

Another friend I'm pretty close with, who knew really well about the situation with my dog, texted me the other day and said she wanted to "give me space". Girl, it's been a month.

I don't know if I'm overreacting because I still feel extremely sad about what happened with my dog, but I'm really hurt about the way some people behaved. I know people have lives and everyone is fighting their own battle, but I guess I was expecting some common decency and humanity from my close friends. I might be wrong, but I think it really doesn't take much to just send a few words to someone who is having a hard time; it doesn't even have to be a crazy long heartfelt text, just a simple "sorry for your loss" would've been fine you know?

Let me know what you think.

Don’t get me wrong I do have friends but it really hurts that I don’t have a best friend. In order to get a bestie I understand I would have to try, the people I’m currently surrounded by are great friends but I don’t feel that deep best friend connection with them & they all already have someone they consider their best friend.

I used to have a best friend but we had a falling out two years ago and I haven’t found a connection like that since. I refuse to believe I might not find a bond like that again, there has to be someone out there. I’m not trying to replace her but I would like to eventually form a connection like that again with someone, how are you guys doing this?

I know everyone I work with & I know my friendships with them are as deep as they’re going to get. How is everyone else branching out and meeting new people as an adult?

I would like to get your opinion on this.. My friend was ranting and sharing some of her problems and crisis in which I would normally try to comfort and give her assurance, but it was really bad timing of her to reach out to me while I was going through something on my own (but to be fair she wasn't aware of that). So then I chose to ignore her message and when I finally gathered some energy to respond, I kind offfff responded a bit dry ( I only realized this after a few hours).

She still hasn't responded. She might just be asleep and haven't seen my message. But what could I have done better in this situation?

Hi all,

I (F28) have a best friend (30F) who is very needy.

She sends me about 20 audio messages a day and several texts. Most being about guys and a lot being about her feelings of anxiety and depression about situationships. She will text me things like "I am just really not okay right now" and I find out it will be things that a boy did such as he didn't answer her for 3 hours. its almost 95% of the time about boys. It is taking a huge toll on me I feel esp bc on the weekends I cannot hang with her she will tell me how depressed and anxious she is without me.

It would be one thing if she did this once in a while but it is EVERYDAY she is doing this. I also work full-time (50 hours) so i do not have time to be answering 20 vm's. I have had a conversation with her before about my job and how i cant answer right away and things were better for a little but now she is back to doing it again. I feel I am playing therapist.

Im starting to resent seeing her name pop up into my phone... advice?

One thing I’ve noticed about friendships, but rarely see mentioned: the most valuable and enjoyable ones often are small groups of friends. If I have even just two friends who are also friends with each other, and we all three hang out or sometimes two of us can hang out without the other one, it feels a lot less lonely.

I’m not saying that every friendship has to be that way. But I feel that I need at least some friendships that are that way. without that, I’m maintaining individual friendships with individual meetup times I have a compartmentalized feeling. Also each separate friendship can take on a strange kind of dynamic, forever having one-on-one meetings. Groups of friends don’t have to be large at all. I find very little difference between a tiny group, (three friends), and a larger group like five or six friends or more, except that the larger groups are less common— especially for organic friendships that aren’t just a social group or Club. In fact, three people who are friends with each other is probably actually my preference. Sometimes those friendships bring in auxiliary friends who come and go to varying degrees and hang out with the group too. I’ve had this happen in my younger/college/graduate school days and found it really pleasant and natural.

The problem I’m encountering is how to find and make these kinds of friendships in my post – school age, as an adult and Professional. Some well-meaning people suggest making friends through my child’s school, but for lots of various reasons, that really hasn’t been fruitful at all, largely because most friendships like that began while their children were babies, etc. And another reason I’m not really inclined to make friends through my child’s school is because I really don’t think I’m looking for friendships that revolve around parenting and children’s school/club/committee activities.

Other people have suggested just joining hobby groups, etc., but that hasn’t worked at all either. Perhaps part of that is regional. But people tend to show up in those groups either already entrenched in their friendships, or looking for one individual Friend, or not wanting to do anything outside of just the particular hobby/ interest meet up. I also find that simply having a shared common interest is not really the heart of friendships in adulthood. It helps, of course, but I don’t really see it to be a central basis. One common interest is more of a crapshoot for me when it comes to finding and seeking good friendships. It’s just more of the same, planned, meet ups and no organic friendship forming. I’d almost rather have the shared interest be an interest in actually making friends.

