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Am I a bad friend? (well not really friends anymore I guess)
2 years ago · 1 · Need Advice, +1 · Explicit
108
I'll summarise the whole situation as concisely as possible: (oh it was not as concise as I thought um.. sorry)
Basically, I had started talking to this guy halfway through the year and we eventually settled on being friends. Right of the bat, he was never that great at replying in a timely manner - and I mean like I was getting left on delivered for a few days at a time. Throughout our friendship, I had brought up the fact that getting left on delivered for that long feels kinda bad and he had even promised to do better because he really enjoyed my company (ok then why tf don't you reply quicker I- ). That promise did not even last a day. His excuse was usually he 'forgot', which made me feel kinda worse because how can you forget a friend that you claim to "really enjoy talking to"? I chose to overlook most of these absences, I didn't want to seem pushy and all.
I also quickly learned that he doesn't open up to people and that he prefers to "keep things to himself". Which is fine we hadn't known each other that long anyway, but a good few months pass and I'd say he considered me to be closer to him as a friend than he was to me. Eventually, he did open up - but it was so abrupt and unexpected. We had been joking around about something and he used that joke to transition into - what I thought was another joke - him opening up. I thought we were still joking around about the same thing and I carried on with the joke - to which he got extremely mad about and said things like "God if this is what it's going to be like why the fuck would I ever bother opening up to you". I was quick to apologise for my ill-timed joke, of course, I really didn't know that he was trying to be serious with me.
Every time that he went on his multiple day long absences I was always the one to initiate the conversation. It honestly felt like I was the only one trying most of the time. So I decided that I would stop initiating conversation the next time I got left on delivered for so long just to see if he would do anything about it. It took him over a week to say anything and in that week I was debating if I should even bother with him anymore. I remember thinking back at all the conversations we had, I remember joking around a lot with him but I don't even know what exactly we talked about, and the only sustained conversations I could really have with him and actually remember well were the ones where he was just ranting and venting. Was that all I was good for? I know friends are supposed to hear you out but is that seriously all there was with me? After his week hiatus, he messaged me and asked, "hey are we good?". I decided that I wanted to stop talking to him so I confronted him about how I felt about everything (which I hardly do. I really fucken hate confrontation especially when it involves someone you consider a friend).
I remember telling him the thing about how I felt that I was the only one initiating conversation to which he replied "Huh? [my name] I initiate conversation too I don't understand?". Ok um.
I told him how shitty it made me feel that he could 'forget' about a friend for so long and asked if he could be honest with me and tell me that if I chose to continue talking to him that he would reply faster. He said he was certain and I didn't believe it. He was apologetic. Here are a few things he had said:
"I know I messed up again [my name] I'm sorry"
"I feel like I'm being a bit of a pain... maybe I should leave you alone"
"Clearly I'm not doing you any good"
Man, I was really trying to let him down gently I kinda didn't want him to get mad as he did before with the whole joke thing. After some reassuring, I thanked him for being so understanding and told him that during the time that we talked (which ig wasn't even that often anyway 💀) I enjoyed talking to him and the conversation ended. Finally. That is until he messaged me ab 15 mins later saying that he was too sad and he didn't understand why I didn't want to talk anymore. I did not have the energy to reply so I left it for a bit to cool off and just BREATHE (confrontation is draining I swear my heart was in my throat the entire time) and came back to find that he deleted those messages and about 4 more that I never got to see.
And here I am now about a couple of months after the whole ordeal feeling a bit guilty because
1. this happened around the time some very important exams were coming up and if smth like that happened to me I'd be pretty distraught
2. he had only recently opened up to me and I'm up and leaving because this whole friendship made me feel like I was a goddamned on-call therapist
Every reason I come up with to make myself feel not guilty has a rebuttal e.g. Oh! he didn't reply for a while? Maybe he's going through smth. He just said that he forgot. Well, it's easy to forget things when you're going through something. But you don't deserve to feel so neglected and he only ever talks well when he's ranting/venting stop playing trying to play therapist for everyone you aren't responsible for all that. (Do I have a saviour complex or smth??) OH BUT I'm the only one he has to talk to about this stuff I should be there for him even when he isn't there for me. LIKE WHAT
That was as summarised as I could get it. If you read all of this man I love you. You a real one for that. you have my heart <3 If you didn't I get it bro wtaf a whole essay here but have a lovely day or night.
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I have no idea if you were a good friend or a bad friend. I don't know you and I don't know the situation. But sometimes people just aren't good for each other and there's nothing wrong with that.
I'm horrible at replying to messages. I open them and my stress overloaded brain snaps to something else I need to, or want to do. Some people understand, some don't. That's fine.
Perhaps it isn't so much a question of who was the good and bad friend, but rather if the friendship was any good to start with. It's impossible to go through life without being the badguy on occasion, but not all relationships (and by this I mean of the platonic and the romantic kind) are set to succeed.
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