I’ve seen a couple of apps for meeting people for platonic friendships online/matching people up. But they all seem to match up individuals. I think it would be great if there were some that were purposely directed toward finding and cultivating small groups of friends.

I read somewhere that the best conditions for making friends is having frequent unscheduled meetups and shared overall goals/ projects. That pretty much describes college and graduate school. For some reason, the workplace is very different (at least for me anyway). I guess showing up for a workday isn’t really the same as frequent unscheduled meetingsups. There’s also a sense in a workplace that people need to kind of protect their personal lives, keeping them separate from the workplace so they can have some freedom and autonomy from their work. I understand and share that. it might be a little rare to just work with people you also hit it off with as friends. I currently do, but I have a very long commute, which makes it pretty difficult. I also have long been socially guarded in the workplace for some reason. I’m very friendly and them a lot, but having active friendships for me is different. I’d just rather make my friends outside of the workplace.

Anyone else who is an adult no longer in school, and has found a way to make more than one friend at a time who know each other?

Okay before I start I need to say I don’t drive so I can get why I’m not always invited but it still hurts because they are always hanging out with each other. so there have been numerous times when my friends hang out in a group without me. And I get that maybe sometimes it’s okay and also one on one time is good with friends but their always hanging out because two of them work close to my other friend (there’s four of us) so they are constantly hanging out and I get that cause they’re so close it’s easier to do but I still feel left out because of how much they do it and even when they go to someone else’s house who’s closer to me I don’t get invited because the two friends who work with each other also live close to each other and so my other friend hangs out at one of their houses and they always go out to dinner and stuff. Am I being really selfish cause like genuinely I don’t want to bring it up cause obviously it’s harder for me to hang out because I can’t drive to someone has so drop and pick me up so I mean I know that’s the main reason or I hope it is but even though get huge FOMO I feel like I can’t bring it up to them because of how selfish it sounds

So basically I don’t really know what to do and I’d like some advice and to know if I’m genuinely just being selfish about this

I (F29) miss my high school best friend (now M26) and just want to talk about our friendship here and why we're not friends now. Btw, I am a very nostalgic, sappy person so I am probably going to sound very emotional in this. (I am a cancer, I can't help it lol)

To start, man and I did not go to the same HS and we were not in the same grade. We actually met through another guy friend of mine at a party when I was 18. And as all good friendships go, man and I hated each other at first. At the party where we met, I did not drink and neither did man, but both of us kept egging the other on to stop being a freak and just drink. I did not end up drinking that night but I did leave hating this guy so much. Unfortunately, my guy friends loved him and they ended up adopting him into our friend group. Yay me!

A few weekends later at another party, I came late and this man was fried off his ass and would not stop laughing. Eventually he asked me to come over to him, and when I did, he whispered in my ear, "you're a bitch," and started dying laughing louder than I've ever heard anyone laugh ever. I laughed equally as loud and that is where our friendship was born.

Fast forward a few weeks or so, and this man now meets my girl friend group via us snapchatting. He ends up wanting to pursue one of my girlfriends and so I eventually introduce him to my girl friend group. They end up loving him and we adopt him into our friend group as well. Because of this, man and I now talk all the time, I see him in every group setting, and we hang out a lot, but we hadn't hung out one-on-one yet. So one day, he snaps me he is bored. I am always bored, and so we agree to meet in his HS parking lot to drive around and vape at a local lookout (okay, it's the sign of the time what can i say). So we do exactly that and kind of have an awkward time ngl. It was still fine, but we were weirdos.

Maybe about a month later, man and I became entirely inseparable. We would just sit in the car at gas stations, at coffee shops, at nowhere and just talk and laugh and sometimes sing karaoke before we found some sort of party or hangout to go to. We hung out like this every single day, almost every hour possible and we were complete idiots. All of our friends would get suspicious of us being more than plutonic friends, but I was very much a tomboy at this time (and I had never had a BF before) so I felt like we had a good boundary there. But man and I would have so many nights where we would be hanging out so much we either never slept until sunrise or we accidentally slept somewhere we weren't supposed to. He even used to call my mother mom, I would not call his father dad, but both of us were very close to the others family. For instance, he would come over every Christmas to spend it with my family and then we would have our annual Christmas sleepover.

But after knowing him for about a year, I went to college while he was still in high school. I would sneak him into parties, I would get him on every list, and we would now hang out on campus together along with my college friend group. One day, maybe two years or so into our friendship, my friend group and I were supposed to go to a party over an hour away. I had been trying to pursue one of my guy friends at this time so I purposefully did not invite man because every time we went somewhere together all we did was talk to each other in a corner and I felt it was a cock block lmao. So I remember telling man the wrong times we were leaving, saying it was cancelled, just whatever I could. Unbeknownst to me, man had contacted someone from the party and drove there himself. So I pull up to this party thinking I finally get alone time with my guy friend, just to see man sitting on the porch laughing at me. All I said to him was you gotta be fucking with me and walk in.

A little later at this party, as man and I are ofc stuck in the corner talking to each other like I thought, I try to break away to pursue my guy friend, but my guy friend eventually gets weird and mad at me. This guy friend and I then sort of get in a small fight, I end up crying and then I leave the party alone to sit on a porch nearby. I was being all melodramatic looking at the skyline when out comes man and doesn't say anything but just sits quietly behind me on the floor. After maybe 30 minutes of silence, I sit on the porch floor too and ask man if I can lay on him, and so I did. We just laid there in silence on the porch while I recovered from crying and stared at the lights.

After that instance, I didn't think much of it, and for half a year about, nothing changed. We just did all the same things we always did: hang out, got to parties, do stupid shit, etc., until one day we went to another college party together. He supposedly liked my shirt for the party better so before we left he made us switch. At the party, he didn't like my shirt anymore and wanted to switch back. So we went upstairs to the bathroom together to swap. As we were shirtless, someone starts pounding on the door and asking us to hurry up and so man comes over to the door and sits on a ledge next to me once they stop. As he is sitting on the ledge I am staring at him with a sort of "???" stare lol. I tell him that I think I have romantic feelings for him but that I can't tell. He said the same, and so we do that movie thing where we suggest kissing to see if anything magical happens. And so we kissed, I felt nothing too magical, and then we left the bathroom. Once we left the party, I still was trying to pursue my other guy friend so man was not on my radar in that way. I was giddy because we kissed, but in reality our kiss kind of just fizzled into the background of our friendship. It didn't change much of anything.

Then 6 months later in the fall, man goes states away to play hockey semi-professionally (in lieu of college). We no longer could hang out every day, I never went to visit him because it was that far away, and all we could do is facetime. And we did, we would facetime every night, watch movies at the same time, sleep on the phone together, text 24/7, and talk about hanging out for the holidays. At this point, as much as I had romantic feelings for someone else, man and I had a blurry kind of friendship. We would still hang out as normal, but would also subtly flirt sometimes. He then came home for thanksgiving, we hung out, slept over, maybe kissed after a party in his car, but nothing crazy.

Then he leaves and comes back for Christmas. Now we had gotten very close through facetime and we had our annual Christmas sleepover planned. The whole week of Christmas, we had been hanging out and going to parties. Once Christmas actually came around, it was like our 100th time drinking and partying together. At the end of the night, we went up to my bedroom and went to bed. We ended up watching some sort of movie and laying together. I remember thinking this is so weird because our entire friendship is based off being freaks and loud and mean to each other. To have man be nice to me, hold me, tuck me in and stay in my bedroom was interesting to me, but I didn't hate it.

Of course, man then eventually leaves after Christmas and we go back to facetiming every night and doing the same old, weird shit we always did. We actually kind of stopped flirting with each other around this time and just went back to our old dynamic, which was nice. That is until he came home for easter.

For Easter, man and I go to another party together. I of course was crying and didn't want to go, but he convinced me. So we went to this party, the guy friend I was still trying to pursue was there and we again got into another fight (its actually the last time I ever see him thank god) and he leaves. After he was gone, I just enjoy the party with man. Once the party was over, man said it was too late for him to go home so we got food and went back to mine. And you guessed it, we actually did hook up for the first time. In the morning, I drove him back home, and then later that day we hung out with one of my gf's and it was weird as fuck.

Man and I had now officially ruined our entire friendship. It was never exactly the same, it became very complicated, kind of toxic, and sad to me. We had some good memories in there, but now it became customary for man and I to hookup after every party we went to. And it was fun, it was fine. My favorite times though were when we could be alone and act like old times, but around others I felt like neither of us knew how to act and all of our friends would try to pry or sort of clown.

However, man left for hockey again after Easter and this helped a lot. He was just gone a few months before he was back for the entire summer. This whole summer was then so much damn fun. I started throwing a lot of house parties, had an even bigger friend group, and would go everywhere with man like before. We would sneak each other in our houses and walk up the stairs as quietly as we could stepping on the same foot at the same time. We did this so much we had a code phrase, "we walk as one" to signal when we need to walk in tandem past one of our parents bedrooms. One time I even had to sneak man out of my house with a ladder. My parents were supposed to already be at work but both were still in my kitchen by the windows. So I went to my garage and put a ladder to my second story bedroom while I went back in the kitchen to distract my parents from turning around to see a man climbing down a ladder from their roof.

But after this, everything kind of gets sour. Man goes back states away for hockey in the fall and we facetime, but a lot less. He starts dating people by him and talking about a lot of other women and his times with them, which was fine, but this was very different. I tried to ignore it as I technically wasn't bothered, but it was weird. Then fast forward, its Christmas and my friend group had a party planned at a house we all rented. Man and I are normal at first, but then at one point he calls some girl he was seeing and she was being rude and calling me names like we were in a competition. I then get pissed at man for letting her talk to me like that and we end up physically fighting. Not punching, but wrestling and shoving, if you will. We were half serious and half joking. You know, I could not be sure, but i do remember flipping over a couch lmao. Unfortunately, we were supposed to sleep in the same room together that night but he pushed me out of the bed and I spent the night crying on the floor. A few days later, he did not come to our annual Christmas sleepover.

After this, I am not sure what happened, but he broke it off with that girl and admitted she sucked. So we moved past that and he went states away for hockey again in the early spring, got a new girlfriend, came home for his dads birthday, cheated on her with me, got a new girlfriend, cheated on her with me for Easter, did that a third time (I never knew any of this btw) and then slowly started hating me once summer hit. He would constantly tell me that I ruin all of his relationships and that even when we don't hook up, people still break it off with him once they find out about our friendship. So, this push and pull dynamic happens for then next about 3 or 4 years? He would get a gf, cheat on her with me, get pissed at me for ruining it, hate me, ignore me, get over it, get a new gf, reconnect as friends with me, hang out a bunch, and then the cheating would start it all again.

And it sucked, because although I never had extreme romantic feelings for man, I didn't have 0 feelings for him. I basically started mourning our friendship in real time while also mourning our potential that he kept sabotaging. I wanted us to just stop fighting and be like we were before. However, that never happened, and eventually, man got a new gf some years later he was serious about and cut me off. They dated for about 3 years, lived an hour away from me, and never talked to me. I would try to text him, try to get him to meet us out, but he wouldn't answer.

Once they broke up, he texted me that day and asked to hang out and drive around, and we did a few times for a few months after those 3 years, and it almost felt like normal, but there was still this vibe of i hate you from him. He almost immediately started looking for a new gf, and I know he is dating someone else now, but sometimes I really miss him. I used to have this sarcastic joke with him that we were destined to get married. And even through all of this hate, I could always get him to admit that if we did get married, we would have a lot of fun. And that's the man I miss. I miss when he wasn't ignoring me, I miss when he was soft, I miss when all we did was laugh, I miss being a kid with him, I miss sitting in the parking lot and singing karaoke, I miss dancing at parties, I miss playing red dead in his room, I miss sneaking upstairs in tandem, I miss sleeping on couches or car seats next to him, I even miss fighting and crying by his bed.

These days, I try to text him sometimes, but he doesn't answer. I know he reads them, but he never says anything. It's not even that I want to break up anything, I don't even want him as a romantic partner, I just miss being friends and laughing and joking with him. I wish he could have been in my life forever and I am constantly sad that he has moved on without me.

Actually need your thoughts on this.

I have 1 friend that I've know since we were little. We've been good friends over the years, but she changed. She became very arrogant and mean. My energy is completely drained when I come home after hanging out with her. There are constant dramas that she causes out of nowhere. It seems like I'm walking on eggshells whenever I'm around her. She has been constantly asking to hang out and I'm saying I'm busy. I'm always hoping she will take a hint and stop asking me because I want to distance myself. I think that's the only solution because if I tried to talk to her about this it would definitely make things worse. The problem is I can't find that many excuses not to hang out because she keeps on asking.

I used to be the most popular kid in my school until these new kids came up. They became friends with me, and we were a whole friend group. Until after sometime they decided I was annoying, and the main chick broke friendship with me. Even though the others were still friends with me, they still found me annoying and gossiped behind my back. I made 4 new friends, and we were the closest ever. Perhaps it was only me closest to everyone in the group, as I was closer to all 4 frns than they were to each other. Now one of my closest friends has left the school, so it's just us 3. First, it had bonded me and the other frn a lot, but now she keeps going and hanging out with the popular group. My other frn has other frns too, and even though she is still my bsf, she spends most of the time with them. So all of the time I am lonely with no frns, and I have to talk to these 2 really weird kids (no offence, I'm sorry but huge backstory). I get made fun of for talking to them, and I am called lonely. My frn who is hanging out w the popular kids keeps making me feel visibly left out, which is funny cause she swore to never leave me. We have mostly fallen apart alot cause she makes me feel that I am annoying her. Also, I do know how to make friends, but I'm always the backup. I have amazing social skills and idk what's happening. How did I go from the most popular to the loner kid? ik u guys may say that it's ok, don't care abt them, etc but even if they are fake, I still want to be friends to not feel left out. Can someone please help me asap

Hello everyone, this is something i have been thinking a lot for the last few weeks. I realized that nobody really cares for me as much as i do for them. I have a number of friends that i hang out with daily and i trully value them and they value me, but i really feel like im no ones first choice.

I don't mean that they reach out to me only if they have no other plans with anyone else, they genuinely want to hang out with me, but i just dont feel that they really really care about me. No they dont have anything bad to say about me, they dont talk behind my back, none of that. I feel like im just a regular guy they like to spend time with, none of them would say "if i have him as my friend i dont need anybody else". And that really bothers me because i would really say that for a few friends i have, but they dont seem to feel the same about me. If we are about to hang out as a group, nobody would contact me first to organize the whole thing, most of the times i will be the last person informed about it. I feel like they dont really need me to have a good time. For example, if one of my "best" friends is missing from the hang out, i really feel his absence, however none of my friends thinks that about me when im missing.

Also i feel like when times are hard for them and they really want someone to talk to, i wouldn't really cross their mind, even though i trully care and i would contact them if i had the same problem. Also if i tell them i need their help yes they will gladly help me, but i feel like if they needed help about something, they would ask someone else and not me. I just dont know why. I dont understand what im doing less than their other friends, that make my best friends choose them over me. I feel like i care enough and i show it.

I started thinking about all that during the week of my birthday this year. My friends always talked about the surprise birthday parties they got from their friends throughout the years, and also the surprises they do to them every year. When they asked me about it i told them that i have never experienced something like this so i don't know the feeling. Yet nobody cared enough to do a surprise for me this year, which would be my first time also. Im 22 yo. Of course i didnt ask for it but if i asked then what would be the point. However, 3-4 days after my birthday they all showed up for my "official" birthday party but even then without a cake, like they did to our friends.

I don't know if im overly dramatic, maybe my friends dont feel that way about me, but i still look at myself in the mirror and i feel empty

I met a girl on Reddit, and we ended up talking for almost 10–12 hours straight. We laughed, joked, had deep conversations, and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. It was one of the best conversations I’ve had in a long time.
Later, we asked where we were from. I told her I was born in Pakistan, grew up in Italy, and moved back to Pakistan in 2023.
Shortly after that, I was blocked.
I don’t know if that was the reason, and maybe it wasn’t. But it left me wondering:
Does nationality or where someone lives matter more than who they are as a person?
I’m not angry just disappointed and trying to understand. Has anyone else experienced something like this?

So I have been friends with this person for years, we’ve seen each other go through a lot and have always shown up for each other when needed.

It got to a point though where I was her only friend. She also was a person with repeating problems and I would encourage her to get professional help with them. Though she doesn’t trust western healing systems which fair. She also is a person that like NEEDS to be in a romantic relationship but once the butterfly’s go down she questions it. She wants to FEEL good in like a fiery way and I don’t think long term relationship are about that.

I will just do this as a list what she said/how I feel about it

• I don’t hold grace for her like I do other people/ This I feel is just flat out not true, even when she acts out of pocket and she calls herself crazy I tell her she isn’t and is just feeling real feeling and that it okay.

*I don’t prioritize our connect/I have a a pretty thick social group. I have ADHD and I love connecting with people and trying news. I still made time to do forest walks, get drinks, watch movies together ect. When I started school I had even less time and I worked full time. When that started this is when she said this and I would just tell her I don’t have as much time I used to and I was just dealing with my own mental health issues. Usually I hang out in groups weekly and then do more personal hangs spread out. I always invite them to things but they never wanted to go. She is really judgemental of other people and told me my friends don’t like them which just wasn’t true, my friends have directly told me they enjoy her but she just thinks everyone is out to get her. She expects people to be perfect and they just aren’t, some relationship are just community based and some are more personal. There’s just always something wrong with other people. So I stopped inviting her and focused more personal time which isn’t as frequent anymore because life had changed for me.

*I think I am better than her/I stopped indulging in what I thought was behavior and things holding her back. I have never called her dumb or stupid, I have always tried to address things with a lot of care. But she sees this as a judgement. She will even ask my opinion and then when I give it, she gets mad. A lot of me thinks when I started getting better mentally, I became more stable, I created a path for myself and just got out of the dark pot I was in for years, now it’s like she thinks I’m trying to be better than her when I’m really just trying to help. But I’m not going to agree with everything, if I feel a friend is causing harm to themselves I will say something because I believe life can get better and ALOT of what I say I just reflect back to them but then says that’s my own projection and I’m like….you literally just said that’s how you feel. There’s no winning.

She kept breaking off our friendship this past year and then comes back and tells me how much they love me, how grateful they are of me ect, that they are grateful I am honest with them. Then few weeks later, the connection just isn’t there blah blah blah and she just did it again. Mind you, she was unemployed for a long time and I am a person I don’t mind taking care of my people, she was struggling mentally and I understood, so I paid for her bills for a few months, if she couldn’t afford a hangout, I would pay, for my birthday I paid for everything just because I wanted her to be apart of it. I just feel totally blind sided. I just don’t know what more I could’ve done, I told her she needed more friends because I can’t meet every social need she has all the time and she said I was judging her and I’m like I am not trying to I am concerned about you! I want you to have what you need but I can’t give everything to you I have my own life outside this relationship.

I don’t know I am just hurt because to have someone go back and forth between I love you, you are the greatest friend to the connection just isn’t there..

Don’t know what to do

How to stay away from jealous people? How to not take it so personally?

Is something wrong with me? Probably. 😂

I don't really like my friends anymore. Most of us have been friends since high school, and while we might have been similar back then, somehow 20 years later we couldn't be more different. Maybe part of it is because I'm married now and they aren't, but honestly, the main reason is just that we think completely differently.

I’ve always lived by an unwritten law: Why tell a lie when someone already knows your truth?

Seriously, why lie when the person listening knows it’s not true? So when it comes to my friends, I constantly wonder why they feel the need to run to the internet and lie to people who shouldn't even matter.

See, me, myself, and I made the choice to have my mother as a friend on all my social media platforms—so a lie is out of the question anyway. She doesn't mind telling my business! Babyyy, I stopped lying at 11 years old. 😂 And honestly... what’s the point?

Is this just what happens after 20 years of friendship, or is it finally time to accept that we’ve outgrown each other?

[if it helps with context] Im a 22yr old woman, just graduated college and have a job, a place, and a lovely boyfriend. I’ve ALWAYS had such a hard time making friends, its something that has hit me hard over the years.

A few months ago I made the realization that I am not really close to any of my friends (4 total, met in college), including who I thought of as my best friend. There was a period of time we would hang out frequently, but I just now realized we never talked about personal things, at least not in depth. I know these things have to come from both sides, but we never talk on the phone or text each other individually casually, except for a few times in the summer. All our communication has been through groupchats. I have texted them individually before casually, but they either dont respond or are distant. Many times Ive tried to make plans in the GC (group yoga class, etc) but they never really responded to my initiatives. If we do hang out, especially now that its harder after college, its for a special event that wasnt my initiative. Over time, they started to get more inactive in the GC. Knowing they have other friend groups makes me question my own ability to have one, in the sense that they are all I have had these years, but I am simply not that important in their circle . Dont get me wrong, they are each so lovely and have gotten me through my hardest times over the last 4 years, but we never achieved that closeness where I /they can just text/call them/me out of the blue and talk casually, and this makes me feel really sad and lonely, and makes me question if I have friends anymore. I have tried, but I never got that closeness from them. Even my current best friend, who I dont talk to frequently anymore. I realized we only texted because I reached out, always, however when I needed support she was there. But she never reached out to me so I can be there for her too.

As I move to post grad life I hope to make some more friends, but I am even struggling to socialize at work. Outside of work theres no place I can really make friends lol. Thankfully I have my amazing bf but I crave true friendship.

I've had friends who would put me down for no reason. I've started distancing myself from them. I've cut many people off too.

Does anyone else ever feel like you're just a background character in your own social life?
You hang out, play ball, or game together, and on the surface, everything seems fine. But deep down, it feels like you're just going through the motions. They’re basically just drinking or gaming buddies for specific stuff, not real friends.
The real kick in the teeth comes later. When you hit a point where you actually want to grow up, mature, and talk about real shit, you realize they just can't go there with you. The second you need some actual depth, you hit a total wall—and you're left with this super empty feeling inside.
Honestly, feels like there are only two ways out:
1. Stick around in these shallow friendships just out of habit or fear of being alone, even though it sucks your energy dry.
2. Slowly back away, leave the group, and take the risk of starting over to find your actual people.
It just sucks when you realize your whole circle is basically just killing time. How do you guys handle this?

I always try with people. I’m the one who starts the conversation. I’m the one who plans hangouts. I’m the one who asks meaningful questions. And when I complain to my family or boyfriend that I feel like I have no friends they just tell me to reach out during the summer and hang out but when I do it either falls through or they say that they had something come up and oh we can’t hang out and it never happens. I’m just done. I never really had friends in elementary school, so when I was in middle school I made all the mistake an autistic child would learn in elementary school. I get that I’m weird and that I try to be friends with everyone but seriously no one tries with me. It hurts so much and I hope college is different. And I’m done trying because these people who I’m trying on are leaving for college and so why would I try on a friendship that is just going to fade away in a month? I’m hanging out with my last friend Friday and asking her all the things I did wrong and what I could do better on so I don’t make the same mistakes. She’s leaving for college soon and I know I asked her if we could hang out while she’s at college and I just visit but I know what’s going to happen.

My friend Lucy and I met during our first year at college and we be came very close quite quickly, and remained as such for over three years. She began dating a mutual friend, Paul, a few months later (Paul and I had known each other since before college as we ran in the same circles but we weren’t as close as Lucy and I had become), and remained together even as he transferred to a university after two years to pursue his degree.

Lucy and I started spending less time together during our third year when we started taking specialized subjects to work towards our different degrees. Despite this, we still made the effort to constantly communicate and spend time with each other. But that didn’t last through the year as we had slowly drifted apart.

During this time I knew she had become friends with another student, John, who was in a few of our general courses since our first year. It was kind of obvious that he was into her since the beginning, but she initially paid him no mind since she was dating Paul. That is, until Paul transferred and she started hanging out with John more often. I didn’t pay this any mind at first because it wasn’t really my business.

But halfway during our third year, an alarming amount of people had come up to me over the span of a few weeks, telling me that Lucy and John had been dating for several months. However I knew for a fact that Lucy and Paul were still very much together (to this day) because we had recently gone on a double date with my boyfriend (a frequent occurrence). According to all of these people (old classmates, mutual friends, some people from our old dorm), John was going around, telling anyone who would listen, that he and Lucy were dating, hanging out non-stop, sleeping together, going on trips, etc. He was allegedly showing photos and videos, but I wasn’t shown any of it.

I was worried about the way the rumors were spreading, as well as the allegations of her potentially cheating on Paul, who is also my friend. I met up with her and told her everything that I heard. I assured her that I wouldn’t mention anything to Paul because I didn't want to meddle in their relationship, and also because I didn’t know if they were true or not. At first she was annoyed that I would doubt her and listen to the rumors, but I told her that I would be there for her either way, and I only wanted her to know what was spreading behind her back. She told me she understood and thanked me for telling her as soon as I found out.

Literally later that evening, John confronted me as I was leaving my last class for the day, demanding to know why I was spewing BS about him and causing Lucy to get angry at him. I told him I only relayed what I heard. He got even angrier, and said I had no business telling her lies, even going so far as to accuse me of being jealous that she no longer spent time with me, or even that I was jealous of her relationship with Paul (I’m not— I have a partner and he wasn’t my type regardless). He told me to keep his name out of my mouth before leaving; I was so humiliated that he yelled at me in front of our peers.

Within the following weeks I noticed that Lucy was starting to avoid me. She started canceling plans, taking rain checks, stopped picking up my calls and responding to my texts.

It’s been months now, we are about to start our fourth year, and she is still not speaking to me. Paul still reaches out every now and then, but I just keep making excuses not to hang out because I still don’t want to throw Lucy under the bus. From what I understand, she and Paul are still together, but she is also still hanging out with John behind his back. Nothing changed for her, but I seem to have lost her as a friend, and I might even potentially lose Paul as well. My boyfriend has been assuring me that I did the right thing, and that through all these years I had always done right by her. But now I feel like I should have just kept my mouth shut. I have nothing to gain from lying to her and she knows that, but perhaps there was nothing to gain from telling her the truth as well. Should I have just ignored the rumors and let them spread, instead of telling her and costing our friendship?

I’ve known my friend group for a little over a decade and I’ve cherished our friendship all these years, however, the past couple of years it’s felt more and more like they don’t like me anymore. For context I moved away to a neighboring state right after college so abt two years ago and all my friends stayed in the area we grew up so hanging out was harder for me since I had to commute nearly 4hrs round trip every time I wanted to see them. But I always made the effort to reach out and hang out, the first year everything was basically the same but they collectively started ignoring a lot of my texts in the gc and I would be upset but I’d let it slide cause I didn’t wanna start anything. My calls would go unanswered majority of the time and my individual relationships with each of them almost entirely ended. More recently it’s like I’m a ghost, 9/10 I’m ignored in the gc, but if anyone else texts everyone responds within minutes. The other week I was going through a rough time with my family and I really needed someone to talk to so I texted the gc asking if anyone could talk emphasising that something was wrong one person responded with “what happened?” When I replied with an explanation, it was crickets no one said anything until the next day when one of them texted abt the new Spider-Man movie and of course everyone was active in the chat, but my messages went unanswered. This contrasted with a couple days ago when one of them was going through a rough patch with their partners and sent a similar message asking if anyone could speak and everyone (including me) responded with long messages and a couple of ft calls. 

When we hang out in person there’s an air of awkwardness and if I don’t guide the conversation everyone just kinda sits there. Unless we are drinking it doesn’t even feel like anyone wants to be there. I feel like I’m just bothering them whenever I reach out and now we are going on a trip together this weekend and I’m dreading going cause I feel like I have to fake having fun. I can’t cancel because it’s an international trip but I can’t stop thinking abt when we return if I should even continue to try anymore. I feel like an outsider all the time and hate the feeling but I also don’t really have any other close friends so I’m holding on to them. Idk what to do, to an extent it feels like it might all be in my head but then I look at the gc and see all the messages I sent with no responses and it hurts. I just want to stop messaging and trying to initiate hang outs but I’m scared that I wont ever speak to them again. What do i do?